Steps Needed to Free the Church from Sacrilege of Clergy Scandal

Some steps we can take to help restore the dignity of the Catholic Church.

For the Ladies

1. Stop entering priest’s room and staying late in the night at the mission house especially when you are alone.
2. Avoid every form of immoral relationship, chats and talks with priests.
3. Learn to dress decently always.
4. Learn to say NO to sexual immorality from priests or lay faithful.
5. Learn to forgive and let go especially the victims.
6. Fear God and stop throwing yourself anyhow around priests.
7. Be careful of unnecessary gifts and offers.
8. Don’t unnecessarily turn mission house to a charity home.
9. Don’t be an agent of destruction.
10. Stop gossiping and backbiting.

For the Guys

1. Do not use your priest’s weakness against him.
2. Stop looking for your priest’s weakness and using it to justify your own immoralities.
3. Stop being hypocritical.
4. Don’t be part of people’s destruction.
5. Always say the truth and stop the eye service (especially altar servers).
6. Stop following priests around because of what you will gain materially, but because you want to learn and grow in the faith.
7. Stop seeing all the devoted girls in the Church as father’s girlfriends.
8. Stop looking for flimsy excuses to leave your Catholic faith.

For Parents/Guardians

1. Be truthful no matter what.
2. Don’t be careless with your children especially the females. Train your child to fear God.
3. Stop talking ill of your priest in the presence of your children.
4. Stop seeing yourself as Baba/Iya ijo whom the priests must obey. Remember they are Christ’s ambassadors.
5. Stop writing unnecessary petitions and stop back stabbing the priests.
6. Be sensitive to your children, listen and ask necessary questions.
7. Act wisely.
8. See the priests as your children at the same time as your fathers.
9. Mothers should show good examples to their children especially their daughters.

For the Priests

1. Stop taking advantage of our trust in you.
2. Stop taking advantage of the innocent ones especially children and young women.
3. Avoid every occasion of sin.
4. Always remember you are Christ’s ambassador.
5. Remember you will account for your deeds on the Judgment Day and your reward will either be Heaven or Hell for all eternity.
6. Remember God’s grace is sufficient for you.
7. Don’t believe solely in yourself but in God whom you have chosen to live for with your priestly vocation.
8. Always remember your priesthood vow and guard your salvation jealously.
9. Remember the devil has come to kill, to steal and to destroy. Be watchful!
10. Remember you are father, leader, servant and shepherd.

Together (Lay and clergy/religious)

1. We should learn to forgive and let go.
2. Pray for priests and the Church as a whole.
3. Focus on God.
4. Guard our salvation jealously.
5. Uphold our faith sincerely.
6. Love, help and support one another in the journey of faith.

Edited by Godwin Delali Adadzie

This is a brilliant article sent to the Editor of CatholicShare via WhatsApp. The original author is likely a Nigerian although he or she is currently unknown. This is because like most articles shared these days on African social media, the original author’s name is not given and the article is credit with the harsh tag #Copied. I don’t know who or where that poor habit of not crediting original authors was learned from. Anyway, the article has been edited for grammar and clarity purposes.