La contaminación de los alimentos

Expectedly, an objective assessment of the catechist-teachers would reveal some negative aspects of their personalities. It cannot be objectively stated that they were all living saints. Certain short comings were observed among a reasonable number of their members

though, some of them towered above all others and share like a million stars. The question then arises, how could this be?

It must be restated here, that owing to the contemporary dispensations, the catechist-teachers had to confront some inevitable debilitating conditions. Their times and circumstances inadvertently exposed them to such challenges as educational, socio-economic, cultural challenges among many others. Often some of them depicted some glaring shortcomings. Thus Ekechi would describe most of them as being half-educated and often misguided and being disrespectful of the age-old Igbo cultural heritage as well as being high handed. (Nwosu 1990). Ozigbo (1988) appears to concur with that when he quotes Fr.

Jordan describing their academic quality, “perhaps the word training” is a little euphemistic, as they really got nothing more than a special daily tuition in religion and English from a Father or Brother with a few demonstration lessons per week on the art of inculcating the 3Rs (p.185).

Commenting on their spiritual quality Shanahan was quoted to have stated that:

A catechist who is not under the watch of a priest is useless. He often does great harm that one is forced to abandon the town where he, the catechist was sent to make God known… The catechists pagan converts of yesterday are formed on the spot. The instructions they receive are only the great truths of our religion, prayers, some hymns with a little reading, writing and arithmetic (p.163).

Perhaps no other incident appears more to depict the negative aspects of the catechist-teachers than the Catechist Revolt of 1903. It was an event that occurred at the Holy Trinity Mission but reverberated up to the Spiritan‟s Mother House in Paris. Fr. Leon Alexander Lejune had just initiated his paradigm shift; a radically new policy that laid emphasis on

taking the gospel to the people in the hinterland, demanding some reciprocations from the beneficiaries of the missions charity apostolate among others. He concluded that the large concentration of Catechist-teachers at the Holy Trinity Mission where there were equally several, fathers and Brother was a wasteful approach. He therefore, reposted some of them to those areas in the hinterland where their services were sorely needed. At least 19 of them rose in revolt inciting the Christians. There were demonstrations and the carrying of placards against Fr. Lejeune‟s person and policies. They wrote a letter of protest containing up to seventy signatures and sent to the Spritians Mother House in Paris, giving reasons why Fr.

Lejeune should be immediately removed. They influenced the writing of private letter to Paris against Fr. Lejeune; part of which read;

Since one year and a half, the Christians are dropping their faith through the bad example of Mr. Lejeune who has no patience or courage… we hope he will be sent away, he is not a “Father” but a man who never has mercy even unto his dog and who always thinks he is right in everything he does (Obi 1985: 93).

Subsequently, so much bad will were stirred up in the mind of the lay faithful Christians against father Lejune. When the dust of this protest eventually settled, many of these catechist-teachers were expelled. Four of them abandoned the Catholic faith; the mission boarding house for the girl‟s was closed, while Fr. Lejeune learnt his hard lessons that will greatly influence his future policies in the recruitment and the formation of the catechist-teachers.

However despite these apparent negativities surrounding the person of the Catechist-Teachers; it must be remembered that not all of them joined in this protest in fact many of them sided with Fr. Lejeune and unflinchingly supported him, just like many of the lay

faithful. In the end even most of them who protested, repented and came back apologetic.

Equally it must be given to the Catechist-Teachers that despite these mistakes, the fact remains that they are human beings and could be prone to occasional imperfections owing to misconceptions and challenges despite their goodwill.

However, the major protagonist and the ultimate implementation of the school evangelization strategy that was solely facilitated by these Catechist-teacher, Fr. Shanahan appears to have really understood this situation, when he summarized it with these statement

“I have not spoken of imperfections, misfits. You know that they exist and will always exist.

But the proportions, is indeed slight compared with the real success achieved (Nwosu 1990 – 55, 56).

In retrospect, it must be said that it is to the credit of these catechist-teachers that ultimately they were able to arise above these debilitating challenges and positively impact on the diverse aspects of Roman Catholicism in Igboland, leaving happy memories in their various theatres of duty.