John Cardinal Njue who stepped down on Monday as the Catholic Archbishop of Nairobi intends to remain active in pastoral work even in retirement.
And if he were to meet former US President Barrack Obama today and a conversation about gay rights came up, he would tell him the same thing he said in 2013, “forget, forget and forget.”
Njue told the Star in an exclusive interview on Tuesday that if given another chance to be the head of Catholic Church in the country again, he would do it the same way: strongly defend conservative family values, reject same-sex relations and be circumspect about foreign developed vaccines.
He is proud of his record, he said. The Catholic congregation has expanded, faith communities have become more self-reliant and communities have become more involved and self-driven in the church’s work, he recounted.
Njue was ordained a priest in 1973 and later served as bishop of Embu. He moved to Nyeri as archbishop before he was moved to Nairobi in 2007 and made cardinal.
With the heavy administrative workload taken away from him, he said, he will have more time to rest. But even on day one in retirement on Tuesday, Cardinal Njue remained busy with rigid schedules.
Efforts to get a face-to-face interview with him failed and even the conversation over the phone got interrupted repeatedly by people he was attending to.
“Meeting is very tricky. It is impossible and I can’t tell you when I’ll be available. If you look at my diary, it is extremely rigid,” he said.
As the interview went on, the cardinal kept his answers short and guarded.
“Do the last one because I have many people waiting for my attention,” he would say.
His retirement means he will no longer do administrative work of the archdiocese of Nairobi whose jurisdiction includes Kiambu county.
“It is not a resignation,” he said, explaining that, “It is a retirement which is guided by Canon Law.”
Njue is 76 years old. His retirement as an archbishop is mandatory according to Canon Law that requires that a bishop steps down upon attaining age of 75 years.
Upon attaining the mandatory age, the church law requires a bishop or cardinal to send a resignation letter to the Vatican. Njue did this in 2019 when he turned 75 but the Pope only accepted it in 2021.
Reflecting on his work, Njue said he has no apology or any regret for his firm stand against decriminalising homosexuality in the country.
Njue hit headlines in 2013 when he sharply rejected a call by former US President Barrack Obama for African countries to decriminalise same-sex relations and marriages.
The American leader was in Senegal at the time in his inaugural visit to the continent. He had chided African leaders to allow homosexuality in their countries.
But Njue, at the time, angrily asserted that Obama should forget about it.
“When did I change my mind on those things [gay relations]? I have not changed my mind and I have no apologies,” Njue told the Star.
He believes allowing gay relations ruins moral fabric of societies and that it is against the biblical teachings, a stand, he says, he has no apology for.
“What God said in the Old Testament about these things [family relations] is very clear. There is no way we can allow those things,” he asserted.
He also maintained his vaccine-skeptic stance, asserting that Kenyans should treat foreign-developed vaccines with caution.
The foreigners pushing the vaccines in the country always have hidden negative agendas, he said.
He, however, said that the Catholic Church was not against vaccines in general but “only questions their sources”.
“When people pretend to be sending help by way of vaccines, you must ask yourself why they are giving it yet they have a hidden agenda,” he said.
“These people have hidden cards under the table.”
His sentiments come in the backdrop of the swirling conversation about Covid-19 vaccines that the government announced would start being administered in February.
Njue led the church in rejecting government-run and WHO endorsed vaccination drives in 2014 and 2015.
Even with him no longer at the helm, he said, the church has a strong institutional policy to guard against “unhealthy and weird vaccines,” he said.