Onah: A Culture Enthusiast Examined In The Light Of Catholic Doctrine.

 

The culture enthusiast on stage consistently, and admirably so, defending his stated thesis, while stumbling into a glaring contradiction in a related, and fundamental theme; leaving the discourse unfinished and, reducing religion to mere anthropology in so doing. 

Prologue: Culture Enthusiast Scholar On Stage

I came across a video. In it a Nigerian Novus Ordo “Bishop”, Godfrey Onah, described himself as a “culture Enthusiast” and was defending a thesis he has always held as a “scholar”. 

We have had reasons to write about him a couple of times in the past here, and here.  

In the present video under consideration, he consistently, and admirably so, defended the stated thesis: that “it is not true that the kolanut does not understand English…it is not about the kolanut, but the subject addressed”.

However, on the one hand, he stumbled into a glaring contradiction in a related, and fundamental theme. On the other hand, he left the discourse unfinished, reducing religion to mere anthropology in so doing: 

• He described the Kolanut ritual phenomenologically but did not judge it theologically. 
• Treating ritual as cultural expression without assessing its object.
• Suspending judgment about invocation.
• Refusing to classify the act under the First Commandment.

This leaves the First Commandment undefended. 

The contradiction and the reduction in question merit a Catholic examination for the edification of men of good will who are victims of the fruits of modernist scholarship in our day and time. 

I. Transcript Of The Presentation 

Below is the transcript of the significant parts of “Bishop” Onah's presentation:

I'm a culture enthusiast. I'm interested in Igbo culture... because of that I'll begin from the place you don't expect. Because also part of the problem is a confusion between culture and religion. And those who claim to be more interested in our culture than us have distorted both our culture and maligned and defamed our religion. 

When we came out here the kola nut...was introduced with the usual sentence..."the kola nut does not understand English". I have challenged that consistently as a scholar, not as a Bishop, so I want somebody to educate me on why I am wrong in this position. 

My position...is that "it is not true that kola nut does not understand English or any other language. That question does not even arise because no man speaks to the kola nut. We use kola nut to pray and use the language which we think the addressed understands. It is not about the kola nut. It's about the person we are praying to. When we realize that those we address, and our fathers addressed with kola nut were their ancestors, because in Igbo land at least my own part of Igbo land, there was no cultus of the supreme being. He was regarded too high to be approached directly and he was always approached through intermediaries, the other spirits, especially the ancestors. In Nsuka area, my own domain, we say the prayer with broken kola nut. In some other areas the prayer is said with the kola nut before it is broken.

...in my own place, breaking of kola nut is a service entrusted to the youngest male. But the prayer over the kola nut is a ritual, priestly ritual, entrusted to the eldest in the place. 

...you use sign of life to invoke life while praying to your ancestors. 

They are addressing the land and the ancestors, the land in which those ancestors were buried...  the only language the people knew, and the only language those ancestors understood, that is the language in which the prayer is said. It is not because of it ...it is because of the subject of that prayer. 

There is a caveat, when I said those whose ancestors and fathers are here, I know that as a Christian, I'm no longer praying to those ancestors. In that case, I'm no longer tied to the person whose ancestors are here...  

II. Key Points In The Presentation 

A careful reader can see that the presentation has the following core points:

• Culture vs Religion

The kola nut rite is often confused, some say it belongs to religion while it is rather part of culture.

• Kola nut Is Not the Addressee

No one speaks to the kolanut; it is a symbol or medium used in prayer.

• Prayer Is Directed to Ancestors 

In many Igbo areas, the Supreme Being was approached through intermediaries, especially ancestors.

• Language Follows the Intended Recipient

The prayer is said in the language believed to be understood by those addressed; not because the kolanut “understands.”

• Ritual Structure of Kolanut Ceremony

-Breaking the kolanut: entrusted to the youngest male.

-Saying the prayer: a priestly act entrusted to the eldest.

-In some areas prayer precedes breaking; in others it follows.

• Christian Distinction

He, a Christian, does not pray to ancestors and is therefore not religiously bound to that ancestral intention.

III. Philosophical Analysis.

Let us proceed according to the principles articulated by Thomas Aquinas.

1. What Constitutes Religion?

In classical philosophy and theology:

Religion is a virtue under justice. It gives due worship to God.

An act is religious if it:

• Invokes spiritual beings,
• Is ritualized,
• Expresses dependence upon higher powers.

