You’ve neglected the education system: President Kenyatta blasts the Church

 

President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto today attended the burial of the Late Archbishop Emeritus John Njenga at the University of Nairobi.

Speaking at the funeral attended by political leaders and other Catholic faithfuls, President Kenyatta said that he had the opportunity to know Archbishop John Njenga almost all his life. The President eulogized him as a man of humility, great humor and dedication to the service of God and to the service of man.

“I have had the opportunity to know Archbishop John Njenga almost all my life. He was a man of humility, a man of great humor, a man dedicated to the service of God and to the service of man, not just to satisfy their spiritual needs, but also their human needs,” said  President Kenyatta.

 

 

 

Archbishop Emeritus John Njenga will be laid to rest at a special place created recently at the Holy Family Minor Basilica in Nairobi.  The late Archbishop will be bureid in Nairobi as per his wish and not in Mombasa, the archdiocese he led for 17 years.

According to Fr Willybard Lagho, the vicar-general of the Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa, John Njenga cannot be buried inside the Holy Family Cathedral like Bishop Cornelius Korir who was buried inside the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Eldoret in November 2017 on the ground that, a bishop is only buried inside a church if he dies while in office.

His  burial site will be a crypt, a room under the floor of a church where bodies are buried at the Holy Family Basilica. Fr Lagho said the crypt is outside the cathedral, but within the building’s compound.

“The special crypt was constructed a few years ago by the clergy of Nairobi, who wanted to have special graves for bishops. It has several spaces for the burial of bishops and archbishops and even a cardinal. He happens to be the first to die after the crypt was created,” he said.

 

 

“The honour of burying him outside the Basilica is given to him by the Archdiocese of Nairobi led by Cardinal John Njue. In honour of his pioneering as a clergyman who rose to the ranks of an archbishop and who chose to be buried in Nairobi, the fitting place is the Cathedral,” he added.

Fr Lagho also said that the archbishop will be buried in full Bishop’s regalia that includes a mitre, an alb, a stole, a pallium and a shepherd’s stick among other items as is the tradition of the Catholic Church.

Archbishop Njenga was ordained as a priest on February 1957 making him the first indigenous Kenyan to reach that milestone in the entire archdiocese of Nairobi. He later retired in 2005 as the Archbishop of Mombasa.

Archbishop Njenga died at the age of 90 at Nairobi’s Mater Hospital on November 4.

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