Church reclaims its voice after two decades of silence and compromise

Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops Chairman Maurice Muhatia flanked by other bishops during a media briefing on the state of the Nation held in Nairobi on November 14, 2024. [Benard Orwongo, Standard]

The scramble to respond to a statement released by Catholic bishops about the government’s underwhelming performance has rekindled memories of the church’s influential role as a crusader for good governance in the country.

The hard-hitting statement released by the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) accused the government of promoting a culture of lies and being out of touch with the reality over the plight of Kenyans.

They also called for an end to the abduction of people and the unexplained disappearances, including the violation of human rights and the increased stifling of freedom of speech in the country.

The church appears to be finding its voice again after lying low for many years, as people yearned for the good old days when clerics like Ndingi mwana ‘Nzeki, David Gitari, Alexander Muge, Henry Okul and Timothy Njoya loudly advocated for change in the 1990’s.

The KCCB statement sparked immediate reactions, prompting government institutions and agencies to issue late-night counter-statements, dismissing the bishops’ claims as inaccurate.

Reacting to the statement, President William Ruto asked leaders to be factual before making declarations that can later embarrass them, as he echoed similar views from senior aides who had earlier dismissed the allegations raised by the clergymen as false and fabricated.

But to the surprise of many, the president attended the ordination of the Embu diocese catholic bishop Peter Kimani Ndung’u the following day, where he not only promised to address issues raised by the prelates but also pledged to engage them more in their churches.

“I have spent the week interacting with the Catholic church at Tangaza College where I attended the first graduation ceremony, today I’m here in Embu and I think tomorrow I will look for a church to celebrate mass with the catholic faithful. He kept his word by attending service at Soweto catholic church with governor Johnson Sakaja yesterday,” said Ruto.

Discussing the impact of the statement and the role of the church in stopping government excesses, Nairobi politician Philip Kisia says they should do more to help restore good governance.

He also thinks they should put in more effort to emulate “the spiritual five’ Ndingi, Muge, Okullu, Muge and Njoya whose vocal sermons and public engagements brought change in the country in the 1990s.

“The church should move away from the pulpit and press conferences and join the Gen Z and millennials on the streets if they want to shape up this government, as they also do that in honour of the spiritual five,” says Kisia.

He observed that the likes of Njoya, Muge and Gitari made a big impact, because they joined their followers on the streets, as he urged other mainstream churches to follow the trend set by the catholic bishops.

The former Nairobi Town Clerk asked political leaders to listen more to spiritual leaders because governments should be subservient to the church, as they benefit from guidance on leadership and good governance.

Alternative leadership

In so doing, the church not only creates hope and positive energy but helps in providing quality education and good health, both very strong foundations for development.

“The church can cause an earthquake. It is an institution that has brought down governments across the world because it has a lot of followers who believe in religion and also take direction from their leaders,” added Kisia.

Prof Gitile Naituli of Multi-Media University also thinks going forward, the church will have a big impact because about 85 per cent of Kenyans are Christians and a big majority of them are Catholics who listen to their bishops very carefully.

He finds it self-defeating when the government engages in a war of words with the church because the faithful will always trust their leaders more than the bureaucrats.

Prof Naituli also argues that, since the church largely supported President Ruto’s UDA party in the 2022 presidential polls, leaders in government need to listen when bishops ask for the expectations of their faithful to be fulfilled.

“The church is an alternative leadership to the political class in every country and that is why when it says things are going wrong, the people listen and the leadership should also do the same,” says Naituli.

The Catholic church threw its weight behind the government during the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya-led cost of living protests early last year, where they also called for dialogue to what they thought was a dangerous stand-off.

They pleaded with President Ruto and his then adversary Raila Odinga to sit with and listen to each other and thereafter come out with reasonable proposals to address the challenges that existed.

“We ask Raila to accept dialogue for the good of our country,” said the bishops, as they called for the restoration of sanity, while also stating that demonstrations could only have exacerbated the already dire situation.

Scholars have at various forums argued that the religious community has been seriously compromised by the powers that be while others have lost the appeal of being the moral compass of society because of their conduct.

Political entanglements

Among the critics, is Dr Hassan Khanejje of the Horn Institute who in June agreed with Gen Z that the religious community had been highly compromised.

He argued that the role they had served so beautifully in the past, creating an admiration all over the world was long gone having lost their moral authority due to entanglements with political elites. .

Prof Peter Kagwanja of the Africa Policy Institute also stated that Gen Z were irritated by the rampant misuse of the church for political ends.   

“In the 2022 elections, we saw the misuse of faith through the convergence of a section of the political class with the church. They professed to be more involved with the church than their opponents and used that to manipulate politics in their favour. That is why the church found itself in an awkward position,” said Kagwanja.

 University of Nairobi lecturer Dr Ken Ombongi also recounted that during the Kanu single-party era, the church effectively operated as the official opposition in the country.

He said the names of church leaders who helped bring change in the 1990s, will become part of the chapters of liberation history because without them, some of the democratic gains would not have been realised today.

But on the flip side, some religious groups have done more harm than good to the country by engaging in the corruption of morals and the violation of the ideals of co-existence.

President William Ruto and Nyeri Catholic Archbishop Anthony Muheria during the Consecration and Installation of Bishop Peter Kimani Ndung'u, in Embu County. [PCS]

Prof Kagwanja thinks moving forward, the church cannot only be used to support and create welfare institutions but to also support a new moral order that many young Kenyans have been calling for.

“We don’t need to see politicians using the pulpit for their own aggrandizement, where a church leader looks like he is singing the choir of the politicians and other shameless leaders,” says Kagwanja.

Leaders supporting the president have questioned why Catholic bishops are raising their voices now when they were largely quiet during the leadership of presidents Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta.

Prof Naituli thinks it has nothing to do with the fact that the two past presidents were both Catholics but more because of the many failed promises in the current regime, the high cost of living and the taxation costs that people are saddled with.

“Although Uhuru was not a perfect president, people were not being abducted in broad daylight at the rate we are witnessing and police helplessly saying they don’t know who is responsible and neither were they also being killed as is happening now,” says Naituli.

Way forward

He thinks that is why the church and civil society must rise up to help the president now, unlike during Kibaki’s time when order prevailed and police were also doing their job.

Instead of blaming the church, Naituli argues that those close to the president should tell him that the country is not in a good place instead of misleading him. The leaders who are faulting the bishops are therefore not telling him the truth because of personal interest.

With only two years remaining before the next presidential campaign kick-off, the don urges President Ruto and his team to take the criticism seriously and deal with the issues raised noting that the use of money and ethnicity for campaigning will have no place in the 2027 election.

“Money will not help, because it only worked when there was no internet and information asymmetry. Tribal alliances and politics will also not mean anything. That is why they should listen to the church,” says Naituli.