We’re the bran muffin of journalism.īut you know what? We change lives. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. ![]() Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.” My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. “Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. A new, much lauded 2010 constitution has devolved power and offered greater protection for human rights, emboldening civil society.Ībout a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”: In January, after Congolese security forces killed several people who were protesting a potential delay to elections, leader Cardinal Monsengwo Pasinya issued a statement declaring “Stop killing your people.”īut in Kenya, the mantle as opposition voice has been passed on, says Father Okello. In May it denounced his plans to hold a vote, withdrawing from the electoral commission and giving the political opposition a legitimacy boost.Īnd in Democratic Republic of Congo, which is also heading into a contentious election, the Catholic Church has supported protests against President Joseph Kabila’s own apparent bid to cling to power. In Burundi, plunged into a political crisis when President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for an unconstitutional third term in April, the Catholic Church has been a vocal opponent of Mr. Some bishops speculated it was birth control in disguise.īut elsewhere in the region, the church continues to play a political role. Of late, perhaps the most controversial thing the church has done is oppose Kenya’s polio immunization campaign, saying the vaccine hadn't been properly tested. Now, two presidents and a new constitution later, Kenya has no shortage of avenues for civil dissent, and the Catholic Church is focused more on ideology and less on politics. “When the pope came that time, the church was very strongly political, it was walking hand in hand with opposition leaders,” says Father Stephen Okello, a philosophy professor at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa and the coordinator for the papal visit.Īfter Moi left office in 2002, the church’s former opposition allies became the new political elite, and the church emerged as a government ally. Moi’s resignation at a time when speaking out against the president invited arrest and torture. Under his 24-year rule, the Catholic Church, known as a steadfast provider of social services, became one of the only avenues for dissent. As Pope Francis brings his message to Kenya this week, he is visiting a Roman Catholic Church whose role in society has shifted dramatically since the last papal visit.Įach of the three times Pope John Paul II came to Kenya – 1980, 1985, and 1995 – the country was in the iron grip of President Daniel Arap Moi, who clamped down on free expression and criminalized opposition groups.
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