The Metropolitan Catholic Archbishop of Abuja Diocese, Most Rev. Ignatius Kaigama, has stated his position on the face-off between Rev. Father Ejike Mbaka and the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.
Kaigama reminded the Spiritual Director of the Adoration Ministry in Enugu of the Canon Law 285.
The law prohibits the clergy from engaging in anything that is strange and unbecoming to the Catholic clerical state.
Kaigama spoke to the media on Friday at a conference on the 2021 World Communications Day celebration.
The bishop said Mbaka, being a catholic priest took an oath during his ordination which reads: ‘I promise obedience and respect to you my local ordinary and your successors’.
Kaigama noted that the oath Mbaka publicly took, like other priests, remains valid till he dies.
The bishop insisted Mbaka must abide by what the Catholic church teaches and stands for.
Citing the Canon Law 285, Kaigama said priests are “prohibited from embarking on anything alien to our clerical status and what the Catholic church teaches us, we are not allowed to dabble into politics.
“It doesn’t mean we can’t be prophetic in condemning criminality and corruption, we can do that, that is a prophetic mission.
“Partisan politics is not part of our calling. If a clergy embarks on such unbecoming and foreign conduct, the church has a solution and the church knows what to do.”
