PROFESSOR JIDEOFO KENECHUKWU DANMBAEZUE TRACES THE ORIGIN OF MORAL DECADENCE TO IMPORTED RELIGIONS

A KENEZIAN PREFACE

INTRODUCTION TO INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT

The Computer-Age Spiritual Fellowship for Citizens of Our Global Village

Many people are mere conformists. They are those personalities that are satisfied with ‘going through the motions’; doing what everyone else is doing to make a living and waiting for the final ‘call to glory’ as they brand death! Many of us are born and live an inconsequential life; bland, uneventful and without anything particular to be remembered for after our exit from this mundane world, a temporal habitation for the soul. There are some others, whose lives and contributions to the society made a difference! They changed the ‘status quo’ by either extending the frontiers of knowledge or developing their immediate communities. They improved the understanding of human nature and taught others the values of humanitarianism. These heroes and heroines touched the lives of many both inter-racially and internationally.

They added colour to the doldrums of routine existence on planet earth!

A few had tall dreams and went ahead to transform them into reality despite all odds. This group devised methods of changing the deplorable situations and the deprived circumstances of the lifestyle they met on becoming adults. Some adolescents dream of the courage to better their social status, but often take off on the wrong foot of seeking for titles, money, fame and crowning it all with indulging in romantic relationships.

Others dared to pursue the unknown, to break new grounds and blaze trails for followers to tread on. Their zeal, inquisitiveness, passion, persistence, desire, motivations and prayers were fully rewarded if they paid the prize for success; optimism, dedication and the refusal to quit. Their philosophy of life was ‘When the task gets tough, the tough get it going!’, ‘Never say, never again!’ or ‘All that it takes to make the impossible possible is the power to remove the ‘im’ in front of the possible!’

They eventually became geniuses, inventors, explorers, leaders or discoverers! They evolved into the innovators and pioneers who helped to enlarge the frontiers of human civilisations and removed the age-old boundaries of the unknown. Joining this select group of animators or league of achievers is usually not by accident or by mere wishful thinking. Beyond desire and hard work is a divine factor that must be recognised, respected and appropriated in unveiling the unknown that the Divine Architect had hidden there for ages waiting for a brave soul to convert it from obscure dormancy to utilitarian vibrancy. This author, Dr Kenez wants to know where you belong in this universal continuum. Or, are you waiting for ‘manna from heaven’?

Historians inform us that Christopher Columbus actually set out to discover another route to India when he stumbled at the Americas and thus opened up humanity to a large continent partitioned into northern and southern halves but connected by a strip of islands. Today, the Panama Canal has made it possible to access the Eastern Regions of the World while travelling continuously to the west! Inventors, Discoverers and occasionally, religious leaders emerge from obscure communities of despised nations to beam supernatural light and divine wisdom of the Creator!

Those who search will eventually discover something unique. Those who ask penetrating questions may one day obtain answers from above rather than human palliatives that rarely satisfy the saintly soul. Those who ardently knock on the doors of heavenly wisdom, sooner than later gain divine inspirations from the Holy Spirit of the Original Architect and Ultimate Engineer of the earth we inhabit! He alone has all the answers to all physical, social, mental, spiritual and the personal and socio-political problems of our mundane world, if only we humble ourselves and honestly ask for his wisdom and guidance. But, do we?

The Creator has hidden so much from our intellectual faculties that to date we are still unravelling those He is allowing humanity to glimpse at through divine dreams, intuitions, inspirations and revelations to devout souls! Do you want to have supernatural knowledge mediated by spiritual faculties of seeing, feeling, sensing and caring for others? Look inwards, for the kingdom of God is inside you, not outside as many preachers tell you. No one ever got eternal bliss by keeping the commandments of men. It is given to altruistic seekers of that Divine Guidance in the affairs of mankind, which many yearn for but do not know where, when and how to find it. Search for it in this book!  

