Fr. Ebube Mmuonso And The Tragedy Of Ego

In recent weeks, it has been an unceasing exchange of attacks between Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Obimma (aka Ebube Mmuonso) and spokespersons of Anambra state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo. The barrage of mutual recriminations began following the kidnapping of a Catholic priest, Fr. Nonso Okoye, an episode that got Fr. Obimma direct disparaging words at Governor Soludo, accusing him of being a failure. The bitter exchange was not helped by the unfortunate death, in the hands of his captors, of Hon. Justice Azuka representing Onitsha North I Constituency in the state House of Assembly and the reported escape of two suspects nabbed by the police.

But this was not the beginning of the uneasy relationship between the cleric and Prof. Soludo. In the early days of the administration, the priest had, in one of his sermons, stated that he had a divine revelation where he saw persons looking like Fulani herdsmen attack the Anambra state government house with Soludo being bloodied in the attack. Perhaps, contrary to his expectation, Soludo was not impressed by the purported prophecy, which he treated with subtle contempt as evident in an ostensibly leaked personal message sent to the cleric by the governor.

No reasonable person would quarrel with any criticism directed against the Anambra state government in the light of the parlous level of insecurity being witnessed at the time of Fr. Okoye’s kidnapping. However, I view the continued acrimonious exchange between Fr. Obimma and the governor’s aides as unnecessary, especially in the light of the emphatic improvement noticed in the last one month following the launch of the novel security initiative, Udo ga-achi, by the government. It is in the interest of public tranquility and good governance that both sides sheathe their swords. It has become a war of ego and nothing more.

Nonetheless, as a Catholic I have been struck by what I see as another manifestation of an untoward trend whereby priests who purport to manifest charismatic gifts and operate what now go with the generic name, “adoration ministries”, become unpriestly egoistic, arrogant, recalcitrant and tend to abuse the privilege of the pulpit in total negation of the calling of the clerical office as understood in the Catholic Church. Hear Fr. Obimma on the pulpit responding to an attack piece written by the commissioner for information, Dr. Law Mefor:

“The blood of all the innocent people killed will rest on Mefor and on his generations. He has incurred the wrath of a man of God. If I be a man of God, he will meet a heavy calamity that will destroy him… See how he is looking like death. The Holy Ghost will soon finish him. Their worst mistake is that it is [me] Ebube Mmuonso that they are attacking. It is like targeting gunshots on the sun, the bullets can never reach there.”

In another instance, his message was directed at the government’s media team in general;

“These Soludo’s media rats, evil will never depart from their families… They will perish, they have attracted curses for themselves and their generations unborn. Watch how all of them will start dying one by one.”

Anybody who understands the Catholic way of worship, especially in the context of its liturgy of the word, would appreciate immediately that words like the above are alien to the Catholic pulpit. Besides, implicit in the words is a characteristic arrogance and megalomaniac disposition whereby a priest believes that there is something more priestly in him than in other priests, thus suggesting something like, “you may try this with other priests but not me.” This is exactly what Obimma seemed to imply when he said, “Their worst mistake is that it is [me] Ebube Mmuonso that they are attacking. It is like targeting gunshots on the sun, the bullets can never reach there.” We can arrive at this conclusion if we consider the fact that Obimma himself knows that he is not the only priest that has ever been attacked (even Popes have been), so his expectation of death for those that attacked him reveals his belief (or delusion) that there is something not ordinary about his own priestly calling.

We have also heard such words from the likes of Fr. Mbaka, another “adoration” priest. But then this is totally in negation of the understanding of priesthood in the Catholic ecclesiology. Priesthood is bestowed through the sacrament of holy orders, and once this sacrament is validly accomplished through specific rituals and in compliance with stipulated canonical conditions, the recipient becomes a priest like every other recipient and can never be more priestly than another recipient.

Similarly, following the footsteps of some Pentecostal leaders, these “adoration” priests tend to suggest that God’s power is more manifest in their adoration ground than in any other sphere of worship. Fr. Obimma clearly toed this line when he said “God of adoration ministry will punish them” (Soludo’s media aides). Pray, does God assume another nature and perhaps greater power at the Holy Ghost Adoration Ministry (just as He does in the Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Ministry and the like)?

Secondly, the Catholic liturgy of prayer and the word never encourages pronouncement of curses. I have not seen any of the cursing portions of the biblical psalms (such as seen in Psalm 35) included as part of the Catholic liturgy. In modern times, the Catholic Church has responded to its adversaries not with curses but with appeals and prayer for repentance. Its fiercest adversaries in the 20th century were the Communists with their anti-religious ideology that saw persecution of Catholics in the USSR, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Cuba and others. The Church’s response was not a cursing prayer but prayers for repentance of the persecutors and their forgiveness by God. Older Catholics would know of the famous “prayer for conversion of Russia,” while block rosary participants must be familiar with the prayer with these lines, “My God I believe… I ask pardon for all those who do not believe in You, do not adore You, do not hope in You, and do not love You”; a prayer in response to the rise of the anti-Christian communist regime of Russia in 1917.

