Bishop Natale Paganelli
Roman Catholic Diocese of Makeni,Northern Province Sierra Leone
Dear Bishop Natale Paganelli,
2022 the year of Takeover of the Diocese of Makeni from Foreign Missionary Imperialism
My name is Anthony Karim Kamara, both a former Parisioner and Diocesan member of the Diocese of Makeni but currently living in Canada.
The purpose of this open letter to you is to offer you my thanks and appreciation on behalf of all our parishes and Diocese of Makeni for stepping in into the shoes of Bishop Biguzzi not really as legitimate successor accepting the position of ’Locum Tenens’ of our Diocese to calm down the violent unrest which shook the Makeni community about ten years ago in the Diocesan premises of Makeni on the eve of the ill-fated and unfortunate and above all, illegal attempted imposition of a succession bishop from another diocese following the retirement of Bishop Biguzzi who actually connived with other bishops to impose that unknown successor from nowhere upon the people of Makeni. The people of the Diocese stoutly rejected that surreptitious recommendation as you are well aware and the conspiratorial selection by the now retired traitor bishop was aborted. I’ll be frank to say that Bishop Biguzzi was a shame and disgrace and the Judas of our diocese in Makeni. Never did it occur to anyone in the diocese that we had a shepherd who did not like his flock.
However our people rejected that choice at the time and still reject it today and will reject it tomorrow. Rtd Bishop Biguzzi took the Diocese of Makeni for granted and the diocesans gave him a fitting send-off which will continue to rankle in his mind for the rest of his life.
European missionaries came to Africa after the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, brought us the message of a White Jesus with blue eyes, a young man they taught us was the son of God, the spirit God even though the mother of Jesus Christ had an old man as husband. White missionaries condemned all the deities of our people, taught us about two imaginary places of reward and punishment after death, the reward they labelled as Heaven while the suffering they called Hell only to continue to subject Africans to the same old white supremacy and domination in their own land. What was worse, European missionaries introduced idolatry worship in all their places of worship in the form of statues as representing their canonised ’holy’ European men and women of God who they worship with reverence and called ’saints’ an honour reserved for their white missioinaries. Hence every Roman catholic church bears the name of a saint.
But the Jesus the Roman Catholic Xaverian missionaries brought to Northern Sierra Leone did not even have a building called a church because that White Jesus was born poor, grew up poor, and died poor and buried like a poor man and nowhere in the New Testament is a church of Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ used to pray throughout his life without a building called church , Europeans came and started building churches and started asking our poor people for Church offerings and tithes, monies used to sustain the European missionaries, buy them luxury cars, ate the same meals they were used to in their home countries at the expense of the poor African people they came to covert and accept their white Jesus while our native priests remain poor to this day.
Following the Makeni crisis, Bishop Biguzzi had to be invited to Rome to explain what led to the upheaval and returned with a bogus explanation that you Ag Bishop Paganelli had accepted to be acting Bishop for no more than two years to calm down the situation in Makeni, according to a confidant of his handpicked Bishop’s Council members in Makeni, after which you would resign to allow the people of the diocese to make their own episcopal choice. But this has not happened and instead you calmly confirmed yourself as the new bishop. Sorry Bishop Paganelli, our people are no longer ready for this; you will agree with me that you have made your welcome wear out and are no longer welcome to extend your stay in our diocese. We are sick and tired of European missionaries going to continue telling our diocese what to do in church matters. We are tired of European missionaries domination and our years of servitude in Africashould noe end. This year, we are going to end your rulership over our people. Notify your Holy Father in the Vatican about this ’notice’ to quit. In all West Africa, nowhere do we still find catholic churches headed by White missionaries except in Sierra Leone, a very humiliating situation. We will end it this year and no later than the end of June. I am calling on our native priests and the laity to immediately cease genuflecting and kissing the ring of the bishop, for that is still the behaviour of priestly slaves to their European missionary emperors.
Bishop Paganelli, you will agree with me that the problem of the Roman Catholic Church throughout history is its ultra conservatism and resistance and reluctance to change and religious imperialism to give a chance to the African peoples you claim to christianize with no willingness to relinquish church authority to the peoples you came to religiously imperialize but instead continue planting yourselves firmly as the rulers of the church in Africa and Sierra Leone in particular.
Let me take you back to European history and remind you of reasons for the break up of the Roman church, following the sale of indulgences by a catholic priest Johann Ulrich Zwingli who was sent to travel all over Europe to peddle ’Indulgences’ for the remission of the sins of the faithful, and the higher one paid for an indulgence, the greater his forgiveness and assured of Heaven. Zwingli’s first place of call was the city of Wittenberg in Germany where a determined German catholic priest Martin Luther vehemently opposed the commercialisation of salvation, because it showed that salvation was for sale and that only those with the means to pay high could go to Heaven while the poor are condemned to Hell fire for their poverty. This is hopeless theology in the Roman church.
