Abstract
The mammoth crowd witnessed at the Christian religious gatherings on regular basis, generally tagged “Prayer Ministries”, around the towns and cities, goes strongly to confirm the view of scholars of Religion and Anthropology that “Africans are naturally religious”. Religion indeed makes a tremendous impact on the social, political and economic life of the Africans. The alarming rate of rush by people to these Prayer Ministries, to obtain divine favours and miracles from those of their religious leaders, whom they judge to be different from others in terms of possessing spiritual powers and aura of godliness, indicates the great influence that certain grade of leadership has in religion for them. In Christianity as in African Traditional Religion, religious leadership is generally provided by the priests. Against this back drop, this paper aims to highlight the priestly dignity as significant and important as well as symbolic for the Africans’ religious wellbeing. Consequently, while it appraises the priestly dignity as a “value” recommendable to the priestly office, it alerts the priests in the African context of the danger of abuses, manipulations and exploitations susceptible to this dignity. It also proffers a conscientious effort on the part of all towards a re-adjustment of the African Christians’ religious mentality to an authentic Christian faith focused on the triune God.
Highlights
The noun priest refers to a person appointed to perform religious duties and ceremonies in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox or mainstream Protestant Churches
The alarming rate of rush by people to these Prayer Ministries, to obtain divine favours and miracles from those of their religious leaders, whom they judge to be different from others in terms of possessing spiritual powers and aura of godliness, indicates the great influence that certain grade of leadership has in religion for them
In the words of Rausch: Essentially, part of the crisis of the ordained ministry for Roman Catholics is the fact that the one concept which has traditionally characterized the vocation and role of the ordained minister in the Catholic tradition has itself been called into question, namely, the concept of a special, “sacral” priesthood (1992:14)
Summary
The noun priest refers to a person appointed to perform religious duties and ceremonies in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox or mainstream Protestant Churches. With a religious mentality carried over from the familiar African Traditional Religion, priestly dignity is fundamentally, for the African Christians, a cherished religious value and expectation. It is on this backdrop that this paper sets to examine the issue of priestly dignity as a means of enhancing the religious fulfillment of the African persons. It aims at creating awareness to its reality and identity within the spectrum of the priesthood It proffers: first as an advice, a deep spiritual and dedicated way of life whereby, being a dignified person does not conflict with Christ - like simplicity, humility, and selflessness that should characterize a priest, making him to be focused towards leading a people on to an authentic faith in triune God through the journey of earthly life on to eternity. The paper has a noticeable Catholic bias, its allusion and treatment of the priesthood is not limited to the Catholic Church nor to any other particular church denomination
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