The creator gave humans some of his powers and knowledge for recreating the material universe for the mutual benefits of all his created beings but today many use his gifts to perpetrate evil. Either by design or demonic manipulation, the obverse is the case; the first datum that every living thing recognises is that someone put it here and caters for its welfare. Dogs respect and fight in defence of their owners. Every pet realises that it is loved and taken care of by someone who has value for its existence. It is human who pride themselves of being rational beings that do not recognise, respect or realise that all of us have a single owner. It is absurd! Some believe there is an Almighty Creator who provides for each creature on daily basis, some assert that he has turned his back on us due to our congenital wickedness and cruel ways, while others simply deny his existence! 

This is my summation of the problem; “Religion was/is a superstitious search by humanity for its origin, existence, meaning and relevance before the scientific era. The search was led by acclaimed sages among the elders of a community who defined its theories and practices. It is later ratified and recommended for legislation and implementation by state apparatus by convincing stratagem or coercion by politico-religious leaders. Thereafter, it is fine tuned and administered by ordained priests and priestesses who hand it down along ancestral lineages from one generation of lukewarm adherents, fanatics and mystics to another. Gradually, strong personalities emerge claiming divine appointment and so pull strong followers who idolise them as role models with supernatural powers. This obsession confirms them as beacons of adulation and finally leads to full scale idolatry.

Religion, which is superstition sanctioned by the state, is actually an addiction to man-made doctrines and dogmas invented, patented and copyrighted by a few demagogues.

• It enslaves the mind more than psychoactive drugs,
• Benumbs human creativity and resourcefulness thereby
• Restricting the development of the human potential and capital.

It is the main cause of poverty of the mind and underdevelopment of third world countries as its side-effects are indolence, redundancy, laziness and dependence of finished products and services. In the final analysis, it is the predisposing factor to lack of initiative, debilitating ignorance, fetish belief-systems, abject poverty and perennial ill-health.

Perhaps its only advantage is that it makes the polity docile and amenable to the whims and caprices of their oppressive leaders. Often, it hoodwinks its adherents into believing that ‘The God’ or ‘the gods’ they worship speak to them through the voices of their egocentric clerics who therefore can conveniently exploit them to satisfy their demonic desires of sensual pleasure and inordinate ambitions of amassing wealth. Their wanton indulgence in gluttony, wine and women is seen in every action and definitely this is the foolproof evidence of their demonic genealogy.

To rescue humanity from the demonic stranglehold of idolatry that now predominates worldwide, you are invited to reason along with us and see that we provide an everlasting cure for sensual lust for food, wine, sex, wealth and power that are the trademarks of society heading for damnation! Are you going to sit on the fence and wait for another failed experiment in Messiahship that was riddled with myopic and ethnocentric bias? Who knows the Creator well enough to declare that he has ‘a chosen people’? Where is the evidence that Moses actually led the so-called people out of any oppressive regime? The history books and modern encyclopaedia did not record the enslavement of the Jewish race except as ‘they were believed as revealed truths’.

Then he went on to introduce the first and most heinous dichotomy in racism; JEWS and GENTILES! The negative impact of that first categorisation of humanity gave birth to all the nepotic, apartheid and racist policies in the entire world. If you care to join us in a sanitation exercise that will guarantee a better future for your children, the come and witness the development of religion from time immemorial to evaluate it subjugation to man-made doctrines, dogmas and modes of worship that are irreligious. Thereafter, we can seek for solutions as proposed by the computer-age Integrational fellowship; I S M.

THE REVOLUTIONARY DEPOSITION

IMPORTED RELIGIONS BROUGHT OUR DECLINE IN SOCIAL MORALITY

The Genesis of Immorality in Biafra Was the Assimilation of Westernisation

The desecration of our pre-colonial high moral values started with the arrival of the first white missionaries in West Africa. What the natives called “NSO-ANI” was re-branded FORGIVEABLE SINS and so watered down the sanctity of religious values in Biafra. Its partner, WESTERN EDUCATION neatly completed the ‘coup de grace’ as the foreign concepts and social values of the colonialists destroyed the social ethics of the natives and rendered our pristine mores and norms ineffective. In some communities; “aping the white man’s dress code and mannerisms became fashionable and ignoring the customs and traditions of the community was seen as the criterion of being EDUCATED and MORE CIVILISED than the illiterate folks in the villages!

