{"id":14900,"date":"2023-03-27T10:47:08","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T10:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/?p=14900"},"modified":"2023-03-27T11:05:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T11:05:11","slug":"kenyan-born-steven-lacchin-calls-on-the-pope-to-help-him-get-his-biological-father-fr-mario-lacchin-to-sign-deed-of-parentage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/?p=14900","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan born Steven Lacchin calls on the Pope to help him get his biological father Fr Mario Lacchin to sign deed of parentage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Born 40 yrs ago and raised in Chamakanga village of Sabatia in Vihiga county, Steve was simply called mzungu(white man ) due to his skin complexion. Locals always respected him as a young man because besides being the only son to the Chamakanga girls school deputy principal Steven was well behaved and fitted well among the maragolis. Infact it was only him and fr Celso who was incharge of St Ursulas Parish Chamakanga who spoke fluent kimaragoli the local language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steven attended St Benedict nursary school before joining Kaimosi jr primary school.After his Kcpe, he joined St Peters Mumias and Busali Union High school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little was known about Steven save for his exploits in sports ie he played soccer at the local Chamakanga fc and was also a karateka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many years later, Steven has come out openly where he has boldly confronted his past and stated that he is Fr Mario Lacchin’s biological son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve took to his fqcebook page and posted!!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My name is Steven Lacchin and I need your URGENT HELP.
https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/archive-the-reckoning-8413910635<\/a>
                                                                         !!!!!!!! SOS !!!!!!!
HELP ME CALL OUT (the untouchable) FR. LENGARIN BHOLA JAMES AND CONSOLATA MISSIONARIES IMC (on all media platforms) to produce Fr. Mario Lacchin (before he DIES -Age 87 years) at any Italian Consulate to sign a Deed of Parentage ATTO RICOGNITIVO- Steven Lacchin.
   Save a Mother\u2019s SHAME. Save a Family. Save a Sister; the Real victims
# NOSHAME<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

# My father is a Catholic priest….<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steven Lacchin grew up a fatherless boy, but he knew some very basic facts about the man who was his father.
He knew Lacchin, the name on his Kenyan birth certificate, was his dad\u2019s name. He knew that Mario Lacchin abandoned him and his mother.
When he was older, he learned that his father was an Italian missionary priest _ and that in leaving, he had chosen the church over his child.
What he did not know is that less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) away, another man was on a quest to prove that Mario Lacchin was his father, too.
These two men would find each other thanks to an Associated Press story that appeared on the front page of Kenya\u2019s main newspaper. All agreed that they bore a marked resemblance, but they underwent genetic testing to be certain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vatican only publicly admitted this year that it had a problem: Priests were fathering children. And it only acknowledged the problem by revealing that it had crafted internal guidelines to deal with it.
\u201cI don\u2019t know how many children of priests there are in the world, but I know that they are all over the planet,\u201d said Anne-Marie Jarzac, who heads the French group Enfants du Silence (Children of Silence), which recently opened negotiations with French bishops to access church archives so these children of priests can learn their true identities<\/em><\/strong>.
Just as clergy sex abuse victims have long suffered the indifference of the Catholic hierarchy, many of these children of priests endure rejection multiple times over: abandoned by their fathers, deprived of their identities and ignored by church superiors when they seek answers or help. 
Steven Lacchin\u2019s lineage was no secret. Members of Mario Lacchin\u2019s order were well aware of it and exerted pressure on him to choose the church over his young family, according to his letters.
His mother, Madeleine, kept a decade worth of correspondence with the priest, as well as meticulous records of her efforts to seek child support from the Consolata leadership and regional bishops after Steven was born June 21, 1980. (Steven Lacchin asked that his mother be identified only by her first name.)<\/p>

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Decades old letters between Fr Mario Lacchin and Steven’s mother.<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The two had met two years earlier in Nanyuki, about 200 kilometers north of Nairobi, where Madeleine was a school teacher at an all-girls school and Lacchin would celebrate Mass. Madeleine would later tell the Consolata regional superior that she first went to Lacchin with \u201ca spiritual problem,\u201d but that they then eased into a \u201cfriendly pastor-parishioner\u201d relationship that grew into love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On July 28, 1979, Mario Lacchin wrote a birthday card to Madeleine in his neat cursive, promising to spend more time with her and her young daughter from a previous relationship, Josephine, despite the risks their union posed.
