By Omoh Giwa 

Most Holy Father,

How fares New Jerusalem? I imagine your celestial quarters must be far grander than your last earthly palace in Rome. Is it true, as our Sunday School teachers swore, that the streets are paved with gold, so dazzling that even the Vatican treasury would look like loose change in comparison? And the pearly gates—are they truly pearls or was that just another metaphor the clergy invented to keep our childish mouths shut?

Tell me, Father, what do the Saints actually do all day? Sing Hosanna in an eternal choir rehearsal that never ends? Or are you allowed intermissions, coffee breaks, perhaps even a heavenly siesta before Gabriel blows his trumpet? I pray this letter does not interrupt your angelic routines. It would be tragic indeed to spend fifteen mortal minutes composing what heaven files under spam.

Now, I must confess: you departed this world when I was still a little girl, more occupied with dolls and cartoons than papal encyclicals. Yet I remember. I remember your visit to Nigeria. I remember the photographs of you smiling while shaking hands with a Ray-Ban-wearing dictator; the Duke of Peace in cordial embrace with the General of Oppression. Shakespeare himself could not have scripted a finer irony. Later, when the news of your passing broke, I remember watching multitudes cry at St. Peter’s Square on television. They did not cry for an office-holder, but for a man who radiated peace, as though Christ had been crucified a second time.

They say your legacy was peace and interfaith dialogue. Who can forget when you entered the Great Mosque in Damascus, removed your shoes, prayed and kissed the Quran you were gifted? Father, what outrage you caused! Catholics gasped, conservatives fainted, fundamentalists fumed. Yet you remained calm, as if you already knew humanity’s true talent lies in manufacturing outrage. You, unlike so many of your successors, did not merely sit on a golden chair quoting Latin. You moved among people, you reached across boundaries others would rather set on fire.

But forgive me, I did not set pen to paper merely to polish your halo. I write because your flock, especially in Africa, has gone rogue. They have lost the plot, Father and no one else is fit to receive this celestial petition. Writing to your living successor might be misconstrued as lobbying for another conclave and Lord knows the world has endured enough fraudulent elections.

These men (or women. You wouldn’t dare accuse me of being sexist!), priests, pastors, imams, prophets, general overseers, bishops, apostles and even part-time evangelists with WhatsApp broadcast lists are running wild. And I fear that global warming’s smog may be clouding heaven’s surveillance system because surely if the saints were paying attention, alarms would already be ringing.

Consider Reverend Sister Anastasia, who publicly lamented that Sisters-in-Habit were not created for the sexual pleasures of Reverend Fathers. I nearly fainted. Were scandals with altar boys not shame enough to last three millennia? Our clerics have expanded the curriculum.  Equality at last! They are scandalising both genders. At this point, Father, perhaps we should strike chastity from their vows altogether. It seems the least-observed clause in the clerical contract.

Or the shepherd who instructed his flock to pay for a one-way ticket to heaven. Not through holiness or charity but by cash transfer. In the name of Mammon, rise and pay! Silver and gold have I collected; enter the narrow gate via my bank account. Another cleric discovered a new method for exorcism: not by fasting, not through prayer but (prepare yourself) sucking the bosom of female congregants. Father, when Christ said “Feed my sheep”, I doubt this was the interpretation.

Still others have turned the Holy Spirit into foreign exchange, appraising spiritual gifts in dollars and naira. I am convinced that if Judas Iscariot had met them, the thirty pieces of silver could have been interpreted to be a tithe advance. Their theology, the Father’s house has many mansions but entry is by bank transfer and cheques. Prosperity preachers hawking blessings like stock options, pulpits transformed into stock markets where dividends are measured in miracle oils. And then there is the so-called man of war, strutting across his church like a holy general. I do not know if he is building the Kingdom of God or a private barracks.

Do not think I exaggerate. One prophet made his followers eat grass like goats to receive blessings. The ruminant beings chewed dutifully, swallowing both chlorophyll and dignity. Are you aware of the clerics discovered with dismembered human remains in Lagos, Ondo and Kwara States? May the spirit of Uwaila Omozuwa in Edo State keep crying for justice like the blood of Abel. Father, I no longer know whom to blame: the wolves in shepherd’s clothing or the sheep who march willingly into the slaughterhouse.

Are these truly the successors of Peter, Paul and Mary? Or are they merely descendants of Ananias and Sapphira, better at avoiding sudden death? I confess, I am weary. The Creator still inspires awe when I see a sunset or hear a baby’s laugh. What I have lost is my faith in the self-appointed brokers of God’s will on earth. These performers who dress like peacocks, strut like emperors and fleece their sheep like ruthless businessmen. If religion is a ship, Father, these captains are steering us straight into an iceberg and unlike the Titanic, we will not even have violins to play us out. So I ask: Did God delegate too much? Did heaven outsource quality control? And if so, to whom? Lucifer?

Help us, sir. Either petition the Holy Spirit to pour out discernment on the flock or dispatch Archangel Michael with his sword to sweep this circus away. Because our pulpits are now auction houses, our holy water sold in sachets and our prophecies hawked in traffic like gala.

Father, I must ask: how did you forgive the man who shot you in 1981? They say you prayed for him, embraced him, called him brother. Meanwhile, ordinary biscuit that my neighbour denied me, I stopped speaking to her. Am I missing a secret Vatican training in divine magnanimity? If so, kindly send me the syllabus.

I am tired, Your Holiness. Tired of temples where the sound system is louder than the gospel, of crusades where the only miracle is the multiplication of offering baskets, of clerics who use God’s name to line their pockets and prey on the innocent. If you see God today, whisper to Him that His name is being dragged through mud by those who claim to speak for Him. And if you see Jesus, beg Him to come quickly. Not in apocalyptic thunder but quietly, perhaps disguised as a market woman, to chase these money-changers once again from His Father’s house.

Kindly relay my complaint to the appropriate department in heaven. Perhaps the Office of Fraudulent Clergy under St. Peter’s jurisdiction. And if such a department does not exist, might I suggest its creation? Nigerians have grown too inventive in the matter of religious scams for heaven to neglect.

Yours in disillusioned service,

Omoh Giwa, Department of English, University of Lagos. 

P.S. Please do send me the divine secret of your legendary forgiveness. If I can master it, perhaps I will find the strength to pardon both my biscuit-hoarding neighbour and these mercenary men of God, all in one miraculous sweep.

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