Today we unroll the drums for Matthew whose other name is Hassan, son of Kukah. The young man of Anchuna, Zangon Kataf, heard the Call and, abandoning all, embraced the priestly commitment of Obedience and Chastity. How can a bright boy abandon the world when he has everything at his feet? Wonderful are the ways of the defeated Creator.
Hassan grew in knowledge and determination, making a personal confession to always speak the truth to one and all in pursuit of the ultimate law: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love - didn't the Master himself reduce the ten commandments to one - love of God and neighbor? From December 19, 1976, when he was ordained a priest of the Catholic Church to date, Kukah has had a positive impact on society by demonstrating that religion can be a tool for development, understanding and social engineering. .
Call him Militant Priest and you won't be wrong. A critical analysis of Kukah's interventions as a public intellectual confirms the truism of the words of Franz Fanon: "The future will show no mercy for those men (and women) who, possessing the exceptional privilege of being able to say of truth to their oppressors, took refuge in an attitude of passivity, silent indifference and sometimes cold complicity. Kukah won't be taken on the wrong side of history.
Its main stage is the pulpit. His incredible gift of chatter sometimes annoys those in temporary power to the extent that they ignore the message and attack the messenger. Don't the scriptures teach us that "a prophet is not despised except in his own country" (John 4:44).
The great Cardinal Wojtyla (later Pope John Paul II) defined prophetic mission as the Incarnate Word – “expressing divine truth in human language.” The Church must necessarily participate in this mission within the framework of its responsibility towards the Word. of God. For, as stated in Proverbs 12:19,
"The lip of truth will be established forever: but a lying tongue is only for a moment."
However, speaking truth to power has consequences, some of which could be fatal. Those who accuse Kukah of playing the gallery every time he intervenes in the public space ignore the fact that it is infinitely more beneficial for the cleric to sing Hallelujah Choruses in praise of temporal power than to criticize those who are at bar. A look back at three religious figures from elsewhere shows that Kukah's activism, though fraught with all sorts of inconveniences and insults, is part of a priestly tradition. Indeed, it comes with the territory of spreading the Good News and the need for man to stop being a beast to his fellow man.
There was an Anglican Archbishop in Uganda who spoke the truth to the brutal dictator, His Excellency, President for Life, Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, Lord of All beasts of the land and fishes of the seas and conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in general and Uganda in particular, LLD (honoris causa).
Archbishop Janani Luwum was assassinated by Amin's henchmen on February 16, 1977 for demanding that Idi Amin put an end to extrajudicial executions, political repression, corruption and persecution ethnic.
Today we unroll the drums for Matthew whose other name is Hassan, son of Kukah. The young man of Anchuna, Zangon Kataf, heard the Call and, abandoning all, embraced the priestly commitment of Obedience and Chastity. How can a bright boy abandon the world when he has everything at his feet? Wonderful are the ways of the defeated Creator.
Hassan grew in knowledge and determination, making a personal confession to always speak the truth to one and all in pursuit of the ultimate law: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love - didn't the Master himself reduce the ten commandments to one - love of God and neighbor? From December 19, 1976, when he was ordained a priest of the Catholic Church to date, Kukah has had a positive impact on society by demonstrating that religion can be a tool for development, understanding and social engineering. .
Call him Militant Priest and you won't be wrong. A critical analysis of Kukah's interventions as a public intellectual confirms the truism of the words of Franz Fanon: "The future will show no mercy for those men (and women) who, possessing the exceptional privilege of being able to say of truth to their oppressors, took refuge in an attitude of passivity, silent indifference and sometimes cold complicity. Kukah won't be taken on the wrong side of history.
Its main stage is the pulpit. His incredible gift of chatter sometimes annoys those in temporary power to the extent that they ignore the message and attack the messenger. Don't the scriptures teach us that "a prophet is not despised except in his own country" (John 4:44).
The great Cardinal Wojtyla (later Pope John Paul II) defined prophetic mission as the Incarnate Word – “expressing divine truth in human language.” The Church must necessarily participate in this mission within the framework of its responsibility towards the Word. of God. For, as stated in Proverbs 12:19,
"The lip of truth will be established forever: but a lying tongue is only for a moment."
However, speaking truth to power has consequences, some of which could be fatal. Those who accuse Kukah of playing the gallery every time he intervenes in the public space ignore the fact that it is infinitely more beneficial for the cleric to sing Hallelujah Choruses in praise of temporal power than to criticize those who are at bar. A look back at three religious figures from elsewhere shows that Kukah's activism, though fraught with all sorts of inconveniences and insults, is part of a priestly tradition. Indeed, it comes with the territory of spreading the Good News and the need for man to stop being a beast to his fellow man.
There was an Anglican Archbishop in Uganda who spoke the truth to the brutal dictator, His Excellency, President for Life, Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, Lord of All beasts of the land and fishes of the seas and conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in general and Uganda in particular, LLD (honoris causa).
Archbishop Janani Luwum was assassinated by Amin's henchmen on February 16, 1977 for demanding that Idi Amin put an end to extrajudicial executions, political repression, corruption and persecution ethnic.
Bishop Matthew Kukah
