Authors-choice: Hope & Revival

By Chinwuba Iyizoba

Cardi B

This year’s Grammy best rap winner, singer and songwriter,  Cardi B may soon be in deep waters. A video in which she claimed that she used to drug and rob men to survive, has surfaced.

Many are clamoring for her to be held accountable, especially in the wake of the women take down of many men by the famous #MeToo movement

Accused of sexual assault that happened years ago, super celebrity like Bill Cosby is doing time and R.Kelly’s fate hangs on the edge. Why should we forgive Cardi B?

“Is there any chance at all that a man could admit to drugging and robbing women and still keep his career?”  Some ask.

While critics are calling for her head, as the only fair way to deal with the revelation, her fans argue that she committed the crime out of desperation, unlike other celebrities who allegedly committed their crimes at the height of fame and fortune abusing their privileges

She admits she isn’t proud of that ‘dirty past’ and no longer tows that path.

And a dirty past it is. She became a gang member at 16 and a stripper at 19 when she was fired from the supermarket where she was working, and yet she is Catholic and claims a “strong relationship” with God in interviews, often saying that she directly communicates with God.

But as the saying goes, “Behind very dark clouds, there is sometimes a silver lining”, in age where celebrities daily celebrate their disdain for marriage and having babies, Cardi B surprised everyone by doing both.

She secretly married her friend and confidant, Offset, in their bedroom in September 2017 and when the rumors broke, she confirmed it on social media.

They have a daughter and have been together for 3 yrs a now are rare feat in music industry today. Her husband even accompanied her to the stage to receive her Grammy.

Cardi B with her Husband, Offset and their daughter

“All I can do now is be a better me for myself my family and my future,” the mother of one said on Instagram.

While it is true that it is never right to do evil so that good may come and her rise to the top will never justify her criminal actions and that she may probably go to jail for soon, yet, her dirty past can be forgiven, wiped clean by God, through the sacrament of confession if she is truly contrite and has sincerely repented of her past life.

Confession is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, in which the faithful obtain absolution for the sins committed against God and neighbour and are reconciled with the community of the Church. By this sacrament Catholics believe they are freed from sins committed after baptism. The sacrament of Penance is considered the normal way to be absolved from mortal sin, by which one would otherwise possibly condemn oneself to Hell ( click here for a complete guide to confession)

No matter how black our sins are God always forgives

“I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; I desire that the wicked turn back from his way and live.” Says Holy Scriptures, and as Pope Francis said, “There are people who are afraid to go to confession, forgetting that they will not encounter a severe judge there, but the immensely merciful Father.”

In human tribunal we can only expect justice, in Divine tribunal we only expect mercy

“In itself, mercy is the greatest of the virtues, since all the others revolve around it and, more than this, it makes up for their deficiencies…..it is proper to God to have mercy, through which his omnipotence is manifested to the greatest degree”. (Apostolic exhortation, Gauduim et spes)

The problem is that there is a great loss of sense of sin today, a loss which originated in Hollywood in the 60’s and have spread everywhere via movies and many today do not feel they need forgiveness.

Yet sin multiplies daily in the world and we all need forgiveness

Catholics distinguish between two types of sin. Mortal sins are a “grave violation of God’s law” that “turns man away from God”. Acts like murder and robbery are good examples, but still are specks in a wide spectrum of sin men are capable of.

Someone who is aware of having committed mortal sins must repent of having done so and then confess them in order to benefit from the sacrament. Venial sins, the kind that “does not set us in direct opposition to the will and friendship of God”, can be remitted by contrition and reception of other sacraments but they too, “constituting a moral disorder and are rightly and usefully declared in confession”.

Yet, for my money, there is more to contrition and confession than just the act. When you rob someone of his money, you need to give it back. The Catholic Church teaches that the penitents practice restitution, returning of stolen goods and prayerful reparations to those whom our sins have wounded.

Cardi B needs to examine her conscience and ask God for a soul sensitive to sin because without interior repentance, confession is useless. She needs to make attempts to repair her past misdeeds.

One area she could work on is her music dance videos. While some are brilliant, most cuts too close to sexual immorality and sexually suggestive moves could lead her millions of teeming fans to temptation and sin from which she cannot be exonerated.

Again, her use of four letter words, wide currency in modern music, is scandalously out of control, and contributes to the corruption of her young fans. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea,” says sacred scripture.

Unfortunately, her spiking fame and fortune will make her battle to come clean tougher, for it’s harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, than for a camel to pass through the eyes of the needle. Yet all things are possible with God.

By Chinwuba Iyizoba