Fr. Dr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Ãmos
There is no denying that man is a ceremonial being. He celebrates birth and mourns death with rituals. He marks victories and commemorates defeats. He remembers seasons, anniversaries, milestones, and transitions. Human civilisation itself is woven together by ceremonies. Many ceremonies have become so ancient that their original rationale has faded from collective memory, yet the ceremonies continue, often with remarkable precision.
Religion, perhaps more than any other human institution, thrives on ceremonies. It flourishes on symbols, mysteries, landmarks, sacred seasons, commemorations, anniversaries, and collective memories. As a student of religion, I belong to the school of thought that sees celebrations not as distractions from faith but as essential vehicles through which faith is expressed, transmitted, and preserved. The liturgical year itself is built around sacred celebrations. The Church remembers, celebrates, and renews.
Yet beneath this noble reality lies a disturbing phenomenon that is gradually becoming normalised, especially in our contemporary religious and social landscape. It is the tendency to convert every serious matter into a ceremony and every ceremony into a spectacle. We have become experts at organizing events but amateurs at evaluating outcomes. We have mastered publicity but neglected impact. We celebrate activities while ignoring results. This is the ceremonialisation of seriousness.
Today, almost every noble initiative is reduced to a programme. Every programme is reduced to a ceremony. Every ceremony is reduced to photographs. Every photograph is reduced to social media content. Once the pictures are uploaded and the hashtags circulated, the matter is considered concluded.
The question of impact rarely arises.
Recently, reports emerged that the Catholic Church experienced a remarkable global increase in the return of those who had previously left the Church. Immediately, researchers, theologians, sociologists, and pastoral experts began investigating the phenomenon. They sought to understand its causes, its dynamics, and most importantly, how the trend could be sustained. This is how serious institutions operate. They do not merely celebrate success; they study it. They do not merely record achievements; they interrogate them.
Likewise, when the Church marks significant anniversaries of landmark documents such as Rerum Novarum, the intention is not merely historical remembrance. The objective is to revisit the principles, evaluate their relevance, and apply them to contemporary realities. When a year is dedicated to a saint, the goal is not simply to display banners bearing the saint’s image. The objective is to revive the saint’s spirituality and allow it to reshape contemporary Christian living.
At the universal level, the Church often demonstrates commendable seriousness in this regard. But at many local and regional levels, something is terribly wrong. We have become addicted to ceremonies.
We are in the Year of St. Francis of Assisi. Trees are planted ceremonially. Bishops, priests, religious, politicians, and community leaders gather around seedlings. Photographs are taken. Speeches are delivered. Social media pages are flooded. Newspapers carry the story. Six months later, nobody remembers the trees. Many are overtaken by weeds. Some die from neglect. Others are uprooted during construction projects. The ceremony survives; the purpose dies.
It is Evangelisation Week. We march through streets carrying banners. We distribute flyers. We organise rallies. We post countless photographs online. But who evaluates the number of souls reached? Who follows up on those contacted? Who measures conversion, reconciliation, renewed commitment, or deeper discipleship?
It is Catechetical Week. Committees are inaugurated. Fundraising appeals are made. Second collections are taken. T-shirts are printed. Programmes are organised. Yet in many places, catechists remain poorly trained, poorly supported, and poorly equipped. The ceremony flourishes while catechesis struggles.
It is Theology Week. Papers are presented. Certificates are issued. Group photographs are taken. Banquets are held. Yet months later, one wonders whether any pastoral challenge was solved, any theological confusion clarified, any ecclesiastical policy improved, or any community transformed.
We celebrate youth week, communication week, vocation week, justice and peace week, family week, Bible week, education week, environment week, health week, and countless others. The calendar is full. The programmes are successful. The halls are decorated. The attendance is impressive. Yet society remains largely untouched and unchanged.
The tragedy is not that these celebrations exist. The tragedy is that many have become ends in themselves.
A programme that does not transform behaviour becomes entertainment. A celebration that produces no measurable outcome becomes a ritual of self-deception. An anniversary that leaves reality untouched becomes an exercise in nostalgia.
This disease is not limited to religion. But our focus is on religion because it is, in the words of Gaudium et Spes, “the sign of the times” and the compass of human history.
Everywhere there are ceremonies. Everywhere there are speeches. Everywhere there are communiqués. What is increasingly absent is transformation. It simply brings alive the words of Karl Marx, that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. The Catholic Church is known to be immune to amnesia.
One of the greatest dangers of ceremonialisation is that it creates the illusion of progress. People begin to confuse activity with achievement. They mistake movement for direction. They celebrate expenditure as though it were accomplishment. They assume that because something was done, something was achieved.
Nothing could be further from the truth. A church can organize twenty programmes and remain spiritually stagnant. Results, not ceremonies, are the true measure of seriousness.
This was precisely the concern of the biblical prophets. The prophet Amos thundered against religious assemblies that lacked justice. The prophet Isaiah condemned worship divorced from righteousness. Their criticism was never directed against ceremonies themselves. Rather, they condemned ceremonies that had become substitutes for moral transformation.
The prophets understood a truth that modern society is in danger of forgetting: God is not impressed by the size of an event. He is interested in the fruit it bears.
A thousand processions cannot replace one act of justice. A hundred conferences cannot substitute for one effective policy. A million social media posts cannot equal one transformed life.
The uncomfortable truth is that many institutions have become more concerned with visibility than effectiveness. We invest heavily in publicity and very little in assessment. We document activities meticulously but rarely evaluate outcomes. We celebrate inputs while neglecting impacts.
This has to change.
Every programme, every week, every anniversary, every celebration, every project should begin with clearly defined objectives and end with measurable evaluation. Before launching an initiative, we should know what success looks like. After completing it, we should be able to demonstrate whether success was achieved. Let us forget the illusion that the goal of religion is not success but fruitfulness, for fruitfulness itself is another name for success.
If trees are planted during the Year of St. Francis, there should be a monitoring committee. Six months later, survival rates should be assessed. One year later, reports should be published. If Evangelisation Week is observed, there should be data on contacts made, follow-up efforts undertaken, and pastoral fruits recorded. If Catechetical Week is celebrated, catechists should emerge better trained, better equipped, and better supported.
If Theology Week is organized, recommendations should be implemented rather than archived, only to repeat the cycle of organising another Theology Week. If funds are expended, impacts should be measurable. If objectives are not achieved, lessons should be learned and strategies revised.
This is how serious institutions grow.
The future belongs not to those who celebrate the most but to those who evaluate the most. The healthiest organisations are not necessarily those with the largest ceremonies but those with the strongest culture of reflection, accountability, and continuous improvement.
The time has come to move from ceremonial Christianity to transformational Christianity; from event management to mission effectiveness; from publicity to productivity; from appearances to outcomes.
Celebration has its place. Ceremonies have their value. Anniversaries deserve remembrance. Milestones deserve recognition. But every celebration must ultimately answer one unavoidable question: What changed because of it?
Until we learn to ask and answer that question honestly, we risk becoming experts in celebration and novices in transformation, masters of ceremonies but strangers to results. And that is a luxury neither the Church nor society should afford, even if they can.
Fr. Dr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Amos is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Uromi and a Lecturer at the Catholic Institute of West Africa, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
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