\u201cI do really love you with all my heart and body,\u201d he wrote. \u201cYou are the only one who is giving me, not only physical satisfaction, but a lot more. You are telling me and teaching me how beautiful it is to love and be together no matter the sacrifices we have to make for it.\u201d  
Soon after, Madeleine became pregnant. A few months before Steven was born, Lacchin wrote from Rome about meetings he held with the Consolata leadership at the order\u2019s headquarters about his impending fatherhood.
\u201cI had a little trouble in Rome with my superiors,\u201d he wrote Madeleine on March 4, 1980. \u201cIt is my impression that nobody is going to help me in the way I would like to go,\u201d he wrote, adding: \u201cHow is the baby?\u201d
By the end of 1981 _ with Steven Lacchin a year old _ the priest seemed determined to end his \u201cdouble life\u201d and devote himself to his family.  
\u201cI took a courage to meet with my provincial superior about you, about Steven, about my readiness to leave the priesthood,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI want you, and I will fight until I will be with you, Steven and Josephine forever.\u201d  
But in that same letter, Lacchin told Madeleine that his superior wasn\u2019t at all on board with the plan. \u201cHe told me that he wants to save my priesthood, but I told him that I will never be able to continue in such a life knowing I had a child belong to me,\u201d he wrote.
Lacchin never left the Consolatas. His letters over the following years speak of his order\u2019s \u201cpressure\u201d to remain a priest, as well as his own feelings of \u201cfailure\u201d and his apologies for having promised Madeleine \u201ca future which will never come.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Vatican was loath in those years to let a priest abandon his vocation, the Consolata\u2019s deputy superior, the Rev. James Lengarin, insists that if a priest formally requested to be released from his vows because he had fathered a child, he would have been allowed to go.
By 1985, Madeleine was increasingly unable to care for the children. She was ill, and shunned by her devout Catholic family because of her liaison with Lacchin.  
Lacchin, then stationed in Uganda, had left 1.7 million Ugandan shillings for her in the Ugandan diocese of Tororo that year (the equivalent at the time of $2,500), but in the midst of a civil war, Madeleine couldn\u2019t access the money. Due to the upheaval, the money lost nearly all its value.
Two years later, Madeleine wrote to Lacchin\u2019s superiors seeking financial and bureaucratic help as she increasingly feared for Steven\u2019s future. Who would pay for his education? And the child couldn\u2019t get Kenyan citizenship because his father wasn\u2019t Kenyan; Steven Lacchin\u2019s birth certificate and other identity papers all bore Mario Lacchin\u2019s name.  
The Consolata\u2019s then-regional superior, the Rev. Mario Barbero, replied that he understood Lacchin had left money for Steven\u2019s care in Uganda.  
\u201cWith this I think that Mario has given some contribution towards meeting the expenses for Steven\u2019s upbringing, though I know that money is not enough to heal psychological wounds and frustrations you had to go through,\u201d Barbero wrote.
A year later, Madeleine took her case directly to Lacchin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven as I write, I find it difficult to believe that you, Mario, could turn me into the helpless beggar I am,\u201d she wrote on Jan. 5, 1988.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI accepted your decision regarding me, and yet I cannot accept your hiding behind the priesthood to refuse to help a child you helped bring into the world,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI do not know what you think he will think of you and of your priesthood and other priests when he grows up and learns how you treated him<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

FR Mario  Lacchin impregnates a 16 yr old to father his second son….<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then, Mario Lacchin had been transferred north and was working at the Consolata mission in Archer\u2019s Post, a onetime trading station in the Northern Rift Valley.  There, he met Sabina Losirkale, a young girl in her final year at Gir Gir Primary School who cleaned the Consolata priests\u2019 quarters after classes.
