The Archbishop of Abuja Catholic Archdiocese, Ignatius Kaigama, has said that things were fast falling apart in the country, especially the African culture of love and hospitality for one another, strangers and people from other religions. Kaigama, in a homily delivered at Loyola Jesuit College, Gidan Mangoro, yesterday, in Abuja noted that hospitality was one of the core virtues of the African and Christian cultures.
His words: “A typical African family setting believes in the joy of welcoming with open arms and sharing what one has with the other person. Unfortunately, our sense of being our brother’s/sister’s keeper is gradually dying out due to highly individualistic disposition. “In the face of worsening insecurity, it has become difficult to extend hospitality to those we know and almost impossible to welcome those we don’t know into our homes.
The African understanding of hospitality is grounded in the fact that no one exists alone; rather, every individual is part of the whole community. “As a new primary school teacher, I was going to my station for the first time. We crossed a big river by canoe.
And as it was too late, I joined some Fulani Muslim men to trek a long distance to the next village where they brought me to their house. “I was given a mat to sleep on and food to eat. The next day they showed me the way to the next village until I reached my station.
That used to be the mutual way Muslims and Christians treated one another. I am afraid; things are fast falling apart, unless we really recapture our beautiful culture free of distrust and suspicion.”
Kaigama who also raised concerns over the growing expectation of profit or reward for acts of charity, noted: “There is a radical shift in understanding and expression of hospitality today, which is contributing to social ills such as terrorism, kidnapping, increased number of street children, etc.”
