Even if the lay faithful in Ahiara Catholic Diocese of Imo State did not know what they were up against when they rejected Bishop Peter Okpaleke who was sent to them as a replacement to the late Bishop Victor Chikwe in 2012, at least the priests of the diocese were expected to have known better that they were fighting a lost cause. No one fights the Catholic Church and wins. It is like standing in the way of an angry tide.
A priest friend told me that when Bishop Michael Ugwuja Eneja, a native of Ibagwa Ani in Nsukka Diocese, retired as the Bishop of Enugu Catholic Diocese in 1997, so-called intellectual priests of the diocese began to moot the idea that it was time to appoint a son of the soil (that is, an indigenous priest of Enugu Diocese) to head the Catholic Church in Enugu. Eneja’s predecessors were both non-indigenes. The first Catholic Bishop of Enugu, Bishop John of the Cross Anyogu (the first Igbo man to be consecrated a Catholic Bishop), was from Onitsha, while his successor, Bishop Godfrey Mary Paul Okoye, was from Ifitedunu, both in Anambra State. Enugu had produced numerous priests who could be considered eminently qualified, in character and in learning, to be consecrated Bishop.
Then a priest of the diocese, Rev. Fr. Eugene Ugonna Igboaja, an intellectual and a prolific writer, published a book entitled something like ‘Enugu Diocese Again’, which perhaps tried to encapsulate the feelings of the priests and lay faithful in Enugu Diocese at the time. The Vatican, however, felt differently. And so, Bishop Anthony Okonkwo Gbuji, a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Issele-Uku, Delta State, who was then heading his home diocese as bishop, was transferred to Enugu to succeed Eneja. Enugu Catholics howled, but then, they had no option but to take it in good faith knowing protests would yield no positive result.
Instead, Fr. Igboaja was asked by the Vatican to render a public apology during a Mass in which Bishop Gbuji was the chief celebrant. It was only Fr. Igboaja’s public apology before a mammoth congregation of the Catholic faithful, where he retracted everything he said in the book, that killed and buried the matter.
In the current case of Ahiara, some clergy and lay faithful alike have argued that the people have a point. Some have alleged the existence of what they see as “Anambra agenda” in the appointment of bishops.
Rev. Fr. Austine Ekechukwu, president, Ahiara Diocesan Catholic Priests Association, on why the priests and the laity in Ahiara rejected Bishop Okpalaeke, said in an interview that it was “the sheer injustice that we noticed in the selection process, which led to his appointment and consecration”, adding, “It is absurd that out of the 700 Mbaise indigenous priests, none of them was considered qualified to be named a bishop, either in their home diocese or elsewhere.” He hinted that Awka Diocese where Okpalaeke hails from, with far less number of priests, has seven bishops.
The other argument is that the Pope should have picked one from among the over 700 priests of Ahiara to head the diocese instead of sending them someone who speaks a different Igbo dialect that would be incomprehensible to the rural dwellers in Mbaise.
On a WhatsApp forum where I belong, a priest friend who lives in the United States also said something similar. “Anambra people are not the only ones that make good bishops, you know. We have two ecclesiastical provinces in the South-East, the Onitsha and Owerri Ecclesiastical provinces. Owerri province has more Papal Nuncios and secretaries to Papal Nuncios, so why can’t we make good bishops in our province that all of them have to come from the Onitsha province?” he said.
He went on to produce a chart that showed that six out of the current bishops in the two provinces are from Awka Diocese alone – Bishop Simon Okafor (emeritus Bishop of Awka), Bishop Paulinus Ezeokafor (Awka), Bishop Vincent Ezeonyia (Aba), Bishop Solomon Amatu (Okigwe), Archbishop Valerian Okeke (Onitsha), and Bishop Peter Okpalaeke, whose appointment to Ahiara is at the root of the current controversy.
Well, these priests are merely playing politics. Their arguments are “full of sound and fury signifying nothing”, to quote Shakespeare. You talk about qualification? Who determines who is qualified to be a bishop? You or the Vatican? Secondly, if the mostly illiterate pioneer Catholics of the colonial days coped with foreign bishops such as Shanahan, McCarthy, Whelan, Heerey, and so on who spoke through the nose, how would mostly enlightened Catholics of the 21st century complain about mere dialectal variations?
But beyond these points, among the vows every priest of the Catholic Church takes upon ordination is that of obedience. It is taken for granted that the Pope’s decision is final on any matter of faith. Obedience to the Pope is sacrosanct, no matter your grievances. It is not for fancy that the Pope bears the titles “Supreme Pontiff”, “Vicar of Christ”, “Head of the Church”, “Successor of Saint Peter”, etc. And the Catholic priests of Ahiara know this. If leading their flock into needless protest in a cause they knew was dead on arrival was not bad enough, letting the matter degenerate so low that a worldly politician would be the one reminding them that the Pope’s decision was binding on them makes a mockery of their priestly call.
As Most Rev. (Prof) Godfrey Igwebuike Onah, Catholic Bishop of Nsukka Diocese, rightly said in an interview with a national newspaper sometime ago, anyone who understands the priesthood and the episcopacy would know that these are not honours anyone takes upon himself.
“There are all the arguments about the advantage of somebody who understands the people culturally. There are all the arguments about the sense of belonging that a people will feel if their own son is their leader. There are all the arguments about the possibility of human manipulation of a process that should be left to the Holy Spirit, yes, using human beings but principally directed by the Holy Spirit. All those are arguments. But those arguments don’t remove anything from the basic principle that the priesthood is a gift, a gift from God. You either accept it in faith or every other thing behind the priesthood crumbles,” Bishop Onah said.
The Catholic Church does not pretend to be a democracy. One of the earliest quotes I learnt in my Latin classes as a minor seminarian was “Roma locuta, causa finite est”, which translates as “Rome has spoken, the case is ended”. A bit of research on the origin of this popular maxim on www.catholic.com shows it derives from a statement made by Saint Augustine of Hippo early in the fifth century.
Records say that Augustine, in buttressing the authority of the Pope and the fact that Councils of the Church are authoritative only if approved by the Pope, in a sermon to his flock informed them that the Pope had ratified the condemnations of the Pelagian heresy pronounced at the Councils of Milevi and Carthage.
www.catholic.com quotes him thus, “The two councils sent their decrees to the Apostolic See and the decrees quickly came back. The cause is finished; would that the error were as quickly finished (Sermon 131:10).”
Well, today is the deadline given by the Pope for “every priest or ecclesiastic incardinated in the Diocese of Ahiara, whether he resides there or elsewhere, even abroad”, to write a letter, “individually and personally”, asking for forgiveness, clearly manifesting total obedience to the Pope and expressing willingness to accept the Bishop whom the Pope sends and has appointed, or be ipso facto suspended a divinis and lose his current office. Any Ahiara priest who is yet to comply with this directive must be assembling a congregation for his new church by now.
Chuks Oluigbo
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