By the Onah’s own admission, the Kola nut rite includes:

• Invocation of ancestors,
• Ritual structure,
• Priestly hierarchy,
• Sacred language,
• Symbolic sacred object.

This satisfies every classical definition of religion.

Therefore:

The attempt to classify the practice as “mere culture” collapses philosophically.

Culture may contain religion; but ritual invocation of spiritual beings is religion by definition.

2. What Is Cultus Strictly Speaking?

Cultus is not mere symbolism.

Strictly speaking, cultus exists where there is:

• External ritual action,
• Directed toward a transcendent or invisible recipient,
• With intent to honor, appease, invoke, or obtain blessing.

Where invocation and mediation are structurally present, cultus is present; even if misdirected.

In a word: culture becomes religion when gesture is directed beyond the human community.

The decisive element is not symbolism;

but a directed sacred address.

 

3. The Mediation Problem

The claim:

“The Supreme Being was too high to be approached directly”

This reflects a natural religious system of mediated access.

But classical Catholic theism affirms:

• God is transcendent,
• Yet immediately accessible as First Cause,
• And directly owed worship.

To posit necessary ancestral intermediaries implies:

• A defective grasp of divine accessibility,
• A cosmology incomplete and preparatory at best.

Natural religion may grope toward truth. But it is not yet purified by revelation, and must not be presented as sufficient in itself. 

4. Intention and Moral Species

His primary thesis is that:

It is not about the colanut; it is about the subject addressed.

And, no one can disagree with that without setting himself in enmity with right reason. His formulation is absolutely correct.

And this is precisely where his protestation that kola nut pertains to culture and not religion runs into a glaring contradiction. Yes. The insistence that it is not about the kola nut but the subject addressed strengthens the religious classification.

If:

• The subject addressed is ancestral spirits,
• The act is ritualized invocation,
• Then the act is objectively religious.

Intention determines moral species.

Thus, his defense unintentionally confirms the religious nature of the rite.

IV. Theological Analysis 

Let us now move to revealed theology.

1. The First Commandment

Traditional catechesis, such as the Baltimore Catechism, teaches:

The First Commandment forbids:

• Superstition,
• Invocation of spirits,
• Religious honor to creatures.

Prayer is an act of religion. Religion is owed to God alone.

The invocation of ancestors as mediators constitutes:

• At minimum, natural religion,
• At worst, superstition,

Such invocation is gravely problematic if treated as real spiritual mediation.

Scripture declares:

“...there is one God: and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.” (1 Tim. 2:5-6)

Ancestral mediation does not survive the Gospel. Speaking of it without proper distinction as legitimate in its own right betrays a serious theological flaw. 

2. Clarifying Latria, Dulia, and Cultural Memory

We should underline that not every honor is worship.

Classical Catholic theology distinguishes:

• Latria: adoration owed to God alone.
• Dulia: veneration given to saints as creatures of God.
• Cultural memory: filial remembrance, gratitude, historical continuity.

Thus, the crucial question is not whether ancestors are mentioned; but what kind of honor is rendered.

If ancestors are treated as:

• Sources of blessing,
• Necessary mediators of divine access,
• Spiritual powers invoked for protection,

the act moves beyond memory into religious veneration.

If, however, they are remembered as forebears within God’s providence, without invocation or mediation, the act may remain cultural.

The distinction is decisive.

Confusion here breeds theological ambiguity

3. Objective Meaning of External Acts

Catholic moral theology distinguishes between:

• Internal act (actus interior): the intention of the will
• External act (actus exterior): the outward, public action

Now, while intention affects moral culpability, the external act retains its objective moral species by reason of its object and signification.

The unanimous  principle of moral theology is that the moral quality of an act is determined primarily by its object, not merely by subjective intention. One may not redefine the species of an act simply by interior qualification.

4. Objective Religious Signification

In religion especially, external acts are not neutral gestures. They are:

• Signifying acts
• Symbolic acts
• Communal acts
• Public acts

Religious rites, by nature, are ordered toward:

• Worship
• Invocation
• Appeasement
• Communion

Thus, if a rite is structurally ordered to invocation of ancestors, as Onah says the kolanut ritual is, that ordering constitutes its objective signification.

The act “speaks” publicly, regardless of private mental reservations.

5. Metaphysical Claim or Symbolic Continuity?

Every rite either:

• Asserts metaphysics: claiming real spiritual agency, real mediation, real blessing.

or

• Enacts symbolic continuity: expressing memory, identity, heritage.