---------DR JIDEOFO KENECHUKWU DANMBAEZUE, @ 30/06/2013 04:14:32 HRS GMT.

PREAMBLE TO AUTHENTICITY OF RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOUR

Daily we interact with our parents, siblings, immediate relatives and neighbours in our small circles of physical habitations. When we travel outside our ethnic and national boundaries, we run into different personalities we love to hate or vice versa, who consciously or unconsciously influence our lives positively or negatively. Have you ever sat down and taken stock of what you have become over the last ten years?

Many people you see, meet with and/or socialise with are mere conformists. They are those personalities that are satisfied with ‘going through the motions’; doing what everyone else is doing to make a living and waiting for the final ‘call to glory’ as they brand death! Many of us are born and live an inconsequential life; bland, uneventful and without anything particular to be remembered for after our exit from this mundane world, a temporal habitation for the soul.

There are some others, whose lives and contributions to the society made a difference! They changed the ‘status quo’ by either extending the frontiers of knowledge or developing their immediate communities. They improved the understanding of human nature and taught others the values of humanitarianism. These heroes and heroines touched the lives of many intellectually and socially which elevated brotherhood of mankind both inter-racially and internationally.

These agents of change were the true sons and daughters of the Almighty Creator of the universe. They added colour to daily routines and the doldrums of routine existence on planet earth! A few had tall dreams and went ahead to transform them into reality despite all odds. This group devised methods of changing the deplorable situations and the deprived circumstances of the lifestyle they met on becoming adults. Some adolescents dream of the courage to better their social status, but often take off on the wrong foot of seeking for titles, money, fame and crowning it all with indulging in romantic relationships.

 Others dared to pursue the unknown, to break new grounds and blaze trails for followers to tread on. Their zeal, inquisitiveness, passion, persistence, desire, motivations and prayers were fully rewarded if they paid the prize for success; optimism, dedication and the refusal to quit. Their philosophy of life was ‘When the task gets tough, the tough get it going!’, ‘Never say, never again!’ or ‘All that it takes to make the impossible possible is the power to remove the ‘im’ in front of the possible!’ They eventually became geniuses, inventors, explorers, leaders or discoverers! They evolved into the innovators and pioneers who helped to enlarge the frontiers of human civilisations and removed the age-old boundaries of the unknown. They were the catalysts of the world!

Historians inform us that Christopher Columbus actually set out to discover another route to India when he stumbled at the new America and thus opened up humanity to a large continent partitioned into northern and southern halves but naturally connected by a strip of islands. Today, the Panama Canal has made it possible to access the Eastern Regions of the world while travelling continuously to the west! Inventors, Discoverers and occasionally, religious leaders emerge from obscure communities of despised nations to beam supernatural light and divine wisdom of the Creator!

Joining this select group of animators or league of achievers is usually not by accident or by mere wishful thinking. Beyond the routine duties of satisfying the five senses of the body lies the desire to excel in unexplored areas of human existence and the freedom to choose a divergent track that levies hard work is a divine factor that must be recognised, respected and appropriated in unveiling the unknown that the Divine Architect had hidden there for ages waiting for a brave soul to convert it from obscure dormancy to utilitarian vibrancy. This author, a global agent of spiritual evolution, Dr J. J. Kenez wants to know where you belong in this universal continuum of innovators. Or, are you waiting for ‘manna from heaven’?

Those who place priority on breaking new grounds and earnestly search for better alternatives will eventually discover something unique. Those who ask penetrating questions may one day obtain answers from above rather than the routine human palliatives that rarely satisfy the saintly soul. Those who ardently knock on the doors of heavenly wisdom, sooner than later gain divine inspirations from the Holy Spirit of the Original Architect and Ultimate Engineer of the earth we inhabit! He alone has all the answers to all physical, social, mental, spiritual and the personal and socio-political problems of our mundane world, if only we humble ourselves and honestly ask for his wisdom and guidance. But, do we?

