Roman Catholic priests in the Central African Republic returned to their flocks on Thursday as they ended a strike over the Vatican's decision to appoint a new archbishop without their opinion.But the priests said they remain opposed to the Vatican's decision to appoint Dieudonne Nzapa-La-Ayinga as interim archbishop of Bangui to replace Paulin Pomodimo, who resigned Tuesday. Subsequent reports said he was suspected of sexual affairs.
"Masses and all sacraments resumed this morning, but the battle continues with the same demands," said priest Mathurin Paze Lekissan, spokesman for the Central African diocesan clergy, adding that they had suspended their strike to avoid "depriving Christians of the divine word and the body of Christ."
Lekissan reiterated that the strike launched on Wednesday was not directed at Nzapa-La-Ayinga, who had a good reputation locally, but rather at the lack of consultation by the Vatican ahead of his appointment.
There was no comment Thursday from the papal nunciature -- the Vatican embassy in Bangui -- or the new archbishop.
But a news agency that deals in clerical affairs on Thursday quoted Vatican sources as citing "insurmountable problems" in Podomino's ministry and that of another departed senior cleric, linking both men to possible affairs with women.
The agency, i.media, said that the former archbishop and another senior cleric were "reportedly suspected of frequenting women and having children."
The chancellor to the archdiocese of Bangui, Father Brad Walter Mazangue, announced Podomino's resignation effective from Tuesday, without giving further details and declining to say whether the Vatican had asked for it or whether the former archbishop had stepped down voluntarily.
Mazangue simply said that he had sent a letter of resignation to the Vatican.
Pomodimo's departure follows the equally unexplained resignation of the bishop of the northwestern town of Bossangoa, Xavier Yombaindje.
i.media said that according to Vatican sources, Podomino and Yombaindje had resigned "after insurmountable internal problems in the management of their dioceses."
The departure of both men came in the wake of a Vatican mission to CAR in March by Father Robert Sarah, secretary of the Church's Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.
While in the poor, landlocked African country, Sarah chastised priests "who lead a double life" and urged those in such circumstances to abandon their ministry.
Some Centrafrican priests condemned these statements, saying that their ministry was under attack in a denigration campaign within and outside the country.
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Source (AFP)
SV (ED)