But it is nothing very surprising that the “adoration” priests have chosen to jettison the church’s way of praying for one’s enemies (which is perfectly in line with Christ’s admonition to pray for our adversaries and his rebuke of Peter when he wanted to return aggression for aggression) given that these priests no longer strictly follow the Church’s ways as evident in their elevation of prophecy, speaking in tongues, and signs and wonders above the church’s traditional mode of worship as rooted in the sacramental liturgy. No doubt, this method is an easier way of attracting congregation and the attendant huge money.

Catholic Popes have seen oppositions all through history, and unlike the “adoration” priests, they never weaponised the pulpit to pronounce curses. Pope John Paul II was roundly castigated by those who promote liberal ideals when he issued his VERITATIS SPLENDOR (The Splendour of the Truth), an encyclical that challenged moral relativism. His successor Pope Benedict was met by protesters who carried disrespectful placards when he visited the UK in September 2010. Some German legislators staged a walkout when he addressed the parliament on a visit to his home country the following year. The current pontiff, Francis, has been a victim of attacks including from some of his subordinates notably the likes of Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former Holy See ambasador to Nigeria and the United States. In all these, we did not see the Popes pronounce curses on anybody or their generations. Even after he was shot by Mehmet Ali Agca in 1981, Pope John Paul visited his assailant in prison to convey his message of forgiveness. Fr. Obimma cannot be more Catholic than the Popes. If the Popes, the supreme pastors of the Church, can act with this level of restraint, Obimma’s conduct can only be a product of untamed ego from a man who views himself as more of God’s own than others.

It is important at this juncture to say that being a Catholic priest does not stop a person like Fr. Obimma from speaking out against the government and social ills. In fact, the Catholic Church has an endless list of clerics who have courageously taken up this role, some of them becoming victims of persecution such as seen with Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador who was assassinated in 1980. Other such outspoken priests included Bishop Fernando Armindo Lugo Mendez of Paraguay and Cardinal Jaime Sin whose activism triggered the “People’s Power” revolution in Philippines in 1986. The list is endless.

In Nigeria, we still have Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, an untiring social critic on the side of truth and social justice. Archbishop Olubunmi Okogie’s activism cannot be easily forgotten. His suit against the Lagos state government (the famous ARCHBISHOP OKOGIE V LAGOS STATE GOVERNMENT) produced a judgment that has become a locus classicus in the Nigerian constitutional law. Every student of law in our universities must, in their first and second year, meet this case which has contributed in enriching the Nigerian jurisprudence in the area of right to freedom of expression.

One thing about these clergymen who became social critics is that they did not wrap their social activism in the veneer of prophecy and revelation; a weaponisation of religion that serves to portray the critic as an infallible emissary of God whose words cannot be contradicted else the culprit will be doomed. Not once have we seen Kukah being criticized or even attacked, but he never climbed the pulpit to curse those that attacked a “man of God”, rather he always quietly took his pen to intellectually defend his position. Who has forgotten his debates with the spokespersons of President Buhari, the duo of Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu? What of his strong-worded reply many years ago to two journalists of THE GUARDIAN who criticized his approach as the leader of the Federal Government’s mediation team in Ogoni land?

Catholic priests, by virtue of their training, are meant to be scholars with the intellectual capacity to engage in social debates. When Pope Leo XIII in 1891 released his RERUM NOVARUM (Of the New Things), an encyclical on socio-economic justice, Marxist thinkers across the world attacked his position. The Pontiff did not mount the pulpit to curse those who were attacking a “man of God.” He maintained his dignified silence leaving posterity to be the judge. It was inevitable that the document, rich in intellection and moral illumination, inevitably made a global impact, inspiring the principles and ideals of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on the rights of workers (thus influencing the labour jurisprudence of many nations that joined the ILO), inspiring the rise of labour movements in some parts of the globe, and leading to the formation of Christian Democratic Parties in different countries including Germany, Belgium, and Croatia.

The pulpit is primarily meant for catechesis (theological teachings), hence nobody debates with the theologian who mounts it. But once the theologian descends the pulpit to enter the arena of civic debate, he must, as done by the likes of Kukah, drop the toga of a dogmatist to wear that of an intellectual who is ready to take the bullets of dialectics – just as he is free to fire his. Here, there will be no hiding under the untouchable aura of “man of God” to assume infallibility or pronounce curses. Doing so would amount to abuse of the pulpit. Even when others in the arena, such as politicians, become uncharitable with their words, the priest, as a man of God, is obliged to remain Christ-like, eschewing hurtful words including those that invoke misfortune on others.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.