By Kingsley Izejiobi
One of the latest but disturbing trends in fundraising activities in many Catholic parishes in Nigeria today is the “football fans harvesting” or “football fans support” within Mass.
This is a situation where the fundraising organisers call parishioners to come out and donate money in the name of their favourite football clubs, mainly the European football clubs.
It is disturbing because each time this football fans support is sought, little attention is given to the decorum that is supposed to accompany a highly spiritual exercise like the Holy Mass.
Those who come out to donate in support of their football clubs, openly replace the right way of greeting the congregation in a Mass, with the chant and slogans of the football clubs, an action which most times changes what should be an atmosphere of prayer to that of spectators at a football stadium.
It is important to emphasize that the Church needs money, and both the Code of Cannon Law and the scripture supports that there should be material contribution in support of the house of God, the Church.
Cannons 1260 and 1262 makes it explicit that the Church should call for fundraising, according to the guidelines of the Bishop’s conference and the faithful are obliged to obey.
Also, in the scripture, Prophet Malachi encourages the faithful to bring into the house of God food, and let there be enough in the house of God and see if God will not open the havens and pour out in abundance His blessings on the people.
Most Catholics on social media platforms, especially Whatsapp, must have seen the video done by our revered father of the Church in Nigeria, His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Arinze, in which he spoke about the place of dance in the liturgy for the church in America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
According to him, the cultures of each of the above continents are different, and as a result of that, dance may be permitted in some cultures within the liturgy, while in others, it is a capital NO, because the dominant cultural practice there does not agree that dance is an act of worship.
In the same vein, in Nigeria, football is not an act of worship
He also went further to explain what the Mass is meant to be, with an acronym; “ACTS”, which means Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving and Supplication. He insisted that, if any activity at Mass does not tend towards the “ACTS”, it means that such activity does not have a place in the liturgy.
He also said that the Mass is not and will never be a place where people come to enjoy and applaud themselves, as if they are in the auditorium or in a football or sports arena.
Football is one good example of an activity that is not an act of worship and should not in any way come into any part of the Mass. The invitation of donors during the mass according to their favourite football club is rather a distraction.
According to Patrick Paul Udoh of the Department of Theology, Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary, Onitsha, Nigeria, “The Catholic Church raises fund mostly through annual harvest thanksgiving and bazaar, project Sunday, special fundraising for particular projects”.
Surprisingly, in many parishes in Nigeria, in the name of fund raising, the Church in which all who are baptised in Christ have one identity, are often divided along the ethnic lines, and like the football fans, the permitted greetings within the Mass and any other liturgical gatherings are replaced with tribal and ethnic chants.
The need for funds in the work of evangelisation cannot be under estimated, but any pattern of fundraising that is not in line with the characteristics of the Mass, which is adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication, should not be encouraged.
The segmentation of the congregation for the purpose of raising more funds for the Church is rather a sign of failure on the part of the people to accept their responsibilities to the Church.
Canon 222 states: “Christ faithful have the obligation to provide for the needs of the church, so the church have available to it, those things which are necessary for divine worship, for works of apostolate and of charity, and for the worthy support of its ministers”.
This makes it clear that the task of caring for the ministers and building of the Church is resting squarely on the shoulders of the members of the church, so it is the failure of the faithful in this regard that has given rise to all manner of abuses of the Mass in the name of fundraising.
Why should a genuine and committed Catholic wait to be cajoled before he or she will make his financial contribution towards the upkeep of the church? Why should he or she only make contribution because a foot ball club is mentioned? Why should donations be made on the basis of tribe and geopolitical zones?
The failure of many faithful to adhere to the provisions of Cannon 222 is the basic reason for the Introduction of football fans and geopolitical zones in the Church’s fund raising activities and it is rather unfortunate.
The Mass is a high spiritual exercise, and football fans are not prayer groups or pious organisations, neither are geopolitical zones, ecclesiastical provinces. So their adoption for the sake of fundraising is rather an aberration.
In the words of Cardinal Arinze, those who are thinking about music within the liturgy for the church in Europe and America should use that time to be reciting the rosary or reading one of documents of the Pope on the Holy Eucharist, in the same vein, those bringing in football and geopolitical zones in to the liturgy for the sole purpose of raising funds should be properly catechised because football to our liturgy is what music is to the liturgy in European and American Church.
There is nothing the faithful have that has not been given by God, so within the approved means of contributing to the spiritual and temporal good of the church, the faithful should make their contribution according to their means without desacralising the liturgy.
The Priests like Christ, should be firm in warding off the agents of aberration at Mass, the priests should be able to teach the right things to the faithful, say to the people, just the way Jesus said to those who were following him in the scriptures, “unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you will have no life in you”.
Donations in the Church is not a favour to the priest or the Church council, but a show of responsibility as a member of the body of Christ.
The priest or the Church council will never ask for donations for something that is not a part of improving the divine worship for the faithful.
We cannot compromise the sanctity and solemness of the Holy Mass just to raise funds for the temporal good of the Church. Whenever mention is made of football, what come to mind are not holiness, righteousness, adoration, contrition, thanksgiving or supplication, but excitement and exercise of the body strictly for physical well-being.
Football is a good exercise for the body and the excitement is good for football lovers, but the Mass and other liturgical celebrations are exercises for the soul, so the mixture of the two is not the ideal.