“Pentecost day marks the birth of the Church as well as the ordinance by the Holy Spirit on Church leaders and elders to go and spread the gospel of God.
“And Pentecostalism as a way of expressing our faith is derived from that day of command and we Catholics must live up to that calling,’’ he told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Adeboyejo, who spoke to NAN at the third day session of the 2009 African Catholic Charismatic Renewal Conference which held in Lagos, urged non-believers in the doctrine of Pentecostals to strive to understand rather than condemn them.
“Catholics who do not believe in the mode of worship by charismatic Catholics should not to be too critical of them and strive to understand rather than condemn them.
“Charismatic mode of spreading the gospel is bringing into the Church a more vibrant and energetic culture of raising the name of God to the level it is meant to be,’’ he said.
He said that people should not be scared and critical of the charismatic spirituality because it conformed to the guidelines for worship and obedience of the Catholic sacraments.
“That is why the Papacy recommends that every charismatic group, council, parish or diocese must be under the spiritual guidance of an ordained priest,’’ he said.
Adeboyejo, the Chaplain of the Charismatic Group of the Catholic Diocese of Ondo, said it was through Pentecostal character by charismatic men that the Holy Spirit could be properly manifested.
On leadership, Adeboyejo said that the Church should do more in the area of leadership training to encourage more Christian-Catholics to go into politics.
He said that the political culture of violence, election rigging and other forms of political corruption in Nigeria existed because Christians with charismatic inclination were not in politics.
“Those in politics are the best of the worst and the Church is one of those institutions that can reverse this trend,’’ he said.
He said that the life of celibacy was a blessing to the priest and the Catholic faith in spite of its ups and downs and the difficulty in keeping to the vow by the ordained person.
Celibacy is a Church dogma which requires that priests and other ordained persons in the Church do not marry till death.
“Jesus himself did not marry and that was what gave Him the opportunity to do the work of His Father without distraction,’ he said (NAN)
