The Priest Who is a Hypocrite (19 December)

After the last post and this one that I am currently writing, many of you might think that I am against religious beliefs. That truly is not the case, but what I do abhor at times is the hypocrisy of some members of churches, especially when the hypocrite is the pastor or priest. As I said in the last post, we had some issues with teaching about condoms in the Anglican church. That point was driven home very clearly when we met the priest. I believe the Anglican church uses that term, even though they marry.

The last day of the class went well. All but one of the students passed the exam and received certificates. It was amazing to hear the number of questions that they finally started asking. Maybe the lecture did some good and drove the point home that they need to educate their village if they want to slow down the spread of HIV.

We typically buy a cake for the graduation and this day was not different. We did have to go into a side room of the church as food, of any kind, is not allowed within the sanctuary. As we were about to cut the cake, the priest of the church arrived to introduce himself. He apologized for not being able to make it earlier in the week, but that he had heard about the wonderful work we were doing for the members of his congregation. Was he the one that nixed our "wonderful work" of condom demonstration?

He went on to ask us if we were good Christians. Mary was sick that day, so I had called Dr. Mohamed to see if he could translate. It was a holy day for Muslims, so I had to pick Mohamed up after the second round of morning prayers. I'm not sure how to describe the look on the priests face when Mohamed mentioned that he was Muslim, but it was not a look of warmth.

He then started leafing through one of the manuals and said, "Oh I did not realize that you were from ICODEI in Kabula." Surprising to hear when he had heard all the wonderful things about the program. He said he knew the people who ran the program. When I asked if he meant the Rev. Lubanga, he said no he just knew his brother Richard. Now if you don't know Reuben Lubanga but do know that he has a brother named Richard something doesn't add up. He went on to say that he was going to have to bring some folks to Richard's program (alcohol rehab). If he had been in any sort of recent communication with Richard he would have known two things. First, a sister Pamela is now running the program. Second, Richard, unfortunately, fell off the wagon several months ago. I simply think the main point was to ignore Reuben because he had chosen to leave the church rather than give up educating people on HIV/AIDS.

He also asked volunteer Mary if she led a good Christian life. She came up with some positive response. When she did that the priest then mentioned that she needed to marry a good Kenyan man.

The whole conversation with the priest left such a bad taste in my mouth, but I figured that it was just me being overly critical. However, when Mary later brought up the fact that the priest was a little creepy (I think that was the term she used), we had a conversation in which we mentioned all of the above.

Why, or how, can a "good Christian" preach one thing one Sunday, yet act completely different in daily actions? Frustrating as it all was, I think that we were able to make a difference with the class. The priest is going to be the way he is, but hopefully some of his congregation will be able to recognize that some things need to be taught in order to protect the flock.