Chimamanda Adichie,
award-winning author, has detailed what she described as her alienation from
Catholicism.
She reaffirmed her reservations on Catholicism in Nigeria in an essay on
‘Fratelli Tutti’, Pope Francis’ encyclical.
Adichie had, in January 2021, explained why she stopped
attending Catholic churches in Nigeria. She had also criticised the community’s
activities as being “too much about money, fundraising, and thanksgiving”.
In her latest piece, Adichie said she first recoiled from the church when a devout couple in her ancestral hometown was banned from communion because their daughter got married to an Anglican.
“As a teenager, I
wore my Catholic identity like a favorite dress, joyfully and reverently. I was
raised Catholic, on the campus of the University of Nigeria. We attended a
love-filled church run by the Spiritan congregation,” she wrote.
“I was a self-styled Catholic apologist, arguing
passionately with the protestant children in defense of such subjects as the
Blessed Virgin Mary, tradition, and transubstantiation. Years later, something
changed.
“My pious passion withered. I remember my first moment of
recoil from the church when a gentle and devout couple was banned from
communion because their daughter had married an Anglican.
“It felt to me not
only uncharitable but unnecessarily so, as did other subsequent incidents, such
as poor people who were refused burials because they owed money to the church.
“These happened in my ancestral hometown, in a provincial
parish far from the university campus where I grew up. But after the Spiritans
left, an uncharitable chill also descended on my university church.”
Adichie claimed women were often harassed and made to feel
uncomfortable.
“Women of all ages were often harassed, men barring their
entry into the church unless they wrapped themselves in shawls to hide their
shoulders and arms (which apparently would cause men in the church to sin),”
she added.
“Entire homilies were
dedicated to the wiles and evils of women. How unsettling to sit through Mass
feeling as though one, simply by being born female, had become inherently
guilty of a crime.
“My alienation deepened; I had become a person in a place
that my spirit had outgrown. Even if I attended Mass from time to time, it
brought no meaning. And I’ve come to believe that meaning is what makes life
worthwhile.”
‘We begged, negotiated for date’ — Chimamanda faults
church’s handling of parents’ burial
In June 2020, Adichie mourned James, her father, who died of an illness for which
he was admitted to a hospital. Ifeoma, her mum, would also pass away — eight months later —
leaving the family in yet another round of grief.
In her essay, the author faulted the Church’s handling of
her parents’ burials, saying her family had to beg for dates.
“My family’s experiences during my parents’ funerals served
to reaffirm, if not renew, my reservations about the Nigerian church. So much
could have been handled with compassion for the grieving but was not,” she
said.
“So many opportunities to show dignity were left unused. Our
communication with the local church was more of an exercise in priestly power
than anything else; we begged and negotiated for a suitable funeral date, with
exaggerated but insincere deference shown to the priest lest he changes his
mind and not agree to the funeral.
“At the Thanksgiving Mass – a strange concept, as giving
thanks was the last thing I felt like doing a day after the funeral – my
siblings and I were seated in the front pews, all wearing purple, my mother’s
favorite color, all still in shocked disbelief to have buried her so soon after
my father.”
‘Catholic priest
trivialised my mum’s death with criticism amid funeral’
Adichie said her grief-immersed self was shocked when the
parish priest, standing at the altar, issued a rejoinder during her mother’s
funeral in response to her criticism of Catholicism in Nigeria.
“I was immersed in sadness and didn’t realize right away
when the parish priest began to criticize me about a press interview I had
given a few months before. In that interview, I spoke of the church’s focus on
money,” she said.
“I have seen church doors locked to prevent people from
leaving during fundraisings. I watched a priest announce his account details to
a funeral congregation and then prance about the altar, phone in hand, waiting
for alerts.
“After the interview, there was both criticism and support
of my views. But I had not given that interview any thought in months. I was
shocked by the parish priest standing at the altar and issuing a rejoinder,
during my mother’s funeral, in terms so petty and so ill-timed as to trivialize
the crushing enormity of her death.”
Towards the end of her piece, she advocated churches where
giving isn’t backed by threat or fear of embarrassment. The author also called
for a shift away from what she termed the church’s “relentless prioritizing of
law over love”.
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