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Kenya: Churches Have Also Neglected Country's Young People Print E-mail
Written by Henry Makori - CISA   
Wednesday, 06 August 2008
As with every national disaster, the wave of violence rocking secondary schools in Kenya has had no shortage of clever theories, some hypocrisy, and the blame game. Church leaders have been amongst the loudest commentators. But how have the churches discharged their role of spiritual and moral formation of the nation's youngsters?

The Catholic bishops said the violence is "a clear sign of how much our society has deteriorated in values and sense of responsibility." After incisive analysis of the situation, they came up with a remarkable 31 causes of the crisis. So much rot!

On their part, Protestant and evangelical churches, under the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), also spoke of "the breakdown of our social order." Their assessment yielded a modest eight causes.

What all this means, of course, is that the churches, whose mission is to mould consciences by imparting spiritual and moral values, have not done very well. Kenya is a majority Christian nation, do not forget.

Granted, the churches have invested heavily in education by building schools and teachers' colleges and giving other support. But as sponsors, their pastoral presence and influence in these and other educational institutions is wanting.

The Catholic bishops correctly stated that sponsors "are now sponsoring educational institutions only in name. Sponsors must wake up to their responsibilities of moulding the school community into a unit where morals, responsibility and obligations are the most important elements in the education of the child." A better admission of church failure is impossible to get.

But for how long has the church been aware of this? And what has it been doing about it? Some years ago, Prof Jesse Mugambi, a teacher and religion scholar who now heads Starehe Boys Centre, one of Kenya's successful schools, said that church leaders had "retreated to the parishes", occasioning "a serious decline in religious and moral values in schools and colleges."

How much pastoral care is available in schools? Mostly, a church's entire task as a school sponsor ends at ensuring that the head teacher is a member of the denomination and that the students attend important church functions. During the school term, all the head teacher ever does is to make sure the students go to Sunday mass or service.

Outside the school, the church's closeness to young people is equally questionable. The long-serving Consolata missionary, Fr Attilio Lerda, with many years of experience working with the youth, has stated this point squarely. "How often I heard young people complain because of lack of willingness among adults to listen to them, and this even among priests?"

In his book, Problems of the Youth in Africa, Aloys Ojore, a former Catholic seminarian, now deputy director of the Institute of Youth Ministry at Tangaza College in Nairobi, has written: "Africa is slowly but surely being filled with the type of youth who are emotionally fragile, nihilistic, skeptical and cynical about goodness, and less motivated to work for excellence in all sectors of life."

Neglect by the churches is partly responsible for this crisis.


[Mr Makori is the Editor of CISA]
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 05 August 2008 )