The Creator has hidden so much from our intellectual faculties that to date we are still unravelling those He is allowing humanity to glimpse at through divine dreams, intuitions, inspirations and revelations to devout souls! Do you want to have supernatural knowledge mediated by spiritual faculties of seeing, feeling, sensing and caring for others? Look inwards, for the kingdom of God is inside you, not outside as many prosperity preachers erroneously tell you. No one ever got eternal bliss by keeping the commandments of men. It is given to altruistic seekers of that Divine Guidance in the affairs of mankind, which many yearn for but do not know where, when and how to find it. Search for it in this book!  

The creator gave humans some of his powers and knowledge for recreating the material universe for the mutual benefits of all his created beings. The obverse is the case! Today many use his gifts to perpetrate evil. Either by design or demonic manipulation, ingrates abound everywhere and dominate the scene. The first datum that every living thing recognises is that someone put it here and caters for its welfare. Dogs respect and fight in defence of their owners. Every pet realises that it is loved and taken care of by someone who has value for its existence. It is only human beings, who pride themselves of being rational beings that do not recognise, respect or realise that all of us have a single owner, a caretaker and benevolent father/mother. Meditate over this assertion for a minute and provide me an answer.

It is absurd! It is unintelligent. It is unlike what a rational being can do.

Yet, that is only a tip of the iceberg of irreverent religiosity in our global village.

Some learned fools insist that everything came by chance and hold on to the theory of evolution! Despite knowing that the common wristwatch could never have arrived by blind chance and that computers and the Internet had inventors, this brand of demented humans refuse to see and acknowledge the great artistry and creative ingenuity in what they indulge in on a daily basis to survive till the next morning! Some believe there is an Almighty Creator who provides for each creature on a daily basis, some assert that he has turned his back on us due to our congenital wickedness and cruel ways, while others simply deny his existence! 

DECLINE IN SOCIAL ETHICS IS THE CRUX OF MORAL DEPRAVITY

Double-faced Christians and Muslims now abound everywhere; they worship Satan at night and come to church/mosque on Fridays/Sundays! This lifestyle has eroded the credentials of our forebears! There is now, an urgent need to redeem our children from these nefarious practices! We must revert to the legacies of our renowned grandfathers, improve on it and bequeath the next generation a better religious legacy than we had!

If you are concerned that our children need fresh religious air that suits this global village and that posterity deserves a better lifestyle devoid of wearing masks of deceit, pretences, subterfuges, ‘holier-than-thou’ attitudes, then join us in the sanitation exercise. Your offspring will remain forever grateful that a select group of enlightened ‘Homo sapiens sapientis’ took the bull by the horns to avert the perilous moral decadence that is steadily turning all of us into unabashed hypocrites, unrepentant fanatics and deluded mystics. You are welcome!

Culture is a summation of ethnocentric survival strategies that each sub-unit of humanity had developed over the centuries, institutionalized and passed on to their descendants. The sons and daughters of the Almighty Creator have ignored their ONE CULTURE; which is OBEDIENCE TO ALL THE NATURAL LAWS as ONE WORLD RELIGION. That is what we desperately need today just we use cellular phones and the Internet without killing anyone. Respect for and obedience to all the laws of nature is the key for a peaceful world with beautiful people living, loving and sharing the Creator's benefits as equal heirs to his blissful global world that we now share amicably thanks to scientists who have uncovered his designs for our mutual existence. LET US LIVE IN PEACE! This is the ‘One Global Religion’ that humanity needs now for ‘One Peaceful Global Village! Here I rest my case/pen!

You are welcome to “Let us reason together” as Isaiah, the prophet invited his kinsmen many centuries ago or sit on the fence and die unenlightened by genuine Aristotelian-Kantian combine of deductive and inductive logic, aided by current fund of science knowledge and enquiry to unravel the fables and legends that are now labelled as theology! There is nothing theological about an accumulation of guesswork done by primitive men! They are simply a collection of puerile belief in man-made doctrines, dogmas and rituals that is steadily pushing the humane race to annihilation. Here, I rest my objective of penning this protracted but comprehensive diatribe. Call it heresy, if you like. I do not care a dime. Truth is supreme! Truth is Life, my people declare!

