When Caesar pampers priests with gold

In his article, ‘When bishops eat your tax’, Tacca’s displeasure and righteous anger are well grounded and well documented. He cites the example of a bishop’s car draining the government coffers by Shs300 million.

And he sets this astronomical sum of money against the stark facts of children in some government schools sitting on bare earth floors; their teachers who earn a paltry equivalent of $100 per month; and the very poor who have next to no healthcare. 

And Tacca is not alone – thank you, Fourth Estate! Virtually every newspaper in its editorials and every opinion columnist in Uganda from time to time addresses our pathetic body politic, particularly its appalling governance record and endemically sick economy.

I have in mind, for instance, the indefatigable pens of my esteemed fellow Monitor columnists: Daniel Kalinaki, Gawaya Tegulle, Philip Matogo, Musaazi Namiti, Charles Onyango Obbo, Dr Muniini K. Mulera, Dr Emily C. Maractho, Dr Moses Khisa, Asuman Bisiika, Nicholas Sengoba, and others. 

Special salute this passing week to Nicholas Sengoba for his article on society and church leaders in Daily Monitor of Tuesday, October 17. In his analytical and sympathetic article, with specific reference to the leadership saga currently bedeviling Church of Uganda Namirembe Diocese, Sengoba points out the undermining economic factors obtaining in Uganda, especially the deeply ingrained corruption in government entities and the country’s partial international isolation over its anti-homosexuality stance.  
[Ah, but apropos of the Namirembe leadership wrangle – and a picture being worth a thousand words – Monitor’s supreme cartoonist, Ogon, on Wednesday October 18 cleverly reduced ‘Namirembe’ (= Place of peace) to ‘Nomirembe’ (= No peace) across a bishop’s ceremonial headgear!] 

But back to/or on to the subject of church and state in Uganda. Scripturally, these two will never, anywhere, be bed-fellows, or equal partners in a profit-making material enterprise.

Needless to point out why Jesus was born in an animal shed littered with dung instead of being born in Caesar’s, Pilate’s, or Herod’s palace.

The same goes for His not riding in a heavenly chariot of fire drawn by heavenly horses of fire on the day of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but instead riding on the humble back of a borrowed donkey.

For sure, poverty among the majority of Uganda’s population is an appalling social curse.

Nevertheless, the way out of this national quagmire will only come via a national political and economic turn-about, call it revolution.

The way out does not lie in the direction of false co-operation between church and State; least of all, it does not lie in the direction of false notions of a ‘prosperity gospel’, as traded by certain peddlers of a narrow gospel of ‘our God who is not poor’; and hence the showy dress code of certain loud and stylish broadcasters of ‘the good news’. 

For the attention of my esteemed fellow pen-smith Tacca, I surmise that a church leader who ostentatiously accepts opulent handouts from the government has already received his reward – on earth. 

And lastly a word on prayer breakfasts. These are sumptuous and loud politically motivated dos in high places. During such shows certain unsuspecting bishops, priests and pastors are irresistibly sucked in by Caesar, as into the belly of our metaphorical elephant.

Postscript: ‘And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray… on street corners… But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who sees in secret.’

Prof Wangusa is a poet and novelist                  
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