The difference is not emotional; it is ontological.

If the rite assumes:

• Ancestors truly hear,
• Ancestors truly mediate,
• Ancestors truly confer benefit,

then a metaphysical claim is being enacted.

If it merely dramatizes communal identity without spiritual invocation, it is cultural symbolism.

The unresolved question is this:

Does the structure imply real spiritual agency, or only memory?

Structure usually reveals the answer. 

6. The Principle Applied

If a Christian participates in such an act while internally saying:

“I do not mean this religiously.”

• The interior disclaimer may reduce personal guilt.
• But it does not erase the objective sign-value of the act.

The public meaning remains.

This principle underlies classical Catholic prohibitions regarding:

• Participation in non-Christian worship
• Communicatio in sacris
• External religious syncretism

As warned in Mortalium Animos by Pope Pius XI, external participation in religious rites is never merely sociological; it bears doctrinal implications.

7. Onah's “Christian Caveat” and Its Tension

When one attempts to attach a “Christian caveat” to an inherently religious rite, three possibilities arise:

• The Rite Retains Its Religious Meaning

If so, participation objectively associates the participant with that meaning.

The tension becomes theological and potentially scandalous.

• The Rite Is Emptied of Religious Meaning

If so, the rite becomes:

-Symbolically hollow

-Anthropologically staged

-Theatrical and perfunctory 

-A gesture without referent.

But religious rites are not designed to be empty containers.

•  Boundaries Blur

Here lies the gravest danger.

Ambiguity:

-Confuses the faithful

-Weakens doctrinal clarity

-Normalizes symbolic duality

-Encourages practical syncretism

This is precisely the type of ambiguity warned against in Pascendi Dominici gregis, where religion is treated as evolving expression rather than revealed truth.

What is the core theological issue in Onah's caveat?

The question is not about subjective sincerity.

It is about whether:

• Public symbolic acts can be redefined privately.
• Revelation can coexist with ritual ambiguity.
• Christianity may inhabit forms ordered to another religious worldview without distortion.

Catholic moral theology answers consistently:

• External religious acts possess objective meaning that private disclaimers cannot nullify.

Therefore, the “Christian caveat” does not dissolve the tension: it exposes it.

V. Internal Consistencies

The presentation is internally coherent in describing:

• Ritual hierarchy,
• Invocation structure,
• Symbolic meaning,
• Linguistic rationale.

Yes. It is anthropologically articulate. 

And here, it should be noted that this consistency turned out to be contrary to the opening contention, as we shall see next.

VI. Internal Contradictions

Onah, the scholar, in defence of his thesis runs into at least three internal contradictions.

1. Culture vs. Religion

It should be noted that when a practice includes:

• Ritual invocation
• Recognizable priestly mediation
• Sacred symbolism
• Structured offering or appeasement

it exceeds the category of “culture” and enters the domain of religion.

Classical theology defines religion as the virtue by which due worship is rendered to God (or, in error, to what is taken as divine). As taught by St. Thomas Aquinas, religion belongs to justice because it concerns what is owed in worship.

Therefore:

• If one describes invocation, mediation, and sacred symbolism, one has described religious act-structure.

To narrate these elements in detail, as Onah did, while denying that religion is present is not nuance: it is an unfortunate conceptual contradiction. 

• Either the structure constitutes religion, or the definition of religion has been silently redefined.

2. The Problem of Christian Detachment

If a rite is inherently ordered toward:

• Appeasing ancestors
• Seeking mediation from the departed
• Invoking spiritual forces

then its objective ordering is fixed by its structure.

A Christian may internally intend:

“I reinterpret this culturally.”

But the question remains:

• Can one participate without altering the rite’s meaning?

If the Christian’s presence alters the rite’s meaning, then the rite has been transformed.

If it does not alter the rite’s meaning, then participation affirms its original religious signification.

The tension remains unresolved.

This is precisely why the Church historically guarded against ambiguous participation in non-Christian rites, as emphasized in Mortalium Animos of Pope Pius XI: external acts communicate doctrinal meaning, regardless of interior disclaimers.

3. Denial of Cultus vs. Description of Cultic Structure

The claim that “no cultus of the Supreme Being existed” while simultaneously describing:

• Structured mediation
• Sacred hierarchy
• Ritual invocation
• Symbolic offerings

reveals terminological inconsistency.

