THE Roman Catholic Head of the Archdiocese of Namibia, His Grace Liborius Nashenda, on Friday evening activated an excommunication order on a Diocesan priest who was serving a Khomasdal congregation.
The excommunicant, Father Gert Petrus has been at the centre of allegations involving witchcraft and prior to his excommunication some members of his congregation have even been engaged in physical, street fights. The church has been immersed in a lot of controversy triggered by the excommunicated priest, the first to be excommunicated since 1896 in the church's history in Namibia since the first missionaries arrived over a century ago.
Following deliberations of a church meeting presided over by the Archbishop himself, laity and the other top brass of the church hierarchy, the overall and supreme church leader in Namibia reaffirmed a canonical letter of expulsion of November 25 of last year for Petrus.
The meeting took place in the church hall of the Saint Mary's Immaculate Conception Cathedral in central town, with a sizeable demonstration of the faithful who were not part of the delegates allowed inside in the background. Needless to state, the demonstrators, numbering about 100, vehemently criticised the Archbishop's decision, and were in "sympathy" with the sacked priest.
Essentially, the excommunication order carries with it, first and foremost, the directive that Father Petrus may not celebrate any of the holy sacraments such as baptism, marriage or even more so, Holy Communion. The excommunication means he is officially excluded from participation in the sacraments and services of the Catholic Church.
"I am under penalty", the affable cleric confirmed to this writer, still speaking from the church house residence whose church doors were placed under lock and barrel already in October last year.
At Friday evening's meeting for the faithful, parishioners were advised to sever all links with the beleaguered St Mary's Khomasdal Church and instead worship at surrounding Roman Catholic churches until further notice.
Bad blood between the Archbishop, who belongs to one of Roman Catholicism's more conservative holy orders of the OMI (Order of Mary Immaculate), and the academically well attuned and a doctoral scholar of Lateran University of the Holy See in Rome, is no coincidence of "yesterday", church insiders said.
A specialist in Canonical Jurisprudence, Father Petrus had applied to complete his doctorate at Urbaniana University, Rome, in 2003, but because of the nature of the relationship between superior and subordinate, the ideal never materialised, church intelligence have it.
In an unreserved interview Father Petrus permitted, he agreed that it was the case that because of his order of obedience he took at ordination, the Archbishop was lawful in his orders to him as subordinate and that it was, likewise, lawfully expected of him to respect and execute such orders.
But the guilty party was quick to point out and explain: "The Archbishop is obliged to follow the Code of Canon Law and I have the right to be judged in accordance with Canonical Law; and further that no Canonical penalties be inflicted except in accordance with Canonical law. This is an in-built right."
Archbishop Nashenda is the first in the history of the church in Namibia since its establishmnent in 1896 to invoke the power of excommunication to a sitting priest in the country's second biggest church after the Lutheran Church. The Anglican Church comes third in the country.
Explaining to the level of a layman, Father Petrus mentioned the [hypothetical] case of a private commanded by his general to shoot someone even when, on prima facie grounds, shooting would have been most wrong. He respected and loved his Archbishop, but it remained his learned opinion that church law would support his failure, nay refusal, to disobey upon appeal - to the papacy in the Holy See, in this case.
Going into preparations immediately after the meeting to travel to rural Aminius in the Omaheke for the ordination of Deacon Lukas Mosemedi as priest, His Grace was not able to grant a spot interview with this paper. A senior assistant of the cleric tendered an apology.
The Catholic Church in Namibia, relatively little known in the hierarchy circles because of its lack of a Cardinal on account of its low population of below 10 million, has suddenly sprung to prominence with the expulsion, church analysts said.