How Ndingi helped priests with celibacy

By Joe Kiarie

Throughout the four decades he served as bishop, emeritus Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki regularly underscored the significance of celibacy among Catholic priests.

Often speaking at length on the subject, the archbishop was categorical priests should keep the vow of chastity.

But details have now emerged of how Ndingi handled cases involving priests who broke the vow, believing the Church should not be denied services of good priests because of the "sin of the flesh".

The most striking case involved Ndingi trying to convince a young priest who sired a child with a nun against resigning from the ministry.

The story of Ndingi’s encounters with Father Peter Mbuchi in the early 1990s is detailed in his biography: A Voice Unstilled: Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki.

Mbuchi was stationed in Nakuru and had many disciplinary problems since his seminary days. It all started when he was a seminarian in Nyeri, where he was accused of leading a strike in the seminary and was expelled.

Irredeemably spoilt

But his spiritual advisor, Father Remigio Dalsanto, believed the young man should not be let out of the seminary just yet.

Dalsanto called up Ndingi in Nakuru and explained the situation.

"Let me see the young man" Ndingi is quoted as having told the priest, ignoring a letter sent by a rector that damned Mbuchi as spoilt to irredeemable levels.

Mbuchi finally met the bishop in Nakuru and telling his story for close to an hour says he heard his senior say: "This is my candidate".

This gave the seminarian new lease of life as he was instantly accepted back at the Diocese of Nakuru.

"From there on, Ndingi and Mbuchi were one," the biography notes and quotes Mbuchi saying: "I believed my personality and his danced to each other".

When he was finally ordained priest, their closeness flourished and, Ndingi sent for Mbuchi when he wanted anything done. It is said the priest executed Ndingi’s will and plans almost faultlessly.

Got pregnant

But a new scenario unfolded around 1990 when Mbuchi developed some intimacy with a nun, Mary Gertrude Kasiva. The relationship blossomed and the nun got pregnant.

When Ndingi learnt of the relationship, he sent for the priest and discussed the matter openly, with Mbuchi saying he wanted to quit priesthood on account of what had happened.

But Ndingi looked up in deep thought, then looked at the priest and said: "Yes, you have done wrong. But you are not the first one to fall into that kind of problem. You are still a priest".

Determined to save Mbuchi’s priesthood, Ndingi sent him to a remote parish in Mombasa.

But the relationship between the priest and Gertrude continued, and Ndingi got to know about it through his "perfect intelligence network".

"He called him for a chat and Ndingi encouraged him to leave the woman and continue with his vocation. He could see the will in the priest yet there was a weakness that prevented him from acting", says the biography.

Mbuchi later went to America to create a distance between himself and Gertrude, but none of that was working and a defeated Mbuchi felt he had to quit.

"There was no way I was going to abandon that woman," Mbuchi says.

But despite all this, Ndingi still believed Mbuchi should not quit. And when Mbuchi finally wrote to the Vatican asking to be laicised (relieved of priestly status), Ndingi felt betrayed. He went through a period of turmoil when the priest quit.

Lost a son

"It was as though something died in him. It was as though he had lost a son," Father Francis Mirango, who was an assistant to the bishop recounts.

Mbuchi was eventually granted laicisation in 1994 and married Gertrude in 1999.

The archbishop is on record as having once told rectors, that "a priest remains human and is beset by temptations like any other Christian" and that "he is liable to fail and to fail badly".

"St Peter was not removed from among the 12 after he denied Christ," he once told an audience of rectors.

Father Patrick Kanja says many priests have Ndingi to thank for the way he bailed them out in their hour of need.

"Ndingi was especially helpful to those priests whose vocations were threatened and who sought help from him. He never condemned. He tried to help," Kanja says.