PREACHING WATER AND DRINKING WINE

PREACHING WATER AND DRINKING WINE

The ‘Crucified’

No one living in our world today, needs convincing that poverty crucifies its victims. It comes mostly in the lack of access to basic needs like food, water, health etc. Little wonder then that the poor are, sometimes, referred to as “the crucified.”
There’s no denying that in our country the majority fall under this seemingly condemned category. The Church says it has a preferential option for the poor. It preaches the Good News. But what is Good News to a crucified people? Put another way; what does the Church do, when the dominant economic and political structures worsen, instead of alleviating, the plight of the poor?

This May, as we celebrate Labour Day, the workers day, we critically examine the Church’s role as an employer, and get a glimpse of significant insights into the church’s labour force.

A Call to Restore Dignity for all

To be incarnate, the Church must enter the conflict-ridden, messy path of history on the side of the poor, no matter what the cost. Among those who understood this, was the late Archbishop Oscar Romero, brutally slain in March 1980 by the repressive regime of El Salvador in Central America, because he stood with the people against persecution and repression. Archbishop Romero found in the suffering of the people a source of grace and a path to consolidate his fidelity to Christ’s call. He believed the poor are a sacrament that can transform our lives if we take part in their journey. What is the call of history if not to respond to the cry of the poor? The real call of history is the restoration of dignity for all.

The people of El Salvador called Archbishop Romero the entregado, the one who has given up his life to the people. His tragic end reminds us of the costs of real conversion from social conformity to the demands of truth and Christ’s call. They’re costly and often lead to the cross. “Some want to keep a Gospel so disembodied that it doesn’t get involved at all in the world it must save... Christ is now bringing about a new heaven and a new earth,” the archbishop said.

The Church as an Employer

Today, looking within the “wounds of the people,” one hardly finds representatives of the Church. Yet the political dimensions of the Gospel are undeniable. Miriam, a young lady in Nairobi, has been working as a guard at one of the main Catholic institutions for the last 3 years, earning a salary that can barely sustain her. She must pay her fare to and from her place of work, settle her bills including house rent, water and cater for her food from the meagre earning of Ksh. 5,000 per month. She neither has health insurance nor entitled to any other benefits. How does one make ends meet with Ks. 5,000? “I have learned to live on bare minimums; I had to get a one room house on the outskirts of the city where I could afford to pay 1500 per month including water. My room has no electricity, so I use candles because I cannot even afford paraffin for lighting. I skip lunch everyday, it is beyond my reach and at times, I have had to walk long distances to cut down on my fare and to be able make it through the month.” This is Miriam’s sad tale.

Sounds deplorable, unimaginable? Picture another case: Peter, a Catechist in one of the parishes in Nairobi, works 7 days a week 12 months a year. He takes home Ksh.10, 000 a month, with no other benefits. He has a family of 6, two of his children are in secondary school, and the rest are in primary school. His wife, a housewife, depends on him for everything. This is the lot of many lay workers in the church. But, are workers at other cadres any better within the church system? That is, certainly, debatable.

Food for Thought

In a new book on ministerial formation in Africa today, a lecturer at Tangaza College in Nairobi quotes a student who dismisses off hand the church’s commitment to the poor. “It is actually, the poor who have made a preferential option for the church, since it is they who support the church with their little incomes!” Preferential option for the poor is a principle of Catholic Social Teaching which urges Christians to give the poor priority.

In a sense, the student’s comment is ignorant, cynical or even anti-church. Across Africa, there are many people living today who would be long dead had the church’s compassionate hand not reached out to them with food, water and medicine. Very many other people would be illiterate, unskilled and jobless. The church (including the many poor Christians who support various initiatives with their talents, time, prayers and little incomes) is present everywhere on the African development landscape. That said, the student’s assessment is, however, illuminating. It offers food for thought when one looks at the church not only as a community of believers but also as an organization whose performance and management style must be critically evaluated.

Is it a Case of Exaggerated Whining?

