Cardinal John Njue, the recently retired Catholic Bishop of Nairobi, is a man who takes years to get angry, even agitated.
But when Fr Daniel Ngure, an incorrigible alcoholic, had ignored every prayer in the book, Cardinal John Njue lost his patience.
Patient and emotionless Njue could take it no more.
The priest, like many do, drunk discretely. But the spirits soon got the better of him.
Worried parishioners first started whispering. It did not take long. The soon murmurs grew into loud anxiety.
Action had to be taken. As they say, the Bishop is the church and the church is the Bishop.
The troubled priest was then head of one of the parishes in the city.
Njue’s biography – Feeling with the Church: Cardinal Njue’s Long service in the Catholic Church – indicates Ngure was his student at Mabanga. From the seminary, he writes, the astute, laid back priest served in parishes in the Nairobi archdiocese.
So when word reached him that a member of his flock was in trouble with the bottle, he listened to the facts and realised “at once, other than being a character flaw, the priest was going through some kind of existential crisis.”
In the Catholic Church, the Bishop is a small god. Njue summoned the priest, but despite the counselling and support that followed, the clergyman sunk deeper into the vice, prompting the Cardinal to take a decisive step.
“He called him back to the office one early morning and told him ‘where we have reached,….I need us to go somewhere,” it reads.
The priest thought he was heading to a retreat. Not quite. Njue, without warning, drove the hapless man to a rehabilitation centre.
Through the process, Ngure says in the book, Cardinal Njue remained merciful and “did not judge me.”
“I will never forget that day….the cardinal listened to me patiently without judging me….I felt loved,” Ngure told biographer Waithaka Waihenya.
When some of his priests were caught up in sex scandals, he would commit them to rehabilitative processes, rather sack them and kick them out of the church. After all who was he to judge.
Njue stepped down from the helm January after being in charge from November 2007. He retired on attaining the mandatory 76 years.
When Ngure got discharged from rehab, the book shows, Njue appointed the priest to be the assistant Father-in-Charge of St. Peter Clever Parish in downtown Nairobi. The appointment letter dated November 29, 2019 instructed Ngure to work under the father in charge.
“I urge you to join a support group that will assist you in your journey to full recovery from alcoholism and maintain sobriety,” he told him in the letter, assuring him of his full backing.
Ngure still serves at the parish “where he has made tremendous recovery.”
But Ngure was not the only case that Cardinal dealt with, the book says, adding that there were worse cases involving priest who, without reason, vehemently resented Njue.
“Fr Ngure was not, by any means the only case that Njue had to deal with concerning priests,” it reads.
There were those who implacably opposed him since he came to the city. One of such, it says, did not even hide his resentment.
“From the day the Cardinal came to Nairobi, the priest made it clear to those who cared to listen that him and Cardinal were not friends. There were a few times they had confrontation but the Cardinal did not apparently take it to heart,” it reads.
Instead of punishing the priest, he ignored him.
Njue writes that when the said father got ill, it was the Cardinal who was first to be at his door to take him to hospital and follow through to ensure he was back to his feet.
“He literally got him out of the house and took him to the hospital and followed up to ensure that the priest was never left alone without medical care and people around him to ensure he well taken care of,” it says.
The cardinal also tells of his experience at the hands of incompetent priests who openly opposed his policies and sponsored ‘toxic’ articles in the newspapers and the media vilifying the prelate.
But when they needed his help, including getting favors from the government, he writes, he gladly stepped forward to help.
“When one of the priests who was known to be opposed to him needed his help to get a posting within the government, the Cardinal gave…very kind and adulatory letter (s).” And the priest got the job.
“He did not fire those perceived to be rebels or even replace them with his sycophants and he kept in office some priest whom others would have fired or demoted.”
At the same time, he promoted some whom others would have preferred to have seen ignored or side-tracked. BY THE STAR