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| Rt. Rev. Dominic Kimengich Bishop of Lodwar |
The Bishop of Lodwar Diocese, Rt. Rev. Dominic Kimengich has strongly appealed to the Local Church in the region to show true solidarity to one another by action.
Speaking to AMECEA Online News in Nairobi, Bishop Kimengich said “It is not enough for people to just hear what is going on in some places and remain unaffected; as much as praying for our dear brothers in hardship areas is important, we need to take action to remedy/alleviate the problem.”
“We are just focusing on our own development, own interests; where is the spirit of brotherhood, where is the spirit of unity and solidarity?” he posed.
Bishop Kimengich whose Diocese of Lodwar has the biggest refugees camp in the country said that currently owing to the ongoing conflict in South Sudan, there are many refugees coming in from South Sudan yet the Church in the region is not doing much to help.
“Our own Christians who live peacefully elsewhere and read about these unfortunate situations in the media ought to do something. We don’t see much, we don’t see people really trying to reach out to these people affected, even to visit them,” he said adding that “Yet these are our fellow Catholics, our fellow Christians, our fellow brothers and sisters who are caught up in such unfortunate situations, and they need us. We talk about being one faith, one Christian family, but where is our action; because faith without action is dead,” he challenged.
Bishop Kimengich said that most of the dioceses in conflict and hardship areas, especially with nomadic and pastoralists communities have been relying heavily on missionaries from abroad for pastoral service. He is appealing for the Dioceses that have more priests, in that spirit of sharing and solidarity to send priests to such places and work as missionaries from our region.
“Diocese of Lodwar for instance is 77,000 square kilometers; we only have right now 10 local diocesan clergy from Turkana area out of 56 the total number of priests. The rest are missionaries from Overseas,” he said.
Bishop Kimengich said that his diocese has been relying on missionaries who are coming from the countries where vocation to priesthood is dwindling. “The local Church must therefore arise and carry out its due mandate on evangelization by coming up with a sort of a plan that involves all the dioceses within the country, in order to respond to the shortage,” he said.
“Evangelization in very much needed in to the nomadic and pastoralists communities. Many of the atrocities committed by these people happen simply because the Gospel has not been preached to them,” he said adding that “I believe that somebody vested with the understanding of the Gospel values will not take a gun and kill an innocent child, an elderly helpless person or any other person for that matter.”
The Bishop attributed the problem of cattle rustling to the negligence of the government to take action seriously. “What you are seeing now is the outcome of the negligence of the government which has been there for years. The issue of marginalization of these communities in matter of education, infrastructures, health facilities and other development strategies has led the people to fight among themselves for their survival.”
He said that this must come to an end. “It is really a shame that something like this is still happening in our country. There are a lot of guns in that area; almost every family has a gun,” he said adding that “It is only the government that can come out strongly and disarm these people.”
Bishop Kimengich said that his diocese has always been working to promote development in a small way. “The government must join us for bigger impact. They must deal with those issues that trigger conflicts in order to ensure a lasting peace in the Turkana area,” he said.
Source: Pamela Adinda, AMECEA Social Communications.