I was interested to read the following letter printed in the Daily Post regarding Mataca's sad decision to join the illegal regime's efforts to force this Charter down our throats, and was reminded to look up the Roman Catholic Church's Catechism. With His Grace Mataca firmly in my mind, I was also drawn to this critique which puts into perspective the unholy path our Church is going down. I do not think His Grace has read this document in a while. I encourage my fellow Catholics to read the critique for yourselves at the followyourconscience.blogspot
Its not too late for Mataca to withdraw from this unholy alliance with the devil Vore. I too pray he comes to his senses soon.Believing otherwise
9-Jan-2008
Archibishop Mataca as co-chair to People’s Charter* Reverend Josateki Koroi is the former president of the Methodist Church of Fiji. The views expressed in the article above are entirely those of the author
THERE are, already, numerous social, political and ecumenical questions regarding Archbishop Mataca’s (pictured below) involvement as Co-chairman of People’s Charter, but there are indeed other moral, ethical and theological questions of particular importance that should be directed to His Grace.
These are pertinent to his statement of involvement with the political movement for building a better Fiji, known as the “People’s Charter”.
To acquaint ourselves once more with his assertions about himself and his deed he said:
* that he is “Priest of God and His church”;
* that he has dedicated his whole life in service for God and people through the Roman Catholic Church;
* that he denies joining a political party, but joined only the “action group” for building a better Fiji with the Interim Governments charter; and
* that he recognises his own decision to join the aforesaid movement has raised eyebrows, caused surprise, disappointment, confusions, pain and mistrust.
My question is, how can Archbishop Mataca assure continuing trust of himself from the general public that he is a priest of God and His church when he is now seen compromised.
His commitment and loyalty should be to God’s call to proclaiming the Gospel. Jesus Christ, Lord and Head of the church ordained and commissioned him as a Priest in the Roman Catholic Church and authorised to go preach this good news of love, peace and goodwill to all peoples of the world.
The result of this good news continues in all different races of all humanity, in all countries of the world (Fiji included).
People have been and are being saved, developed, progressed, reconciled and even moving forward to better futures.
This, despite events such as December 5, 2006, when an overall growth process in all spheres of life from past generations in our beloved Fiji is halting, if not altogether halted or totally shattered by Commodore Frank Bainimarama’s military regime’s illegal takeover.
If all such essential growth and developments are recognised and attributed essentially to the powerful influence and impact of Christ’s gospel in the lives of people both in churches and societies, it is very strange then that Mataca as a priest of God should believe otherwise.
In spite of all opposition, Mataca declares the best way forward for Fiji is the promotion, declaration and implementation of the People’s Charter policy of non-racial Fiji.
By such an acceptance of the so called “non-racial” policy the Charter which has been forcefully imposed by a militarised political movement in an Interim Government, Archbishop Mataca mat be seen as not only having abused the sanctity of race and denied the integrity of God’s creation of humanity of races of different colours, shapes, languages, customs, nationalities etc, but also to have publicly declared himself a ‘heretic’.
What is a heretic? How and why is one declared such?
The word heresy means choice. A heresy is a form of belief that supports some parts of the Christian message and rejects other parts in such a way that those doctrines selected for belief become distorted.
For instance, the theological justification of apartheid in South Africa and other parts of the world was declared heresy, as apartheid is generally recognised by all Christian denominations in a distortion of God’s revelation.
Likewise, the same is true in the controversial “non-racial” political party of the People’s Charter, recognised by true believers as a heretical distortion of God the Creator of our multi-racial world.
Mataca and all who advocate and involve themselves in such un-theological justifications to rebuild to a better Fiji which is culturally united and non-racial, are bringing themselves into disrepute as heretics and also apostates as well.
In the early history of the Christian church, those who “apostatised” from the “Christian faith” gave up the name “Christian” altogether.
But something of the opposite is happening with Archbishop Mataca. It would not be strategic for him to admit that he has apostatised God’s calling as a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, but in fact this is happening by his present compromised political jockeying.
In fact, he is “mistakenly presuming his calling to play the role of the church as the moral conscience of the nation, as he emphatically stated (FT 15/11/07) that he was answering a calling from God to help out the nation back on its feet,” by personally presiding as officially appointed Co-Chair of the political charter movement of the “might is right” ideology of Interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.
and not the Fiji Daily Post.
3 comments:
As usual the good reverand is correct in pointing this out. More of us should be so brave but also I think we as a people are too accepting. We should be more critical in our thinking and not be shy about saying what we feel even to our own priests in our own church.
If we learned anything from yesterday's inaugural meeting of the National Council for Building a Better Fiji, it was this:
When someone uses armed force to seize power from a democratically- elected government and then proclaims barely a year later that he wants his nation to be "truly democratic" you know there is something seriously wrong.
In the case of Fiji, what is seriously wrong is the man with a gun.
When Voreqe Bainimarama pointed that gun at Fiji's head on 5 December 2006 he justified his action on the grounds they were necessary to "rid Fiji of corruption" and carry out a "clean-up campaign."
But Bainimarama has not only failed spectacularly to produce any real evidence of corruption (except within his own administration), his regime has committed gross human rights abuse, compromised the judiciary and sent the economy into a nosedive.
Yet, despite all this, we had cause for hope. At the 38th Pacific Forum Meeting in Tonga on 17 October Bainimarama pledged that Fiji would have a general election in "early 2009."
But this proved to be a hollow promise, as demonstrated when the dictator went into a furious back-pedalling mode and stated on Thursday 10 January that the election promised for March 2009 would not be held until the charter was "fully implemented."
Does that make sense? Well, this apparent conundrum only makes sense if you know the facts.
FACT ONE: Bainimarama's real purpose in staging the coup was to extinguish the near-completed investigation into his involvement in the murder of five soldiers in November 2000.
FACT TWO: The corruption scenario was a diversionary tactic. The coup was all about enabling Bainimarama to disarm the police, remove the highly competent (and honest) police commissioner, Andrew Hughes, and thus put an abrupt end to an investigation that could have led to substantial jail time.
FACT THREE: If it is not drawn up and implemented under the aegis of a legally elected parliament the so-called people's charter has no legal or constitutional basis in Fiji (which, as it happens, also applies to the "powers" of all the office bearers in the current "interim" administration!)
FACT FOUR: The current junta is using the charter as a means to validate its hold on power by providing a means to dishonour the undertaking made to the Pacific Forum leaders (and to the rest of the world, when you think about it).
FACT FIVE: All of the above means that in the eyes of the international community Fiji remains a pariah state and yesterday's guff about "culturally vibrant" democracies will not make one iota of difference.
FACT SIX: Democracy does not happen because one man says it is going to happen. Democracy happens when ALL the people are involved.
FACT SEVN: The only "way forward" is for Bainimarama to lower his gun. He should take his troops back to the barracks and let the people of Fiji rebuild their democracy by the time-honoured method, known as free elections.
Bingo FDN ! Spot on analysis.I think quite a few people are starting to wake up and realise that the flowery rhetoric they thought was so wonderful at the end of last year is now a very smelly pile of bullshit.
Thanks to the bloggers our family and friends have been very well educated about waking up to what these people are up to and what they are continuing to run from.
Bring back HUGHES !
Bring back QARASE !
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