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.