RESUME OF MY DEPOSITION

Just type RENASCENT IGBO RELIGION into Google Search and see the volumes I had written on how, why and wherefore our traditional "NSO ANI" i.e. AVOIDNACE OF DESECRATION OF NATURAL LAWS is the best religion in the whole world, yet we prefer to swim in foreign religions and create an immoral nation wherein demonic politicians and pecuniary religious leaders swindle us and smile to the banks!!

YOU CAN FOOL ALL THE PEOPLE SOME OF THE TIME, AND YOU CAN ALSO FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME, BUT YOU CAN NEVER FOOL ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME, TALK LESS OF ATTEMPTING TO FOOL GOD AT ANY TIME.

CHAPTER ONE

DELIMITING OUR UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE

 The demands of Formal Logic dictate that we begin our dissertation from the very beginning of the theories and practices that gave birth to the doctrines and dogmas that various religious demagogues invented and developed over the centuries!

UNIVERSAL DEFINITION OF RELIGION 

Let us start with this unabridged and unedited from Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009

“Religion is the sacred engagement with that which is believed to be a spiritual reality. Religion is a worldwide phenomenon that has played a part in all human culture and so is a much broader, more complex category than the set of beliefs or practices found in any single religious tradition. An adequate understanding of religion must take into account its distinctive qualities and patterns as a form of human experience, as well as the similarities and differences in religions across human cultures. In all cultures, human beings make a practice of interacting with what are taken to be spiritual powers. These powers may be in the form of gods, spirits, ancestors, or any kind of sacred reality with which humans believe themselves to be connected. Sometimes a spiritual power is understood broadly as an all-embracing reality (see Pantheism), and sometimes it is approached through its manifestation in special symbols. It may be regarded as external to the self, internal, or both. People interact with such a presence in a sacred manner—that is, with reverence and care. Religion is the term most commonly used to designate this complex and diverse realm of human experience.”

“The word religion is derived from the Latin noun religio, which denotes both earnest observance of ritual obligations and an inward spirit of reverence. In modern usage, religion covers a wide spectrum of meanings that reflect the enormous variety of ways the term can be interpreted. At one extreme, many committed believers recognize only their own tradition as a religion, understanding expressions such as worship and prayer to refer exclusively to the practices of their tradition. Although many believers stop short of claiming an exclusive status for their tradition, they may nevertheless use vague or idealizing terms in defining religion—for example, “true love of God,” or “the path of enlightenment.” At the other extreme, religion may be equated with ignorance, fanaticism, or wishful thinking.”

“By defining religion as a sacred engagement with what is taken to be a spiritual reality, it is possible to consider the importance of religion in human life without making claims about what it really is or ought to be. Religion is not an object with a single, fixed meaning, or even a zone with clear boundaries. It is an aspect of human experience that may intersect, incorporate, or transcend other aspects of life and society. Such a definition avoids the drawbacks of limiting the investigation of religion to Western or biblical categories such as monotheism (belief in one god only) or to church structure, which are not universal. For example, in tribal societies, religion—unlike the Christian church—usually is not a separate institution but pervades the whole of public and private life. In Buddhism, gods are not as central as the idea of a Buddha (fully enlightened human being). In many traditional cultures the idea of a sacred cosmic order is the most prominent religious belief. Because of this variety, some scholars prefer to use a general term such as the sacred to designate the common foundation of religious life.”

“Religion in this understanding includes a complex of activities that cannot be reduced to any single aspect of human experience. It is a part of individual life but also of group dynamics. Religion includes patterns of behavior but also patterns of language and thought. It is sometimes a highly organized institution that sets itself apart from a culture, and it is sometimes an integral part of a culture. Religious experience may be expressed in visual symbols, dance and performance, elaborate philosophical systems, legendary and imaginative stories, formal ceremonies, meditative techniques, and detailed rules of ethical conduct and law. Each of these elements assumes innumerable cultural forms. In some ways there are as many forms of religious expression as there are human cultural environments.”

