Nigerian Primate hits out at feminism: CEN 1.09.09 p 5.

The two-parent family is the central building block of society, the Archbishop of Nigeria has argued in his Christmas address to the church. Feminism and absentee fathers were contributing to the social breakdown in Nigeria, he warned, for bad parenting produced bad children which led to a bad future for all.

Absent fathers and neglectful mothers had spawned children who were “bundles of evil and vices due to improper upbringing,” Archbishop Peter Akinola said.

The result of these absent or neglectful role models could be observed “even on Sunday mornings” when children who are “supposed to be in the Church to worship God” can be found marking “their attendance at pitches where they gather for the game of football or go to pubs to drink, smoke and sniff hard drugs.”

The breakdown of family life was a “frightening development,” he said, made worse by those who “take pride in being single parents. If by death a partner is snatched away, this is understandable. We pray for people of such experience that they will be comforted.”

However there were “some men in our society who are utterly irresponsible with carefree attitude and who will not pay attention to their children,” Archbishop Akinola said. “Likewise are the so called societal ladies, the feminists” who have “little or nothing to offer our younger generation in morals or values.”

Drawing upon the Nativity story, Archbishop Akinola said that in Palestine, as in Africa today, “culturally and religiously” it was “a sin for unmarried females to be put in the family way.”

Yet God sent the angel Gabriel to “reveal His plan and purpose of redemption to Joseph and required him to take care of Mary.” Joseph “handled the situation so well that Mary was saved from embarrassment, shame and untimely death. The husband and wife lived together happily raising the Holy Child as a family. Every child needs constant loving parental care (mother and father playing their roles jointly),” the archbishop said.

Modern Nigeria needed to follow this example, for it is in the best interest of “our Nation and Church” that “we call all parents, fathers and mothers to make it a point of duty to jointly nurture the children in the fear and love of the Lord,” Archbishop Akinola said, for “if our Lord, Jesus the Christ, God incarnate enjoyed full parental care, we mortals can do no less.”