LET THE LIGHT SHINE IN AHIARA

Sonnie Ekwowusi urges warring Ahiara priests to sheath their swords and accept Ugorji as their new apostolic administrator

It is no longer news that Bishop Peter Ebere Okpaleke has voluntarily resigned as the Bishop of Ahiara Catholic Diocese. Paradoxically, the humble, amiable and peace-loving bishop voluntarily tendered his resignation at a time the moral support of the Vatican and the public for him had reached its crescendo amid the bourgeoning protestations of some disgruntled Ahiara priests and lay faithful calling for his resignation on the ground that he is not a native of Ahiara. Many had thought that with the strong backing of Pope Francis, members of the Roman Curia and many Ahiara priests and faithful Bishop Okpaleke would have continued to exercise his Episcopal ministry as the Catholic Bishop of Ahiara Diocese. But contrary to their expectation, Okpaleke has tendered his letter of resignation. The announcement was made by the embattled bishop himself in a public letter. The bishop said he was voluntarily resigning for the good of the Church and by extension for the good of Ahiara. In his own words: “I leave for the good of the church, repentance and reconciliation are urgent… my remaining the Bishop of Ahiara Diocese is no longer beneficial to the church”. Meanwhile, Pope Francis has accepted Bishop Okpaleke’s resignation and appointed Bishop of Umuahia Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji (Bishop Ugorji is not indigene of Ahiara) as the new Apostolic Administrator of Ahiara Catholic Diocese.

First, Bishop Okpaleke’s calm recollection, self-assurance, forgiving heart, sanguine humility and unflinching commitment to peace in the face of tumultuous protests, are, for me, very remarkable. For six consecutive years, Bishop Okpaleke has been a victim of the most unsavoury clannish and ethnic protests orchestrated by some disgruntled Ahiara priests and lay faithful. It seems as if the Ahiara devil has taken possession of some Ahiara trouble makers to cause mayhem in Ahiara as well as rob Ahiara of its well-deserved spiritual flourishing. Armed with guns and other instruments of mass destruction, the protesting priests and lay faithful erected human barricades across major roads in Ahiara. On one occasion or so, they refused Cardinal John O. Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja, appointed by Pope Francis to broker peace, entry into Ahiara. Throughout this reign of darkness, Bishop Okpaleke remained calm and serene.

Now that he has resigned, the protesting Ahiara priests and lay faithful should reciprocate his kind gesture. They should accept Bishop Ugorji as their new bishop so that peace may reign in Ahiara. The protesting Ahiara priests and lay faithful are guilty as charged under criminal law, in my view, because they constituted themselves into a public nuisance to engage in violent demonstrations and activities resulting in breach of public peace. They went as far as making a mock coffin of Bishop Okpaleke and placing it in front of the Catholic Cathedral just to demonstrate their resolve that Okpaleke must quit Ahiara dead or alive. At one time, the Imo State Commissioner of Police and Governor Okorocha had to intervene to call the rioting Ahiara priests to order. Imagine Governor Okorocha addressing Catholic priests and admonishing them to be of good behaviour. Whereas it should have been the other way round. What a shame!

No matter the grievance, provocation or pent-up anger it is improper for a priest, and indeed anybody for that matter, to take to violence in order to register his grievance(s). In the Catholic Church the priesthood is a reenactment of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. A priest acting in persona Christi should forgive his enemies as Jesus did. “The office proper to a priest”, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, “is to be a mediator between God and the people, inasmuch as he bestows divine things on the people(he is called sacerdos (priest), which means ‘a giver of things’. Come to think of it, Jesus did not apply the “ethnic principle” or the “son-of-the-soil” principle or the “Federal Character principle” in the appointment of his 12 Apostles. The Bible says that Jesus appointed those whom he wanted as his 12Apostles. Among them were pairs of brothers including the relatives of Jesus. Two of the apostles came from Bethsaida. Matthew was a tax collector, comparable to the “419 profession” of today. Judas was a thief. Yet Jesus is not labelled as a sectionalist or ethnic jingoist. According to Bishop Ugorji, the college of Bishops, with the Pope the Bishop of Rome as its head, is the successor of the 12 apostles. As the Vicar of Christ on earth, the pope possesses supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power in the Catholic Church which he freely exercises. This implies that the pope is the one that appoints a bishop in the Catholic Church. A person is not appointed bishop through popular participatory democratic vote or because of his ethnic or blood ties or leaning: the pope appoints the bishop. Hence the popular Latin aphorism attributed to St. Augustine in the 5th Century: “Roma locuta est, causa finita” (Rome has spoken, case closed). Disobedience or disloyalty to the pope is disobedience and disloyalty to Christ. For about two millennia, the pope has wielded a paternal authority respected and obeyed by all as attested to by the early christians. In order to be united with the church, priests and lay faithful must preserve the bond uniting them to their diocesan bishops and the pope. According to the Fathers of the First Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops, “Christ has come to restore the world to unity, a single human family in the image of the Trinitarian Family”. The church therefore is the family of God. There is no longer male, female, Jews, Greeks, Ahiara, Awka, Umuahia, Okpaleke, protesting priests and lay faithful. All are one in Jesus Christ. As St. Paul graphically puts it in I Corinthians 1:10-12, do not say I belong to Peter, or Paul, or Apollos but say I belong to Christ.

Consequently, the warring Ahiara priests and lay faithful should sheath their swords and accept Bishop Ugorji as their new Apostolic administrator so that peace may reign in Ahiara once more. Already the Ahiara crisis has done incalculable damage to the image of the church in Nigeria especially in Ahiara Catholic Diocese. The name Ahiara has become synonymous with protest and mayhem. These days if you say you are from Ahiara at a public gathering everybody there will be looking at you with suspicion. Employers of labour may begin to reject job applicants from Ahiara for fear that they might organise a protest or riot in the work place. Therefore now is the time to pull down all the walls of darkness so that light may shine once more in Ahiara. Let the light shine in Ahiara.

BISHOP OKPALEKE’S CALM RECOLLECTION, SELF-ASSURANCE, FORGIVING HEART, HUMILITY AND UNFLINCHING COMMITMENT TO PEACE IN THE FACE OF TUMULTUOUS PROTESTS, ARE, FOR ME, REMARKABLE