Kenyan Media Framing of Church “as weak link, agent of death, unethical,” Catholics Decry

Kenya’s oldest newspaper, The Standard, carried the headline “Agents of death,” and devoted the first nine pages of its March 23 edition to the narrative of “reckless actions.”

“Yesterday, defiant churches opened doors for Sunday services, oblivious of the risks to their members,” the 118-year-old newspaper published on its front page and added, “It is such reckless actions that authorities blame for the spread of the deadly virus.”

Reacting to these negative frames of the Church in Kenya, Archbishop Martin Kivuva of the Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa said it was not fair for the media to portray the church as a contributor to the spread of COVID-19 when the same church has, over the years, played a very critical role in healthcare provision.

“We were part of the consultative team that reached the decision,” Archbishop Kivuva responding to accusations that Catholic Bishops defied the government’s declaration against public gatherings adding that the ban on public gathering needed “to be repackaged in a manner that will be clearly understood by the faithful.”

The leaders of various lay movements in Kenya have, in a collective message, termed the negative media framing of the Church as narrow, episodic, and done in disregard to the activities of the Church and their impact among Kenyans.

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“Contrary to the media coverage, the Catholic Church has been a strong link; an agent of life and a partner in the face of this epidemic, and other major catastrophes in the nation and in the world,” the leaders of four Catholic lay groups have stated in their Tuesday, March 24 statement addressed to MCK.

“The Catholic Church has been at the forefront of promoting a culture of life from conception to natural death,” the leaders of the various Catholic lay associations state in their message and recall how many followers of Christ in the country “including Priests, the Religious Men and Women and the Lay Faithful - have in the face of this and other calamities put their lives on the line to save lives.”

In Kenya, the leaders who represent the Kenya Catholic Men Association (CMAK), the Kenya Catholic Women Association (CWA), the Kenya Catholic Young Adults Association (CYA), and the Kenya Catholic Youth Association give the example of Blessed Sr. Irene Stephanie, the Consolata nun who was given the name “Nyaatha” that means “merciful mother” because of her unsparing service as an “angel of charity” among the people of God in Central Kenya.

The representatives of the lay faithful in Kenya also give the example of Fr. John Anthony Kaiser, the Mill Hill missionary who was reportedly assassinated in August 2000, “a man much loved by the people of Kenya for the work he did on behalf of the poor and dispossessed.”

In faulting the media for framing the Catholic Church as “an agent of death,” the Catholic lay leaders further give the example the 72-year-old Italian cleric, Fr. Giuseppe Berardelli “who gave up his respirator which was purchased for him by his own parishioners, to a younger patient suffering from the same Coronavirus: and paid the ultimate price.”

In their collective letter copied to media houses in Kenya and to KCCB, the Catholic lay leaders term the March 23 newspaper framing of the Church as unethical.

“Misleading reporting by such mainstream media is in no way helpful to the current predicament,” the leaders state and add, “To the contrary, they are unethical, insensitive and creating unnecessary tension. This is contra media ethics.”

They also fault the Kenyan mainstream media for exposing to stigma a couple of individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 including a priest.

“It is unfortunate for the media to mention by name, those who have tested positive to the virus,” the lay leaders decry and probe why the mainstream media “found it opportune to pick and expose only the Catholic Priest and the Kilifi Deputy Governor.”

Signed by the Lay Apostolate Coordinator in Kenya’s diocese of Nakuru, Ronald Sunros Sunguti, the Catholic lay leaders demand that the media entities implicated in the recent negative framing of the Church “apologize to the Catholic Church and the general public and withdraw the sentiments.”

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Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla is ACI Africa’s founding Editor-in-Chief. He was formed in the Congregation of the Holy Ghost Fathers (Spiritans), and later incardinated in Rumbek Diocese, South Sudan. He has a PhD in Media Studies from Daystar University in Kenya, and a Master’s degree in Organizational Communication from Marist College, New York, USA.