Impregnated at 16 _ before the age of legal consent in Kenya _ she would give birth to a boy, Gerald Erebon, on March 12, 1989. He was pale complexioned, unlike his black mother or siblings or the black man he was told was his father.
When Sabina became pregnant, the Consolatas transferred Lacchin out of Archer\u2019s Post, and he vanished from her life.
Shortly before her death in 2012, family members say, Sabina told them Lacchin was Gerald\u2019s father. The priest has denied it, and refused to take a paternity test. The order acknowledged nothing.
The AP told Gerald Erebon\u2019s story in October. That article led Steven Lacchin to reach out to Erebon on Facebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fr Mario Lacchin celebrating mass.<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cI saw your story and I feel for you,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI am letting you know, you are not alone.\u201d
Intrigued, but skeptical, Erebon responded. What did the writer want to share?<\/em><\/strong>
\u201cHe is my dad too,\u201d Lacchin replied.
A few days later, the two met in Nairobi. It turns out they are practically neighbors, living in adjacent neighborhoods along Nairobi\u2019s main Magadi Road. They marveled at how much they looked alike: two bi-racial men born to black African mothers, soft-spoken and pensive, though Erebon towers over Steven.
Awkwardly, they hugged for the first time and looked over the documentation Steven had brought along detailing the years-long relationship between Lacchin and his mother and her efforts to hold him responsible for Steven\u2019s upkeep<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Steven Lacchin, 39, left, has lunch with Gerald Erebon, 30, right, who DNA tests indicate is his half-brother, accompanied by Steven’s wife Ruth, above, and his children, after receiving the DNA results at GeneMetrics Laboratories in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP Photo\/Brian Inganga<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Steven Lacchin meets his half brother by the same dad, Fr Mario Lacchin..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They shared the stories of their lives. Like Erebon, Steven Lacchin was brought up in the church and attended seminary for a time. Steven said he was kicked out once his bishop discovered that his father was a Catholic priest. Eventually he was able to put himself through law school, and now is married with three children.  
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t need a DNA to tell these two are brothers,\u201d said Lacchin\u2019s wife, Ruth. \u201cIf you look at Mario, you look at Steven, you look at Gerald, it\u2019s one person. It\u2019s one tree. They are brothers!\u201d
Still, they needed to know. The AP arranged for DNA tests.
Two weeks later, the results were in: The findings were \u201centirely consistent with a direct male-line biological relationship,\u201d the lab said.
In other words, the men are almost certainly half-brothers, said Darren Griffin, a geneticist at the University of Kent who reviewed the lab results for AP.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Steven takes DnA test<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe only thing I can say is welcome to the family!\u201d Lacchin told Erebon, shaking his hand.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cThis is eternal,\u201d Lacchin said. \u201cWe can\u2019t run away from this. We may go our separate ways, but one thing, you know you have a brother out there.\u201d
Erebon said he had thought he was alone, and having \u201ca relative, a family, someone you can call your own, makes it a bit easier for me now.\u201d
Mario Lacchin, who has taken a leave from his parish work in Nairobi to see his Italian relatives, didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.
Lengarin, the deputy Consolata superior, said he searched the order\u2019s Nairobi archives in 2018 after Erebon came forward and turned up no information about Erebon or Steven Lacchin. But he acknowledged that he only looked into the two years surrounding Erebon\u2019s 1989 birth, and that the order doesn\u2019t keep complete personnel files..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Gerald takes a DNA test. The tests show that the two are brothers born of same father.<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Steven still wants the church\u2019s help in ironing out his Kenyan and Italian citizenship issues; Erebon wants Mario Lacchin to acknowledge his paternity, so the heritage of his own two children can be recognized and they can obtain Italian citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt started very long time ago and our father has to do the right thing, at least once,\u201d Erebon said. \u201cHe needs to make it right. And the church should not continue with the cover-up. They should just make this right<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

photos and additional reports courtesy of AP and Khaled Khazina<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven and Gerald, sons of a Catholic father Fr Mario Lacchin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14900"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14920,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14900\/revisions\/14920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}