By Isaac Ato MENSAH
Accra- 7 September, 2018.
Scandals have been present throughout human history.
Church scandals and surviving church scandals is as old as the church itself. But the church has always had all the resources for self-reform.
A good example is St Francis De Sales, leader of the Counter Reformation (1567-1622) and ‘patron saint of Catholic writers and the Catholic press’.
Francis De Sales combined the secular culture of the Reformation era with the church’s need to propagate church doctrine.
The Catholic Church is currently facing a sex abuse scandal involving young people who were molested by priests and an ensuing cover up involving important officials of the church hierarchy….sadly even based in the Vatican.
The Holy Father has made several passionate apologies and pleas for forgiveness.
The situation in Ireland where Catholic hospitals and educational institutions where used to suppress young boys and girls who had been raped, molested and denied therapy is particularly heart wrenching.
With Irish Catholics coming out openly to confront abuse, Holy Mass attendance has dropped from about 80 percent on Sundays to 35 percent.
‘I won’t say a word,’ Pope Francis said, refusing to respond directly to allegations that he knew of the US based cleric Theodore McCarrick’s alleged crimes.
Theodore McCarrick is the former archbishop of Washington forced to resign by His Holiness Francis I.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano claims in an 11-page document that Pope Francis has been aware of Theodore McCarrick’s sexual abuse scandal since 2013 and that in fact he Vigano and the Holy Father had discussed the allegations.
The Supreme Pontiff said Archbishop Vigano’s document ‘Speaks for itself….It’s an act of trust….I won’t say a word about it’, reports www.independent.co.uk.
‘Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses, and resign along with all of them,’ the Independent quoted Vigano, the retired Vatican diplomat to the United States.
In both the US case and Ireland, allegations have been made that the top Vatican hierarchy had been involved in cover ups of sexual abuse crimes.
In the case of McCarrick, even priests and seminarians claim that he abused them.
The Independent reports that there are ‘calls for heads to roll and for a full Vatican investigation into who knew what and when about McCarrick’.
It is indeed the season of truths.
‘God is good’, Pastor Mensa Otabil of International Central Gospel Church, Ghana (ICGC), told his congregation to use those words in response every time they are asked about his involvement in a GH¢620million (US$120 million) banking scandal .
And the Amen Corner gave the usual yell of approval.
Here in Ghana, Otabil has been trolled and has received a tongue lashing for comments he made that he was ‘not involved in the day to day running’ of Capital Bank as board chairman.
There are videos circulating of Otabil’s previous sermons when he told a “gullible” audience that being board chairman of a bank was no job; that anybody could do it so long as one knew ‘simple addition and subtraction’.
Otabil’s church members have mounted a vigorous media campaign with the hashtag ‘I STAND WITH OTABIL’.
Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams of Action Chapel International came to the defence of his colleague charismatic priest saying specifically to Christians, ’Shut your big mouths up’ .
But Kevin Taylor of the Friday Editorial, a social media production, in the spirit of the season of truths told Duncan-Williams, nicknamed by charismatic Christians as ‘The pope of Africa’ emphatically, ‘Papa, shut up and sit down’.
Those of us who have been monitoring Duncan-Williams’ sermons over the years are surprised that some Ghanaians are surprised.
His Grace Nicholas Duncan-Williams already has some regular lines on the matter at hand including, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, says the Lord….Who are you to judge God’s anointed….Touch not My anointed….Aaron and Miriam spoke against God’s servant Moses and Yahweh punished them with leprosy….. Even though Moses had done the wrong thing, Aaron and Miriam had no right to speak against the man God had chosen’.
His Grace Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle, Archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana……..once edited the Catholic Standard.
How then should media practitioners, working within and or aligned with the Catholic Church and the ICGC in particular, respond to the current scandals engulfing both institutions?
It will appear that their efforts should be directed at answering these questions.
1. ‘Truth is quiet, truth is silent,’ says Pope Francis, referencing Thucydides, in response to accusatory remarks about his conduct with reference to the current Catholic priests’ sex abuse scandal. When should we speak and when should we be silent?
- As a local priest, evangelist or catechist using social media, your group friends or church members may ask your views on a platform or after church. How should you respond?
- How should media men and media women employees of church media houses respond?
- How should church media practitioners working in secular media houses respond?
- How should media men and media women across board respond to these church scandals in the face of lobbying which is a legally recognised public relations activity, when the Ghana Journalists Association and other media Code of Ethics say, ‘Your obligation is to the truth’?
- Should professionally trained journalists honour their obligation to the truth while lay journalists have not sworn to any obligation?
- How should journalists envisage their role in resolving the global Catholic Church sex scandals and the Ghana banking scandal; are these scandals any different compared with other equally important events in modern human history such as the Rwandan Genocide, Myanmar (Rohingya) troubles, the Nazi Holocaust Trials, the Palestinian crisis and the overarching call of patriotism/loyalty to your country or church or religion?
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