AFTER OWO CHURCH MASSACRE: WHAT NEXT?

It is time to draw up contingency plans for the protection of worship spaces, writes John Segun Odeyemi

On Friday, June 17, 2022, a good number of people either joined by zoom, live TV coverage or were in in-person attendance at the funeral mass of 40 persons who were massacred at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State.  They had gone to mass on Sunday, June 5, the solemnity of Pentecost.  While not offending anyone, while performing their civic, religious and natural human rights to freedom of worship, assailants came in and opened fire on defenceless worshippers.  While this is not particular to Nigeria, we have seen Churches, synagogues, mosques shootings around the world.  However, within our own climes, the attack on Churches, Christian clergy, and Christians is beginning to add up.  “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck!” We must at this point stop being delusional and call it what it is; either state sanctioned massacre or a jihad by Islamic extremists – or both acting in synergy.

Watching the funeral mass of 40 people whose caskets were laid out in the auditorium where the event took place, evoked a sense of despair and frustration with a country where the value on its citizens’ lives worth nothing to its political leaders.  I am convinced beyond doubt that the killing fields of our country has become business as usual for those in the highest ranks of our polity.  Their aloofness, callousness and lack of empathy daily emboldens the various groups emasculating the nation.   When the entire apparatuses of state for defense totally collapse, then you can agree with the governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Akeredolu, “we (government) have failed to protect our people.”  Here is the very core, the central question to be asked after identifying the problem; if the government is no longer able to, unwilling to, incapacitated to, protect us, the people, how do we protect ourselves?

This question straddles the very pronounced pacifist ethics of the good news of Jesus and perhaps, what can be described as the retaliatory religious favor of the Zealots. Fundamentally, I think that as a nation, we often shy away with confronting difficult questions.  We seem to huddle behind a religious facade of “do no evil to anyone”, when we need to formulate intelligent ways of protecting our lives and properties from charlatans, scoundrels, murderous and heartless marauders, with no milk of human sympathy bent on program and genocide.  In the homily of the day at the funeral Mass of the slain innocents, Bishop Emmanuel Ade Badejo, Catholic Bishop of Oyo Diocese in a theological and intelligent expose led the congregants to reflect on the meaning of the suffering of Christ and a Church that must necessarily be willing to face persecution too.

 He however asked, “How many more must die?  Bishop Badejo goes on to state, “But to surrender to faith is not to surrender to bestial brutality.  Our Christian faith, strong as it is, is thoroughly tested when we remember that the massacre we have just faced is not an isolated case and that we see little on the ground to indicate that it might be the last.  It has been a long bloody list, always growing over the last 30 odd years.”

Bishop Badejo will go on to make the comments, “In the Catholic Church teaching there exists a moral principle and right to self-defense which does not mean aggression and it is justly mitigated by public security.  Life is God’s most precious gift and by that token, it must be defended in the face of unprovoked aggression and imminent danger to life.  The authentic Christian is pro-life.”  In the forgoing statements, the Bishop of Oyo postulates two fundamental theological and ethical questions that arises from centuries of Catholic intellectual tradition; the Just War Theory and The Ethics of Pro-Life Movement.   On these dual propositions, we can locate a true Christian response to how Christians ought to respond to violent and mostly unprovoked aggressions.

Historically, the “just war tradition”, deals with the proposal of a body of rules or agreements that have been applied to various wars across the ages. The just war theory in Latin: bellum iustum refers to a philosophical and theological tradition, of military ethics, theological postulations and the ethics of policy making to ensure that a war is morally justifiable through a series of criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. These criteria are split into two: jus ad bellum – “the right to or morality of going to war and jus in bello – “the moral and right conduct in war”. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the greatest proponent of the just war theory, asserted that it is not always a sin to wage war. According to Aquinas, there are three requirements needed to situate a just war: First, that a war is waged upon the command of a rightful sovereign. Second, the war needs to be waged for a just cause. Thirdly, warriors must have the right intent, namely to promote good and to avoid evil.

In the contemporary teachings of the Catholic Church, The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), paragraph 2309, states the four conditions for a legitimate response to violent aggression; one, that the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; two, that all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; that there must be serious prospects of success, and four, that the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.  The Just war theory combine a moral abhorrence towards war in all ramifications, however it gives room to a moderate, human and just response to violence and aggression in the pursuit of self-preservation.

The ethic of Pro-Life movement in the Catholic Church, also known as the consistent ethic of life or whole life ethic, opposes abortion, capital punishment, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Some adherents oppose war, or at the very least, unjust war. This is an ideology that is based on the premise that all human life is sacred; it is relevant to a broad variety of areas of public policy and should be protected by law.  

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from the moment of natural conception to natural death.  Because each individual human person is created in the image and likeness of God, each person enjoy both divine and natural rights to life, liberty and freedom.  Therefore, it is egregious and morally reprehensible for anyone to take the life of another.  Not even the state has that power outside of the judicial system where the state has already signed into law, capital punishment.

From the foregoing, it is a moral duty imposed on everyone to defend one’s self and protect one’s life. 

For the Christian Churches in Nigeria, the time is right to draw up contingent plans for the protection of our worship spaces.  (This may apply to Mosques and other religious spaces that may be possible targets for attack.)  Christian leaders, this  is a call to action. 

We have to find creative ways by which we will no longer leave ourselves vulnerable to be slaughtered.  I have witnessed first-hand, when bomb threats became common in some Churches in the North Eastern parts of the United State, Churches having to hire security companies.  It was not unusual to see men with side arm walking quietly in the naves of the Church as worship went on.  I have also witnessed places where able-bodied men are trained in disarming techniques with the use of martial arts.  At this point, since the law does not permit us to carry guns, we can fashion local and handy weapons for defense. The time is now, no more procrastinations or ambivalent thinking.  Let no one think that this is the time for turning the other cheek.  It will be a gross misinterpretation of what Jesus was teaching.  Turning the other cheek is not a requirement for martyrdom or self-immolation.  This is a commandment to forgo retaliation for personal offenses.  The slap is therefore a metaphor to forgo personal insults and not to submit to murderers.  Christians must love, even our enemies.  Christians must forgive; it is what makes the message unique. Christians are also called to be gentle as doves but wise as serpent. (Mt. 10:16) Anyone who has ears let him hear!

Rev. Fr. Odeyemi is of

Xavier University of Louisiana