Air-conditioned churches: Hedonism
Pieray Odor
MOST members of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Church or the Catholic Church – including bishops and priests, are behaving like the proverbial fly that follows a corps into its grave because they are imitating Pentecostals whom they should provide light, way and truth for and, hence, win back into the fold that was established by Jesus Christ and intended by Him to be the only fold with Him as the Chief shepherd. This is very unfortunate and worrisome.
Intended by that assertion is that there are very visible changes in The Church now which are not consistent with the holy foundation of The Church. Two of these are hastily said Liturgy of the Eucharist and no “My Lord and my God”. Examples of those that are traceable to Pentecostals are “Tell your neighbour “X”, clap offering to God and excessive demands for money, sometimes with soft threats, tithe, and extortion of money with children. The children are taught to speak at least the three major Nigerian languages and made to beg for money with them. Because they do not normally speak them, the congregation claps for them excitedly. Under the force of the excitement and ego they give money. Clearly, the money is extorted and the children are abused.
Also traceable to the influence of Pentecostals is the materialism or corruption by some bishops and many priests of not caring about the source of the money given, the stratification of the laity based on money and the grading of parishes also based on money. Also noted is razzmatazz during sermons, and excessive or incongruous “Praise the Lord” and “Amen”. The Amen that should be said very loud after the Liturgy of the Eucharist is barely heard. Materialistic songs are sung, women have taken over some of the biblical and traditional roles of men, wear trousers and short dresses which expose their thighs and their chest region, fail to cover their hair, and wear hats that say to men: See me, admire me, be attracted to me, desire me, flatter me, ask me for a date.
These changes are disappointing, scandalous and discouraging. They have caused many Catholics to see no more difference between the Holy Catholic Church and Pentecostal fellowship. Many Catholics have justified moving to Pentecostal fellowships based on these while they are absolutely wrong. They are wrong because of the founding of the Catholic Church by Jesus Christ, the exclusive fullness of God's graces (sacraments) in the Catholic Church, the exclusive preserve of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church, the exclusive right to bound and lose given to the Catholic Church by Jesus Christ, and the exclusive solemn promise by Jesus Christ to be with The Church until the end of time. The last means that Christ is with His Church no matter whatever sin or error the Pope, his brother bishops, priests, and the laity may be said to be guilty of.
A change that is emerging and intended to be discussed in this article is the air-conditioning of parish churches. It is hedonism! Three parishes where this has been observed are St. Thomas More, the University of Lagos, Our Lady Queen of Nigeria – Pro-Cathedral – Area 3, Abuja, and the Church of the Assumption, Falomo, Lagos. I repeat: It is hedonism. It is a modern atheism.
The issue is: Should a parish church be air-conditioned? If “Yes”, why “Yes”? My view is that a parish church should not be air-conditioned. The following are my arguments: The Church as the mystical Body of Christ, the living Christ – that is the form by which Christ continues to live among us and to carry out His redemptive work – and the embodiment of the way, truth and light, is obligated to sustain the virtues that Jesus Christ lived by and left for the church to imitate so that we would, with His grace, become Holy, consistent with his urging: “Be you holy just as I and the Father are holy”. A pilgrim church is not to be enjoying material wealth and sensuous pleasure.
The virtues that Jesus Christ practised which are relevant for my argument against the air-conditioning of a parish church are His self-denial although He possessed all things, His material poverty although He is the source of all material things, His mortification of His flesh although He is God and, therefore, had no need to mortify His flesh, and His bearing silently denials, rejection, flogging at the pillar, crowning with thorns, carrying of the cross, crucifixion, piercing of His side, the denial of Him of water, and death. Who can suffer all these? Who has suffered one of them?
Why should a catholic who undergoes the Stations of the Cross and sees Jesus Christ hanging on the cross in the parish church want an air-conditioned church in order to be comfortable or enjoy some pleasure? Should we imitate Pentecostals who do not undergo the Stations of the Cross and do not have Jesus on the cross in their fellowship houses? NO! The apostles went through sufferings, pains and martyrdom – except for Apostle John – and many of the SMA priests who brought Christianity to Nigeria suffered and died in the course of their evangelism. Therefore who are the masters of the catholic bishops and priests who install air-conditioners in their parish churches? Who are their teachers? Whose example are they imitating? What is priesthood to them?
By the changes that have been noted, including the air-conditioning of parish churches, it should be right to say that the bishops and priests are failing. It should be obvious that they are degenerating from materialism and sensuousness into hedonism, a modern idolatry. The Catholics who are materialistic and hedonistic by imitating Pentecostals, and who rationalise these very serious vices by saying “Christ died so that we may have life and have it abundantly”, also taken from the Pentecostals, should be reminded that the fly which follows a corpse to its grave is buried with it and dies inside the grave. Our vocation is to suffer and be the light and the salt of the earth!
We are to be in the world but not be of the world. Read and note the signs of the end of time in Matthew 24 given by Christ. Note that Apostle Paul spoke sorrowfully about the wolf that would steal and scatter His cheep after he is gone. Does anyone feel that he or she has made enough sacrifice or the required sacrifice because of the money he or she gives? To feel this way is wrong and foolish. The money that we give at mass is not the sacrifice that God delights in. Does God eat, ride a car, live in a house, or need an air-conditioner? God delights in the sacrifice of ourselves, our ego, material desires, pleasures, comforts, and the other material things that bound us to the earth and, hence, hinder or frustrate our spirituality and holiness. He delights in our freedom from sin.
With regards to the questions, the shepherds and sheep of the Catholic Church should recall: “Deny yourself everyday and follow me”, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eyes of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”, “Bear pain patiently because what you suffer now is nothing compared with the reward that awaits you”, and other sayings in the Bible that make the same or similar moral and spiritual demands of us. What discomfort does a catholic suffer during mass because the parish church is not air-conditioned that he should not bear for only one hour or even for two hours? Compare this with: “Can you not pray with me for just one hour?” Jesus asked Apostle Peter. Parish churches should be designed to make air flow in and out of them. Fans should be installed. If there is heat and you perspire bear it as we do in our homes and offer it.
Another thing that makes the air-conditioning of a church wrong is that it promotes and sustains the financial corruption and trade criminality in the oil sector while priests should stop these. By this is meant that the amounts that the parishes spend on petrol or diesel to run their air-conditioned churches and those in the homes of bishops and fathers sustain the criminal earning of petroleum marketers and aid the perpetration of the criminality of denying us petrol and fuel.
The final observation that is made here in respect of the air-conditioning of parishes is that parish priests certainly have excess money and have been corrupted excessively by the excess money. Therefore, either Catholics begin to give less or bishops and priests should use the excess money to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, create jobs to the jobless, give homes to the homeless, care for the sick and carry out other public good activities which make God felt by the people who crave for evidence of His reality in relation to their sufferings and prayers. For a man to be into a vocation that demands sacrifice of him and to live more comfortably than those who give him money is certainly a vice and a contradiction. To be a catholic is to be like Christ; therefore, to live in the materialism and hedonism of air-conditioned parish church is certainly not to be a catholic.
If I were a priest I, certainly, would not have had an air-conditioned parish church or lived in an air-conditioned home because the money spent on petrol or fuel sustains the corruption and criminality of denying Nigerians electricity deliberately in order to maximise profits, wealth and, hence, political control. Bishops and priests can stop these vices; they should stop them.
• Odor, Independent Researcher and Public Good Promoter.