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

KENEZIAN DEFINITION OF RELIGION

“Religion was/is a superstitious search by humanity for its origin, existence, meaning and relevance before the scientific era. The search was led by acclaimed sages among the elders of a community who defined its theories and practices. It is later ratified and recommended for legislation and implementation by state apparatus by convincing stratagem or coercion by politico-religious leaders. Thereafter, it is fine tuned and administered by ordained priests and priestesses who hand it down along ancestral lineages from one generation of lukewarm adherents, fanatics and mystics to another. Gradually, strong personalities emerge claiming divine appointment and so pull strong followers who idolise them as role models with supernatural powers. This obsession confirms them as beacons of adulation and finally leads to full scale idolatry.

Religion, which is superstition sanctioned by the state, is actually an addiction to man-made doctrines and dogmas invented, patented and copyrighted by a few demagogues.

• It enslaves the mind more than psychoactive drugs,
• Benumbs human creativity and resourcefulness thereby
• Restricting the development of the human potential and capital.

It is the main cause of poverty of the mind and underdevelopment of third world countries as its side-effects are indolence, redundancy, laziness and dependence of finished products and services. In the final analysis, it is the predisposing factor to lack of initiative, debilitating ignorance, fetish belief-systems, abject poverty and perennial ill-health. Perhaps its only advantage is that it makes the polity docile and amenable to the whims and caprices of their oppressive leaders. Often, it hoodwinks its adherents into believing that ‘The God’ or ‘the gods’ they worship speak to them through the voices of their egocentric clerics who therefore can conveniently exploit them to satisfy their demonic desires of sensual pleasure and inordinate ambitions of amassing wealth. Their wanton indulgence in gluttony, wine and women is seen in every action and definitely this is the foolproof evidence of their demonic genealogy.” ( Dr Kenez 1991)

From the Animator’s Introduction to Integrational Spiritan Movement I S M Manifesto

SEE APPENDIX A

To rescue humanity from the demonic stranglehold of idolatry that now predominates worldwide, you are invited to reason along with us and see that we provide an everlasting cure for sensual lust for food, wine, sex, wealth and power that are the trademarks of a society heading for damnation! Are you going to sit on the fence and wait for another failed experiment in Messiahship that was riddled with myopic and ethnocentric bias? Who knows the Creator well enough to declare that he has ‘a chosen people’? Where is the evidence that Moses actually led the so-called people out of any oppressive regime? The history books and modern encyclopaedia did not record the enslavement of the Jewish race except as ‘they were believed as revealed truths’. Then Moses, who was brought up in an Egyptian royal court went on to introduce the first and most heinous dichotomy in racism; JEWS and GENTILES! The negative impact of that first categorisation of humanity gave birth to all the nepotic, apartheid and racist policies in the entire world.

There is a plethora of ancient and modern major world religions. In each, there are factions, sects and denominations. It is syncretism galore! The name of the game is “join our own, ours is the one prospering for now!” It is a religious market. It is a mad world. Many nationals all over the globe are smarting under the colonial yoke of Roman Catholicism or Islamism. The intriguing aspect of this brand of neo-colonialism is that it brews dogmas and doctrines that propel fanatical members to kill or be killed in the name of ‘God’. Religious fanaticism or mysticism is a religio-psychiatric personality disorder that has never been classified by any DSM and so has never been diagnosed and managed as other psychopathological conditions that present in health services all over the world!

If you care to join us in a sanitation exercise that will guarantee a better future for your children, then come and witness the development of religion from time immemorial to evaluate its subjugation to man-made doctrines, dogmas and modes of worship that are irreligious. Thereafter, we can seek for solutions as proposed by the computer-age integrational fellowship; INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT, abbreviated thus: I S M. This medical scientist, pragmatic researcher and existential therapist, is proposing that we scrutinise all the religious and ethnocentric prejudices that had enslaved many children right from birth, who were born into their parents religio-cultural practices and were never given the freedom to search for objective methods of relating to their maker and other humans. Can you join us to make this feasible? 