Cultus means ordered worship expressed in external acts.

• If mediation is structured and sacred symbolism is present, then a cultus exists; even if misdirected.
• To deny cultus while describing its essential components is to separate terminology from substance.

One cannot both:

• Describe worship-structure,

and

• Deny the presence of worship.

That is conceptual dissonance.

It should be observed that these contradictions do not arise from malice, but from an unstable boundary between:

• Anthropology and theology
• Culture and religion
• Symbol and worship

When definitions shift mid-discourse, clarity dissolves; and ambiguity becomes the governing principle.

And ambiguity, in matters of religion, is never neutral. 

VII. Inculturation: Legitimate or Illusory?

Noteworthy is that, not all engagement with culture is modernism. There is an authentic inculturation and false inculturation.

Authentic inculturation:

• Purifies what contradicts revelation, breaking what must be broken;
• Elevates what is natural, retaining what can be purified;
• Subordinates all mediation to Christ.

False inculturation:

• Retains religious structures,
• Reinterprets them verbally, by adjusting vocabulary 
• Avoids rupture where rupture is required.

The Church has always baptized culture; 

but she has never baptized rival mediatory systems.

The standard is simple: 

Does the form confess Christ as sole Mediator not only in doctrine, but in ritual logic?

If not, the form requires transformation; not reinterpretation. 

VIII. The Modernist Root of the Tension

The deeper issue is methodological.

The pattern in “Bishop” Onah’s presentation mirrors the system condemned by Pope Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis.

1. Religion Reduced to Anthropology

The speech:

• Describes religious phenomena,
• Avoids theological judgment,
• Suspends moral classification.

This is precisely the modernist shift: Religion explained from below (human consciousness), not judged from above (divine revelation).

2. Suspension of Dogmatic Clarity

A shepherd must:

• Distinguish preparatio evangelica from superstition,
• Declare what must cease under Christ,
• Guard the First Commandment.

Neutral description without doctrinal judgment introduces ambiguity.

Ambiguity is not pastoral charity. It is doctrinal erosion.

Here, though Onah was speaking as a “scholar”, he appeared in the capacity of a “Bishop”. His lack of dogmatic clarity is not an isolated situation, it has everything to do with modernist multiple personalities as expounded and condemned by Pope St. Pius X. 

3. Cultural Preservation Without Purification

The technique observed:

• Retain structure.
• Reframe meaning.
• Avoid rupture.
• Minimize exclusivity of Christ’s mediation.

But Christianity is not additive. It is transformative.

Christ does not merely reinterpret mediation. He fulfills and abolishes competing systems.

4. Immanentism Beneath the Surface

Pope Pius X identified modernism’s root as religious immanentism:

Religion arising from human experience rather than divine revelation.

• Onah's speech focuses horizontally: Ancestors. Land. Language. Heritage.
• Christ, grace, redemption: conspicuously absent.

That absence is not incidental. It reveals methodological priority -be it willed as such or simply because acquired habit due to modernist formation intensified by repetition. 

VIX. What Is Lacking: Especially in One Who Identifies As “Catholic Bishop”

What is missing is not learning.

What is missing is judgment.

A Catholic bishop is not merely an observer of religious phenomena. He is a guardian of revelation. Description is not enough; discernment is required.

A true Catholic theological treatment would:

• Affirm natural filial reverence: gratitude toward forebears is not superstition. Honoring parents and remembering the dead belong to the natural law.
• Reject invocation of spirits as mediation: once ancestors are treated as channels of blessing, necessary intermediaries, or spiritual agents to be invoked, the act crosses into religious mediation that cannot coexist with the Gospel unchanged.
• Proclaim Christ as sole Mediator: not only doctrinally, but structurally. If Christ is truly the one Mediator (1 Tim 2:5), no parallel mediatory system may remain operative in ritual logic.

But more is required.

A bishop must clarify the objective moral species of the rite.

Is it:

• Cultural remembrance?
• Analogous to dulia?
• Or genuine invocation of spiritual agents?

The answer determines everything.

If the rite enacts real spiritual address to ancestors, its species is religious. In that case, it cannot simply be reinterpreted internally. It must either be:

• Purified: stripped of invocation and subordinated explicitly to Christ;

or

• Abandoned: if its structure inherently presupposes rival mediation.

This is not hostility to culture. It is fidelity to the First Commandment.

