Nairobi, 11 October, 2019 / 3:33 am (ACI Africa).
In a country where structures have been put in place to enable the government of the day to provide for its citizens the needed services including health and education, members of religious orders and societies of apostolic life have been cautioned against the temptation to become Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
“The Holy Father says of the Church and religious congregations that we have to be careful that we do not slip into being an NGO that we only speak of structures and services,” Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya and South Sudan Archbishop Hubertus van Megen said Tuesday, October 8 during the 50th anniversary of the Religious Superiors Conference of Kenya (RSCK).
“However good they (structures and services) might be, at the end of the day it's all about the cornerstone on which our life is built; on Christ himself and from there everything becomes and returns,” Archbishop van Megen explained.
In an interview with ACI Africa on the sidelines of RSCK jubilee celebration, the Nuncio clarified the temptation on the part of religious orders to become NGOs saying, “There is a tendency at times not only to take over language, which is used within the NGO world but also the thinking.”
In this case, he continued, “there is a temptation to become a functional society which up to a certain point loses its Christian identity and Christian inspiration.”