  

………………………………………….……Rev. Prof. J. J. KENEZ (11^th Nov. 2009)

CHAPTER TWO

A SAMPLE OF HOW IMPORTED FALSE RELIGIOUS LIFESTYLES HAVE DESECRATED OUR TRADITIONAL SANCTITY; MORES, NORMS AND ETHICAL VALUES

Where I was born, we have this local saying; ‘He who does not know where the rainfall starting beating him, will never know where it stopped’. Another warns; “A rat that joins a lizard in playing in the rain, to remember that when the lizard is dry, it will still be wet.”

In my culture, one does not interpret proverbs. I dare do so for my readers who are non-indigenes of Igbo land; both idioms imply that anyone who does not know who he is or where he is coming from will definitely not know where he is going! The words of the elders of my people of Biafra are definitely words of wisdom. They can write a doctoral thesis with just an idiom or a statement of the fact with a simple analogy!

Let’s look at these: The bat is totally blind and is neither an animal of the sky nor of the land! The bat is neither a bird nor a rodent for it hasn’t any feathers yet it flies! And though it has the anatomy of mammals and a skin with furs it neither crawls nor runs on all fours, yet it feeds like birds, amphibians and rodents! The bat says he knows how ugly it is, so it has resolved to fly only at night! What a tragedy! These unreverend men and women should emulate the bat!

There was a time when Catholic Reverend Fathers and Reverend Sisters on missionary services in this country were really admired, respected and idolised! That was in my teens when the Late Bishop Shanahan was still an ordinary priest! Rev. Fr. Bindel was the Parish Priest of Ihiala, then a very large area extending as far away as Emekuku, Orlu and Oguta! They rode long distances on Hercules bicycles carrying out their evangelistic duties. They trekked most of the time and made converts by using the very few semi-literate natives as their interpreters!

These interpreters were later promoted to Catechists and soon wielded much power! They taught pagans catechism classes in the vernacular language and only those they certified as having passed their examinations were baptised. They stood between every catechumen and the sacraments of baptism, confession, confirmation, matrimony and even the irregular reception of the Holy Eucharist! You could neither see any Rev. Fr. nor receive any of these sacraments without greasing their palms! No girls or women ever came close to the parish houses, not to mention having handshakes with any priest!

The Rev. Sisters wore sparkling ankle-length white gowns and their head-gear with a tall hood and overflowing veils covered every part of their heads except for just the outline of their faces. I never saw their ears! To us little urchins at the turn of the century, they were angels. After all the pictures in our catechism classes were made of white skins. They were all white women. We never dreamt that we would, in later years, have our own black sisters and daughters qualified to become Rev. Sisters. No one ever imagined that a black skinned woman could ever be dressed like these white angels. These angels were our earliest teachers, nurses, midwives and doctors. They ran the few mission schools and hospitals that were then in existence at Ihiala and Emekuku. We adored and loved them for their motherly care but, at the same time, we hated their injection needles!

We were told that both the priests and nuns were virgins. It was even rumoured that they had no sexual parts to their bodies. They were ‘castrated’ was the naïve belief that made the rumour rounds then! We assumed that the nuns had neither breasts nor large buttocks like our mothers and aunts! How were we to find out? The priests were covered all over with their flowing white soutanes that they never put off in our presence. “Did they ever urinate or defecate?” we wondered! I never saw any of them in short knickers although I was a mass server for several years at St Martin’s Parish, Odo-ata Ihiala, now in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State. In addition, we never saw the ears, necks and feet of the nuns. During clinical attendance they wore gloves, so we were partially denied seeing their hands and fingers. “Did these ladies know how to cook?” we pondered!

