INTRODUCTION
I once desired to be a Roman Catholic Church priest. Father Chris. Thank God he made me wiser before I became one. I would have been the worst priest ever in the history of the ‘holy’ Catholic Church and blemish its ‘blameless’ name. A tall, dark skinned boy from a dungy small town of Chitungwiza in the beautiful country of Zimbabwe, had I been a priest, I am confident that my love for the ‘forbidden fruit’ would have poured scorn on the vows of chastity of the Vatican Church. Wait! I am building castles in the air, busy thinking so highly of myself, Pope John XII was wicked! Imposing himself as the leader of the Catholic Church at the age of sixteen in A.D 955, historians agree that he is one of the most scandalous popes in the history of the church. Peter De Rosa has no kind words for him.
“Even for a pope of that period he was so bad that the citizens were out for his blood. He had invented sins, they said, not known since the beginning of the world, including sleeping with his mother. He ran a harem in the Lateran Palace. He gambled with pilgrims’ offerings. He kept a stud of two thousand horses which he fed on almonds and figs steeped in wine. He rewarded the companions of his nights of love with golden chalices from St Peter’s. He did nothing for the most profitable tourist trade of the day, namely, pilgrimages. Women in particular were warned not to enter St John Lateran if they prized their honour; the pope was always on the prowl. In front of the high altar of the mother church of Christendom, he even toasted the Devil.”
Hands down, I wouldn’t have outshined him. Come on, how on earth could I outshine somebody who slept with his mother. Even for a momma’s boy like me… it’s unimaginable. His Holiness kicked the bucket at the age of twenty four. He was murdered by a green-eyed husband who caught him with his wife in flagrante delicto. For some reason, which I am yet to discover, I feel like a distant relative of Pope Innocent VIII, who was the leader of the ‘great and mighty Holy Roman Catholic Church’ from A.D 1484-1492. Isn’t it ironic how he named himself Innocent yet there was no trace of innocence in his conduct? McClintock and Strong noted that, the pope’s conduct was reprehensibly crooked.
“He had seven illegitimate children by different women and was, besides, married when he took orders….his children numbered sixteen, all of them children by married women.”
Now we are talking. I would have gladly followed in his footsteps… effortlessly.
My name is Christian Jacob. I was born exactly a month after Valentine’s Day in the year 1991 at Seke North Clinic in Chitungwiza- a highdensity dormitory town 30 kilometres south east of Harare. Born in a family of devout Roman Catholics, I was baptized on the 13th of April 2003 at St Monica parish in Seke Unit N and took the name Martin as my sacramental name. Ever since I heard the story of Martin de Porres of Peru, the patron saint of mixed-race people, public health workers, barbers and all those who advocate for racial harmony by Mai Mugavazi, my Catechism teacher, I became a fan.
He was born in Peru on the 9th of December in 1579 to a freed woman of Panama and a Spanish grandee of Lima. He was mixed. His parents never got married and his father deserted the family after the birth of his sister. What hurts the most is that his father never liked him from birth because he took the features and the dark complexion of his mother. “Being mixed came with a lot of bad labels- “war souvenir,” Or “half breed.” Mai Mugavazi narrated, taking her bible from the wooden coffee table that sat comfortably in the middle of the lounge. “With all these negative circumstances around him, like many men, Martin could have grown up a bitter man. But he chose to be bigger than the negative circumstances. Instead, he chose to become a Dominican brother and lived a life marked by prayer and service to others.”
I became a fan.
I grew up being told that I was a mistake. I wasn’t planned. Which is baffling considering that I am the last born. “After your brother died, we decided not to have another child,” my father used to say. “I was startled to hear your mother saying she was pregnant.” These words were my daily bread. Stubborn and adventurous, everyday my father had something to yell at me about. And, his tone always had that slur of regret that I was born, and a pinch of doubt. Was I his son? Though it broke my heart and injured my self-esteem, I always found reasons to smile and be of service to others. Instead of being bitter, I became better in those little acts of love. I became known among my peers as, “that little dark boy who always lights up the room.”
Passionate about my Catholic faith, I became an altar boy a week after my baptism. I went on to join the Sacred Heart of Jesus youth guild soon after my fourteenth birthday. And by the time I reached sixteen, I convinced myself that I was called to be a priest- Baba vezvoMweya. I was an altar boy for six good years and during those years of service, I can gleefully confirm that I missed church not more than ten times. I made sure I attended every Mass. The question is, what was the motive behind my service in church? Attention. Attention from who? Girls. Why girls? Because there were a part of me I couldn’t live without.