Staying on Cardinal Otunga’s road to sainthood

By Lawrence Njoroge

It is now nine years since Maurice Cardinal Otunga, the much-loved Archbishop of Nairobi, passed on. At his funeral Mass in 2003 a speaker at Nyayo Stadium said the late prelate should be declared a saint immediately. A similar call would be heard later in Rome in 2005 at the funeral of Pope John Paul II when admirers of the late pontiff exclaimed that he too should be named a saint without delay.

But the Roman Catholic Church has its own processes and procedures. Its ways of doing things are not hurried. They are systematic, methodical and seemingly slow.

The journey of saint-making follows a rigorous process outlined in an official instruction called Sanctorum Mater (Mother of Saints), issued in 2007.

In that document the process is initiated by the bishop of the diocese who petitions Rome to grant permission to open the cause.

If Rome is satisfied, the process begins and the candidate is given the title Servant of God. The late Maurice Cardinal Otunga has received this title.

Then follows the gathering evidence in support of the candidate’s sanctity. The evidence is both documentary and oral under guidance of an official called a postulator.

In Cardinal Otunga’s case, the process was officially kicked off in 2010 when John Cardinal Njue appointed Fr. Anthony Bellagamba, a Consolata missionary, as postulator to lead a team of 10 experts.

Unfortunately, Fr. Bellagamba died last year. But Cardinal Njue wasted no time and appointed a replacement , Dr Waldery Hilgemann, a Dutch national based in Rome.

But in order to facilitate the process locally the Nairobi Archbishop named Bro. Reginald Cruz, a Xaverian missionary, as vice-postulator at the Cardinal Otunga Beatification Office in Consolata Shrine, Westlands. Working closely with the postulator and his deputy are several key officials including Fr. Callisto Nyangilo and Fr. Patrick Njung’e, priests of the Archdiocese of Nairobi.

Traversing the country, the team collecting the evidence has already visited all dioceses where Cardinal Otunga served in various capacities. The late prince of the Church was secretary to the Pope’s ambassador, then resident in Mombasa (1954-57). Bishop Otunga was auxiliary in Kisumu from 1957-60. He headed Kisii diocese 1960-69 and served as Archbishop of Nairobi 1971-97.

It is now time for the team to hand over the evidence to the local bishop, in this case Cardinal Njue. He will in turn transmit the material documents, called Acts of the Inquiry, to the relevant office in Rome. This stage will mark the closing of the Kenya chapter of the inquiry.

Henceforth the cause will be in the hands of the department in Rome called the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Scene of destruction

Many people have no doubt whatsoever that Maurice Cardinal Otunga was a good and holy man. Any person who knew him will attest that he was humble and pious. But he was also enigmatic, paradoxical and quite mystical.

When Sr. Martin Wanjiru, a nun working in the informal settlement of Kibagare, Nairobi in the 1980s ran to the Cardinal’s office in tears because city council bulldozers had razed the residents’ mud and polythene dwellings, he immediately left his office accompanying the sister to the scene of destruction.

Cardinal Otunga pleaded with the city officials to stop destroying the informal settlement until a just solution was found. He won a temporary reprieve for the residents.

Otunga was a prelate who cared deeply about the earthly conditions in which human beings live.

Peter Muhoho of Riara, Kiambu County, was Otunga’s senior school-mate at Kabaa High School in the late 1930s. Now about 100 years of age, and still of good memory, remembers Otunga as a holy and athletic young man who voluntarily attended and served Mass every morning and was captain of the football team. He says of Otunga, using Latin, a language both knew “mens sana in corpora sana”, a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Many will be waiting eagerly for Rome’s decision regarding Cardinal Otunga’s cause. But even as people who admired Otunga and believe his sanctity wait with bated breath. There is an interesting caution in the 2007 instruction.

“It is prohibited for a Servant of God to be an object of public ecclesiastical cult without the authorisation of the Holy See” (Article 117, 1). But there can be private devotion toward the Servant of God and the spontaneous spreading of holiness and intercessory power (Art. 117, 2).

In Otunga’s case, there is growing evidence that a good and holy man recently lived among us.