Torit, 20 February, 2020 / 4:06 am (ACI Africa).
At the closure of the weeklong Annual Diocesan General Assembly meeting last Friday, February 14, Bishop Stephen Ameyu of the South Sudan’s Torit Diocese cautioned members of the clergy to guard themselves against disposing of Church property.
“No one has a permission to sell any property of the Church, whether it is movable or immovable, unless through a permission,” Bishop Ameyu said and clarified, “The land of the Church belongs to the Church as a whole. Even as a Bishop, I have no right to sell any single land of the Church, I have to ask permission from Rome in order to sell the land.”
In an interview with ACI Africa correspondent in South Sudan about the directive, Bishop Ameyu whose last December’s appointment as Archbishop of Juba was met with resistance through defamatory letters signed by some clergy and lay people, said he meant to caution the clergy in his diocese.
“Many of our priests elsewhere have always decided as they want, to sell cars, to sell even land. I gave the directive to caution them against such acts,” the South Sudanese Prelate told ACI Africa correspondent Tuesday, February 18 and added, “We have had incidences of priests selling cars without permission from the Bishop, from the ordinary.”
Asked whether selling of Church property could have been occurring in his jurisdiction, the 56-year-old said although he did not have reports yet to that effect, “we must be strict and we must follow the Canon Law if there are problems.”