That the priests were chaste and the nuns, virgins, were assumed! We never saw the priests and nuns chat together, hug each other or stroll along any road side by side. They were discreet and circumspect. They were conscious of their vows of celibacy and public image knowing that they were continuously being watched day and night. So, they never scandalised us nor gave us the chance to suspect them! That was in the early 1930s and 1940s. We gradually began to notice that many nuns went on leaves that were termed “annual” and understood why some others that lasted beyond twelve months were termed “sudden”, “casual” or “sick.” Soon, our own sons and daughters were admitted into seminaries and convents. By the 1950s, some were ordained and professed respectively. This first set never scandalised us! We never suspected that they could lower the standards set by these missionary white angels! That was before the Nigeria-Biafra civil war that lasted from 1967 to 1970.

• The wind blew strongly so the hen’s anus was clearly seen by all!

All that changed as the scales fell off our eyes. Our religious blinkers were forcibly removed by what we saw during the civil war at the few Caritas Feeding Centres that we naturally located within the parish premises. We saw a lot. Some printable, others not whisper-able! Promiscuity was the mildest term for describing what the refugee women described as own contributions to the war effort! Our clergymen and women were the butt of their sexual exploits as relief items like stockfish, egg-yolk and milk were exchanged for amorous relationships. Some wore the glamorous foreign dresses donated by CARITAS & WCC that were meant for homeless refugees that left their wardrobes behind!

• “Have they also eaten the forbidden fruit” was the mildest joke about what we knew was happening at our local parishes. There was a conspiracy of silence by all the culprits!

The war unmasked everyone. Today, my ten-year-old niece knows that priests are anything but celibate! Most mass servers can swear that beside heterosexual indulgence involving widows, married and unmarried women in our parishes, our self-professed celibates clandestinely practise homosexualism and lesbianism! It is no longer news that paedophilia is the scourge of the Catholic clergy in the United States of America. Nor is it news here in Africa that our own brothers and sisters, ‘self-proclaimed celibates’, have secret wives and husbands with their illicit children tucked away in remote villages and the dark alleys of streets in our urban areas!

Even among our Protestant communities, legally married pastors indulge in adulterous relationships without any qualms of conscience. Prominent television evangelists are now caught pants down at brothels. In the Catholic hierarchy, most of our so-called celibates, males and females, are not only promiscuous, but revel in homosexual and lesbian relationships. Some are pathological Casanovas and Nymphomaniacs! Hell is let loose as most of the demons there are now living in our parishes and convents. It is more of a rat race than an epidemic! There seems to be gold, silver and bronze prizes reserved for those who excel in this sexual revolution among our celibate community!

In addition, no one wants to be left behind to pick up a bronze medal! Some have secretly fathered children and are using church funds to maintain them. The female celibates go on the pill or commit abortion monthly, dilatation & curettage being their favourite option! Others build houses and sponsor their concubines in tertiary educations. The ‘been-tos’ among them send their girlfriends overseas for summer holidays. Others receive and entertain their white girlfriends, right here in Nigeria!

No one seems to be bothered by this anomaly. Recently, however, some local ordinaries were forced to set up special diocesan tribunals to investigate some of the reports they received from parishioners who were/are the victims of this immoral revolution! Some married women have lost their husbands to some pretty and sensuous Rev. Sisters! Equally, some members of the C.M.O, whose wives have been snatched by vivacious and amorous Rev. Fathers, are also complaining. Who can redeem us from these demonic onslaughts? In the mass media, one reads about kidnapping; which many have re-named “MAN-NAPPING’ considering that most of the abducted are ADULTS not KIDS! Was that ever heard of in the days of yore? That was only possible in epochs of inter-communal wars or slave trade, both of which arrived with the white-man’s settling down and establishing foreign administrative structures and their legal systems. Wife snatching, rape, abortion, nymphomania and all other sexual sins; contraception, oral sex, homosexuality and lesbianism came in the wake of aping the white man’s romantic behaviour that the youths watched on videos and television screens. The acceptance of confessions and the ‘sacrament’ of penance worsened an already degenerating moral decadence!