Cleric blames family members

The Administrator of the Cathedral Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord (CATOL) Owerri, Venerable Akajiaku C. Chukwuocha, has posited that, most sexual abuses that occur in families, these days and even in recent years past, involve mainly members of the families of the victims, and or those who are close to them, and regrettably, he added, the culprits are elderly members of the affected families.

The Administrator gave this worrisome revelation, while preaching last Sunday, during the Carol of Nine Lessons, held at the Cathedral Church.

Venerable Chukwuocha, who captioned his homily: "The Power of the Gospel: The Saviour is Born To Us", blamed the ugly situation on the fact that, majority of Family Heads, have abandoned their responsibilities to teach, pray and share the gospel with their children, while at home.

He decried a situation whereby, parents recklessly leave their children under the care of ill-trained househelps, and worse still, a situation where the upcoming ones among them, have given up on education.

Dr. Chukwuocha, a surveyor by profession, and a Senior Lecturer, in the Survey Department, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, deposed that the world is full of troubles and that these troubles, according to him, multiply and get more sophisticated as the years go by, stressing that the problems and challenges we face today are basically due to the failure of human character, as a result of the fall of man.

As the Cathedral Administrator further noted, many people are not mindful of the consequences of their actions to their neighbours or even their own children and parents, so long as their cause would bring them some relief, progress or mundane satisfaction.

Citing John 4:4, the clergyman explained that, with Jesus Christ Our Saviour, we have become empowered to teach and lead our families that, if we are able to stand strongly for Christ and lead our families to Him, much of the present aberrations in the name of community and family liberations would not be needed because, as he argued, "the Saviour born to us, knows the truth and the truth shall set you free".

The Archdeacon, reminded the Cathedral congregation that, the Christmas season is a season of joy, warning that Christ came into the world to save sinners, and that failure to obey him would entail looking for short cut in life.

The man of God who stressed the need for Christians to learn to forgive one another, as Christ did to the whole world, made more Bible references in the course of the admonition, including John 8:13- 32, Genesis 3, Luke 2:14 Ezekiel 22: 21-30 etc.