Under the First Commandment, ambiguity is not neutrality. Worship, mediation, and invocation demand clarity.

The difficulty in the presentation under review is not that it explains the rite. It explains it very well. The difficulty is that it stops there.

• It describes the ritual phenomenologically: structure, hierarchy, symbolism, language; 
•  but does not judge it theologically.

And when a shepherd describes but does not judge, ambiguity fills the space where doctrine should stand.

However, we must note that given that Onah is a link in the modernist broken chain, it is understandable that he fails to do what pertains to the office of a Catholic Bishop, which he is not. 

X. The Deeper Battlefield

The real question is not:

• Does the kola nut understand English?

The real questions are far more unsettling:

• What is worship?

Is it defined by interior intention alone; or by the objective structure of the act?

• Who may be invoked?

If invocation implies spiritual address and request for blessing, can such address be directed anywhere except toward God and those united to Him in Christ?

• Is ritual ever religiously neutral?

Can a gesture once structured as mediation be emptied of metaphysics simply by revised explanation?

• Can ancestral mediation survive Christ?

If Christ is truly the sole Mediator, can parallel channels of spiritual access remain, even symbolically?

• Does revelation judge culture; or merely reinterpret it?

Does the Gospel transform forms, or only supply new vocabulary for inherited structures?

This is the real battlefield.

• When anthropology replaces theology, description replaces judgment.
• When description replaces judgment, ambiguity replaces clarity.
• And when ambiguity settles under the First Commandment, tension is no longer cultural; it is doctrinal.

The issue is not ethnography.

• It is mediation.
• It is worship.

It is whether form must bow to revelation; or whether revelation must adapt to form. 

XI. Summing Up

“Bishop” Onah's discourse is:

• Anthropologically insightful: he understands the internal logic of Igbo symbolism.
• Culturally articulate:  he explains structure, hierarchy, language, and ritual roles.
• Ritually detailed: he shows it is not a casual custom but an ordered act.

But precisely there lies the deeper issue.

1. Philosophically

• If there is invocation, mediation, priestly function, sacred symbol, and structured address to invisible beings; then the act is religious in nature, not merely cultural. 
• Symbols of life used to invoke blessing from spiritual intermediaries are not mere “culture.” They belong to cultus.
• You cannot describe priesthood and invocation and then deny religion. The categories contradict.

2. Theologically

• The First Commandment is not about sincerity. It is about exclusive worship.
• If ancestors function as necessary mediators to approach the divine, then a parallel mediatory structure exists alongside Christ.

That is the unresolved tension.

For Scripture declares:

“There is one mediator between God and men…” - Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:5)

Every prior structure of mediation must be:

• Fulfilled in Him,
• Subordinated to Him,
• Or abandoned.

It cannot remain intact and merely be “reinterpreted.”

3. Methodologically

• The Modernist instinct (which he seems to have acquired by force of necessity) is preservation without purification.
• Instead of asking, “Does this structure require rupture?”
• It asks, “How do we keep this structure while adjusting its meaning?”

But religious forms are not empty containers.

• Ritual shapes belief.
• Gesture teaches theology.

If the structure remains, the theology remains embedded within it.

What is the deepest question in all of this?

• The real issue is not Igbo dignity.
• Not cultural pride.
• Not anthropology.

It is this:

Is Christ confessed as the sole and exclusive Mediator; not only in doctrine, but in ritual form?

• Where exclusivity is softened, ambiguity enters.
• And ambiguity in worship is never neutral.

In matters touching mediation, invocation, and sacred gesture, clarity is charity. But clarity requires careful metaphysical distinctions, not only denunciation.

As a matter of fact: the First Commandment tolerates no rivals; even symbolic ones. 

Ultimately, the question comes to this: 

Does ritual form embody metaphysics that cannot be privately revised?

And the response is in the affirmative: yes. Ritual form embodies metaphysics, and you cannot privately edit it.

Ritual is belief made visible. It is theology in action.

If a rite enacts:

• Invocation of spirits,
• Mediated access to the divine,
• Sacred hierarchy,

then it carries a worldview inside it.

You may say, “I don’t mean it religiously.”

But structure speaks louder than disclaimers.

• Ritual forms belief.
• Gesture teaches doctrine.
• Repeated form engraves metaphysics.

You can purify a rite.

You can replace a rite.

But you cannot quietly reinterpret it while keeping its structure intact.

Form teaches; publicly.