| Stealing from the Church | Send to a friend |
| Saturday, 28 August 2010 21:31 |
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In matters of faith, very few questions, if any, are asked about accountability. People have always trusted in total their religious leaders and laymen, and nobody ventured to show concern about transparency the way they do in secular platforms. However, no social situation is static and today, it may not be entirely surprising to see churches, mosques and other institutions of worship increasingly coming under pressure to account for their activities. The mushrooming of evangelical ministries, coupled with the noticeable changing lifestyles among members of the clergy and members of the churches inner circles, is gradually attracting public interest and scrutiny. Time is clearly running out for clerics who have traditionally taken their flock for granted. Take the issue of the sadaka, that is, offerings given during masses and prayers in houses or gatherings of worship: how many of the faithful know how the money therein collected is spent? Who dare to challenge their priests, pastors or sheikhs to account for every coin dropped into the small padlocked boxes, baskets are plates taken around the congregation for cash collection meant for God? Put differently, how many religious leaders care to be transparent about the expenditure of the tithe and offerings? Or better still: how many are keen to involve their faithful in the management of the funds collected? One man, however, is ready to take on the challenge. Using his own experience in Zanzibar, Mr Joaquim Mascarenhas told the Sunday Citizen in an interview done via email that he hoped his decision to speak openly would help to trigger a wider debate on what he sees is a creeping problem of theft of offerings by those entrusted with safeguarding them. Mr Mascarenhas, an Indian citizen married to a Tanzanian woman from Zanzibar, was on holiday in the Isles last July when, according to him, some 50 Omani Rials (Over Sh195.000) in offerings to St. Joseph's Cathedral went missing from the Church. One Omani ‘rial’ is equivalent to Sh3950. “On July 25, I attended mass and put RO (Omani Rial) 20 plus RO 50 in the offering box, but was shocked to find out the following Sunday that only RO 20 was announced, meaning that RO. 50 vanished in the hands of those in charge of the collections,” said Mr Mascarenhas in his first communication with the Sunday Citizen. The Roman Catholic Church usually announces to its congregation every week the amount of cash raised on the previous Sunday, which includes stating the kind of currency offered. This is meant to ensure transparency. Eager to establish the truth and determined to correct the anomaly, Mr Mascarenhas who works in Oman, said he immediately took up the matter with the priest in charge of St Joseph’s Cathedral, Father Evaristus Mushi. “I came to learnt that theft of cash, which include foreign currency that is actually money offered to God by the faithful is often misused,” he said. When reached for comment, Father Mushi was not categorical over the Sunday Citizen request that he confirms or denies whether he had received such complaints, but wished not to discuss the matter publicly. He only said any concerns raised about the Church could only be addressed within the confines of the church and not in the media. In Dar es Salaam, Father Titus Kachinda, the financial controller and acting secretary general of the Tanzania Episcopal Conference, told the Sunday Citizen they had no information on the Zanzibar incident, even though he said nothing could be ruled out. “In our church, we normally use laymen to collect offerings and afterwards a committee comprising two persons or more is tasked with counting the money before it is deposited with the bank. From there it is harder to draw the funds, the process is long and it involves several people.” “So I’d say it is very difficult for such things to happen in our church because of the system we have, though I don’t rule out the possibility that these things could be happening,” said Father Kachinda. Mr Mascarenhas says that urgent steps need to be taken, which would include carrying out investigations, so as to root out the siphoning otherwise contributors might be discouraged. Some church officials and behavioural specialists have given various reasons why theft of offerings in places of worship may be getting rampant. Father Kachinda says it largely depends on individual church system. “I would also say it depends on someone’s faith, but then, it is difficult to verify an individual’s level of faith since it’s something very personal.” Sometimes, he says, the people who serve in churches are faced with difficulties and fall into temptation. “But we’ve to admit also that it’s difficult to tell the motive of people who dip their fingers into church cash. Probably, there could be some who purport to be serving the church while they’re actually there with ulterior motives.” For his part, the Tanzania Assemblies of God (TAG) Pastor Huruma Nkone based at the Victory Living Centre in Dar es Salaam, says there has been very little done to verify the level of integrity of people recruited to serve in the church. “Theft of offerings is there and one way to curb it is to ensure those who are appointed to handle church money are persons of integrity, persons whose backgrounds are known,” he told Sunday Citizen. Ms Jacquiline Mgumiye, a Sociology and Anthropology lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, agrees that life’s difficulties could be a factor behind some of the cases. “Most ushers don’t have full time jobs, and the church uses them on full time basis. Maybe the church needs to service them too. They need to survive,” she says. She says further: “In the past, the church used to offer services to the people, but of late, modern trends show that churches don’t do that, instead, they collect more and more from people.” Ms Mgumiye says faith can be tested in times of need and also points to the fact that other motivations other than faith could be driving the mushrooming of churches. “We should ask ourselves why churches are mushrooming all overt the place. Is it because the country is suddenly awash with believer? There’re concerns about personal gains,” he says, adding: “The question is: how does the church socialise people to become faithful church servants? It takes time; people need to be transformed, instead of the practice of allowing people to join the church as believers today and suddenly making them servants.” “The church we’re talking about needs to be put into context. In the past churches gave us identity, they would even write an introduction letter prior for one’s admission to school, and it would feel great identifying oneself with the church, so it is true the church is changing, if you go to some places in Europe, what used to be church places are now discotheques,” the lectures explained. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
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