At Funeral Mass, Apostolic Nuncio Hails Pioneer Bishop of Kenyan Diocese for Keeping Politics Out of Church

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Further commending the late Bishop for being instrumental in Kenya’s constitutional review process in 1998, Archbishop Van Megen said that his firm position on keeping politics out of the Church was because he knew that “as a Bishop, he would have to give account to the Lord on everything sacred.”

The Apostolic Nuncio said that keeping politics out of the Church, for Bishop Sulumeti, “had to do with respect for that same Eucharist, for the temple of God, which should not be turned into a marketplace.”

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“We are here to please God, he would say, and not humans,” Archbishop van Megen said, and added, “For Bishop Sulumeti, it was clear that the service to God went over and beyond any political opportunism.”

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Bishop Sulumeti was born on 15 August 1937 in Busia County in Kenya’s Catholic Diocese of Bungoma, and was ordained a Priest on 6 January 1966.

The late Kenyan Bishop started his Episcopal Ministry in August 1972 as Auxiliary Bishop of the then Catholic Diocese of Kisumu, serving under Bishop Joannes de Reeper, a member of St. Joseph’s Missionary Society of Mill Hill (Mill Hill Missionaries/MHM).

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The late Bishop Sulumeti succeeded Bishop Reeper in December 1976, and in February 1978, he was appointed pioneer Local Ordinary of Kakamega Diocese. He retired in December 2014, aged 77.

In his homily, Archbishop Van Megen also hailed the late Bishop for his profound love for the Eucharist, which was the source of all life for him.

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The Dutch-born Vatican diplomat said that the late Bishop “lived for Christ, and Christ gave him life.”

He said that the late Bishop Sulumeti wanted to be of service to all the people of God to the point that he opened many schools, as he was aware of the importance of education.

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“He (Bishop Sulumeti) himself had gone through Catholic schools and had reaped the fruits of it, and some of his students made it into the highest ranks of the church,” the Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya said.

The late Bishop was laid to rest on Friday, November 21, in St. Joseph’s Cathedral of Kakamega Diocese.

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Over a dozen Catholic Bishops and more than 100 Priests concelebrated at the Funeral Mass that was held at Kakamega Rehabilitation School grounds, with hundreds of women and men Religious and thousands of faithful in attendance.