In October 31, 1517 in open opposition to Pope Leo, Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five theses against papal indulgences or the atonement of sins through monetary payment on the church door in Wittenberg. The pope issued a papal bull ’Exsurge Domini’ demanding Luther retract 41 of his 95 theses, and when Luther refused, he was proclaimed excommunicated and Luther founded his German Lutheran Church in Germany which has survived to this day. This was the beginning of the ’Reformation’ in the Roman catholic church. England also broke away from the Roman church over King Henry V111’s divorce with Catherine of Aragon. The Roman pope refused to grant dispensation for the divorce to go ahead. As a result the king, Henry V111 declared the catholic church in England independent of Rome and stopped the payment of annates (huge annual sums of money) to the papacy. The English church became the Church of England and the English king became Head of the Anglican Church of England.
About that same time another Catholic priest in Switzerland Ulrich Zwingly became the leader of the reformed church in Switzerland after he broke away and founded the Zwinglian church over the same lust for money by the papacy of Pope Leo. Next in France another catholic priest John Calvin also broke away and became the leading French protestant reformer . Then there were the Huguenots who were persecuted in France for following the teachings of John Calvin. All these catholic priests rebelled against papal authority over the church’s lust for money to this day. The catholic church is probably the only religious institution today with one trillion million assets. It’s no wonder that senior clergy in the vatican loot millions of Euros one after the other like the Archbishop who recently stole 286,000,000 Euros. To cover scandal the theft was in the BBC world news but no effort to retrieve the huge theft. Again some eight years ago another high cleric stole 80,000,000 Euros to renovate his parish.
Bishop Paganelli, to this day There is no church in Africa today still headed by a European Missionary except the Diocese of Makeni in Northern Sierra Leone. Why do you continue to treat our people in this disrespectful manner? You either consider our local native priests as fools because there is so far no agitation by native priests to ask for and end to your rule. The time has come when we take over without any negotiation with anyone. We are going to reform our local church devoid of idols in the form of statues. We don’t need statues. Your departure cannot be compromised.
In Sierra Leone, since the retirement and departure of former and now deceased Bishop of Freetown and Bo,Bishop T J Brossnaham, the church was headed by Rev Bishop Joseph Ganda, and now the former Freetown and Bo diocesses are headed by two native bishops. In total the Southeastern Sierra Leone have a total of four native bishops, while priests like you and your predecessor Biguzzi enjoying the regal status we accord you, hence your reluctance to relinquish power to native priests. We can no longer afford to wait for your own time to go, we now are going to bid you farewell to leave our Makeni diocese this year and no later than the end of June 2022. You may now start your countdown.
Look at the name changes which have taken place in all our foreign missions in Sierra Leone. The former American Wesleyan Church (AWM) with headquarters in Makeni is now Sierra Leone Church Mission (SLC) mission; The American Baptist Mission (ABM) is now the Baptist Mission Sierra Leone (BMSL); The American Methodist Evangelical Mission (AME) is now UNITED METHODIST MISSION SIERRA LEONE.
Bishop Paganelli, We are going to drop the name ROMAN and our church will change to Sierra Leone Catholic Church (SLCC) when it becomes a native church this year. We are not ROMANS like you. Today only the VATICAN remains ROMAN Catholic.
This call to have White missionaries pack out should have been piloted by our native priests but they all seem to be in a trance and behave as if they have nothing worrying them all. It’s surprising to allow this man to serve in that diocese for close to ten years without anyone asking him the date of his departure. We no longer need any foreign bishop whatsoever and therefore it’s time for Paganelli to return home. The native priests must convene a meeting as soon as possible, if they worth their salt and meet Bishop Paganeelli to inform him that they are now ready to take up the mantle of leadership in our diocese. The end of June 2022 should be given as the last month in that diocese.
If Bishop Paganelli wants to delay his exit, let all church doors in all parishes remain closed indefinitely as an act of protest, boycott all church services until he leaves, approach him by mid June to hand over the keys of the bishop’s residence for the incoming and first native bishop and if he shows reluctance to hand over the keys, the people will have no choice but to meet and apply appropriate means to retrieve the keys from him. We will accept no more European bishop or priest in our diocese. After 73 years of foreign missionary influence with a message of Jesus Christ, control of our church’s destiny should now pass over to those native priests in our diocese in Makeni Thank you and good bye’, enough is enough as you say in Italian, ’Basta e’ Basta ’e Arrivederla to you.
We are not going to resort to any act of violence if the bishop cooperates over his exit time to quit. but if he shows signs of delay, we shall tell him to speed up and quit.
A similar letter will be mailed to Pope Francis at the Vatican to show him that we mean business.
Comments are welcome from readers. ( akkram1704@gmail.com)
Note from Editor: Bishop Natale Paganelli (left in photo with the Pope), is also Chancellor of the University of Makeni, north of Sierra Leone.
The writer, Anthony Kamara Snr
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