At a recent Eastern Africa workshop in Nairobi, Catholic scribes raised the issue of their working conditions. “Even as the church preaches justice and peace, paying just wages and respect for basic human rights, most of the professionals working in church organizations are dejected and unable to make ends meet,” a Malawian Catholic journalist said. How true is this allegation? A Kenyan journalist with a church media house once told me that the church generally seemed to expect lay people to work for it without pay. Another worker wondered what sense it made for churches to engage in year-round charitable activities when their own workers were practically starving. Exaggerations, perhaps, but it is undeniable that there is a high turnover of employees in church institutions.

A former church worker told me: “Your church boss thinks your salary is just for you alone. He never considers that you have many obligations to family and relatives and that you have ambitions.” In the past week, I have separately heard from two dejected church employees (without going out to look for them for this article). They described how they are fed up with their little salaries in addition to the suffocating management style at their workplace. They no longer enjoy their work and only turn up at the office every morning because they must stay alive. They are desperate to leave.

No Workplace is Paradise, and, yet…

Well, it is doubtful there is a workplace under the sun where all employees are living their career dreams. But people expect the church to be a better employer than the government or private business. After all, churches are not motivated by profit or praise but by love of service. And they need no tutorials on how to value the human person. Of course, there are practical limitations. Church organizations in Africa are mostly dependent on overseas donations and cannot pamper their workers. But this is no reason to pay people peanuts. Income generation to finance mission activities has not been adequately explored. Plus, one look at some of these church leaders lends little credence to that beloved sob story about lack of funds.

For the sake of an argument, why would a donor organization within the fraternity of the Church set up a management system that fully appreciates their workers, compensate them reasonably well according to the prevailing professional standards and at the same time fail to impart the same ideals of worker management to the recipients of it donations? The funded agencies run programmes where workers are treated like beggars, notwithstanding their professional qualifications and experience.

Poor Management Practice

But perhaps, most frustrating of all for lay professionals in church service is the awful management. Today, organizational leadership is a skilled task requiring high levels of training and attitude change. Only a competent, open-minded and fully engaged manager can lead a team of professionals to not just deliver targets but also find personal satisfaction in their work. In the market driven secular world, employer- employee relationships are governed by the capacity to deliver, professionalism and open accountability. Workers are given the opportunity to participate in decisions making and so are bound by the same decisions.

Yet one still finds outdated, stifling practice in church institutions, where theological training is all one needs to be appointed head of an institution or department. Many highly competent and conscientious lay professionals are frustrated by this glass ceiling. It would be hypocritical of the church to preach justice and peace, and proclaim a preferential option for the poor, while every evening its own workers return home to their families sullen and unsure of tomorrow. The church needs their skills and enthusiasm for effective evangelization. They should be compensated adequately.

Are we the Authentic Church?

If the Church is apostolic, to whom is it sent? If she’s Catholic, why is she so often parochial and defensive? What does it mean to preach liberty to the oppressed? If speaking truth to power is not Jesus Nazareth’s message, then what is? If the Church does not involve herself in the socio-political world, how will she disperse the Grace to people of good will?

The Church is, obviously, losing in the realm of evangelisation because it has not taken to heart its pastoral response to the structural faults of our world. There’s an overriding necessity for justice for the majority that she is not passionate enough about. Our times cannot afford a situation where the Gospel is nothing but a taming tool for the people to accept the structural sin of modern systems. The Church needs to stand and not only defend those within its fold but also give them the necessary means to be true witnesses to the love of the resurrected One.

Religion is the most radical message of freedom this world has ever seen, for this very reason, the Church needs to go beyond mere speak and put the liberating message to use. Archbishop Romero saw it thus: “A Church that tries to keep itself pure and uncontaminated would not be a Church of God’s service to the people. The authentic Church is one that does not mind conversing with prostitutes and publicans and sinners, as Christ did, and with Marxists and those of various political movements, in order to bring them salvation’s true message.”

And the Church is not only structures and representatives, but its people also. Her role, beyond saving souls, is to give the suffering redemptive meaning, and a new impulse for hope.