AHIARA DIOCESE CRISIS: THE UNTOLD STORIES…3

The Rise and Rise of Fr Francis Arinze

With the exit of the powerful but humane Bishop of Owerri Diocese, Bishop Whelan, and along with him the saintly Irish missionaries; and with Owerri Diocese being run by a simple priest with an interim title of Vicar Capitula - the Catholic Church’s equivalent for an acting chairman of a caretaker committee, it meant that power had shifted once again back to the place it was wrested from in 1948 when Owerri area was raised to the status of a vicariate and subsequently to a diocese in 1950.

Contemporary Igbo Catholics have forgotten completely or have not been told of the epic struggle of the 1940s to have Owerri area wrested from the clutches of the Onitsha Church for it to become an independent area of the Catholic Church that plies with the central Igbo customs and traditions rather than those of Onitsha and its environs. But the tragic outcome of the civil war was to change all that in an instant. Owerri area was thrown right back into the warm embrace of Onitsha to the disappointment of her independent-minded Igbo heartland Catholics.

This was one heck of a devastating consequence of the civil war. Owerri people had hardly envisaged that that would become their fate once the tragic armed conflict was over. The pain was almost as disappointing as the loss of the civil war itself. Many in the Owerri area could not believe that when the civil war came to an end the fabulous church of the Igbo heartland represented by Owerri city would be thrown right back to the domineering influence of the Onitsha Church. Yet that was what had happened. Owerri people were cast back to square one being their pre-1948 status as an appendage of the Onitsha Church.

From the 1930s and 40s the subservient status of the Owerri area Catholic Church in relation to their Onitsha counterpart had been a source of great tension in Igbo Catholicism. The Igbo heartland people have always resented any insinuation or suggestion that they were subservient, inferior or secondary to the Catholic Church in Onitsha. They always demanded parity in their relationship.

But on the other hand, Onitsha Church would have none of that. They have always wanted to be treated as the senior brother/partner, the provider and the chief supervisor of the affairs of the Owerri Church which they in fact were in the 1920s and early 30s. From the earliest times of Catholicism in Igbo land, the intention of the Onitsha Church has always been to maintain the Church in the Owerri area as her baby and she herself as her baby sitter. The repatriation of Irish missionaries from the Owerri area back to their home land following the civil war defeat, and the emergence of the first indigenous bishop for Onitsha Archdiocese, paved the way for the Onitsha Church to realize her age-long wish, namely, to reclaim her position as the divinely ordained baby sitter for the Owerri area Church.

Another seeming misfortune for Owerri Diocese and Mbaise people in particular was that on the eve of the civil war, Onitsha Archdiocese changed completely and drastically too in both administration and in culture. It became an indigenous Church for the people of Onitsha area and in that instance re-acquired both the benefits and the baggage that had historically been present in the relationship between the Igbo heartland Owerri people and the people of Onitsha. There had always existed some historical tension between the two peoples. Both had not been the best of friends as they traced their legendary origins differently. Christian evangelization kind of brought the two very suspicious peoples together without erasing completely their historical mistrust and suspicion.

On February 7, 1967 the great missionary shepherd of Onitsha Archdiocese, Archbishop Charles Heerey passed on to eternity amid loud cries from all corners of Igbo land. He was a great man of vision and administration. He was the unifier per excellence. Archbishop Heerey understood the limits and powers of his great diocese of Onitsha especially in relation to other suffragan dioceses of his province. Immediately Owerri area was carved out as a different vicariate and subsequently as a diocese, Archbishop Heerey gave her free hand to develop according to her own pace and with her own tradition and culture. He was such an exemplary shepherd.

Even the religious congregations Archbishop Heerey had founded whose headquarters were now located in the new diocese of Owerri, he let the new bishop run them without any interference whatsoever. Archbishop Heerey never interfered with the internal administrations of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Mother of Christ headquartered in Urualla and the Congregation of the Brothers of St Peter Claver whose headquarters was in Uturu Okigwe. As a great shepherd, he always referred the administrators of these congregations back to their ordinary who was then the new bishop of Owerri Diocese, Bishop J.B. Whelan.

Archbishop Heerey’s auxiliary bishop appointed before his death had been the very young Bishop Francis Arinze. Shortly after the death of Archbishop Heerey an alleged internal but unspoken struggle broke out about who was to succeed the late archbishop as the bishop of the powerful Onitsha Archdiocese. The powerful Holy Ghost Congregation that brought Irish missionaries to Igbo land wanted to maintain their grips over the powerful archdiocese. So they wanted one of their own members to head the diocese. But then there was a young and vibrant bishop very close to the position already in the person of Francis Arinze. How could anyone pass on the opportunity to bring the versatility of youth and the acclaimed intelligence of the auxiliary bishop to bear on the old archdiocese that could use all of that at that point in time in her history? That was the dilemma.

However, the atmosphere in Igbo land then was such that only an indigenous bishop would be appropriate for the Archdiocese of Onitsha. So, the missionaries, especially the Irish missionaries, reading the signs of the times, and being hamstrung in such a situation by factors of indigenization, allegedly wanted their indigenous member, Bishop Anthony Gogo Nwedo C.S.Sp to be transferred from Umuahia to Onitsha Archbishop. The reason they politely gave was that Bishop Francis Arinze was too young to head a diocese of that magnitude.

But all the indigenous priests of Igbo land rallied behind the appointment of Bishop Arinze as the new bishop of Onitsha Archdiocese in 1967. The powerful group of indigenous Igbo priests who strongly rooted for Bishop Arinze to succeed the late Archbishop Heerey was led among others by the indomitable Fr Mark Onwuha Unegbu of Umuahia Diocese. This powerful group being propelled by Fr Mark Unegbu would go to great lengths to ensure that the young Bishop Arinze emerged as the archbishop of Onitsha Archdiocese in 1967.

It would be recalled that it was the young priest, Fr Mark Unegbu who succeeded Fr Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi [now Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi] as the parish priest of Dunukofia who had discovered and discerned the vocation of a young boy called Francis Arinze in 1945. Francis as a little boy was baptized by Fr Cyprian Iwene Tansi on November 1, 1941 as a nine-year old boy. On assuming the office of parish priest in Dunukofia in 1945 after his ordination in 1944, Fr Mark Unegbu had inherited the young Francis Arinze as his house boy.

Seeing the great intelligence and docility of Francis Arinze, Fr Unegbu unilaterally declared that Francis would be sent to the minor seminary against the desire and wishes of Francis Arinze’s parents. According to Bishop Unegbu’s biography, My Life, this decision of young Fr Unegbu on the fate of Francis Arinze caused a mild drama in the nature of a standoff between Fr Unegbu, the parish priest of Dunukofia, and the parents of Francis. While the father of Francis was not quite decided on what his son, Francis, should pursue as his life’s career, the mother of Francis was adamant on sending Francis to the elite school in Umuahia called Government College Umuahia.

Government College Umuahia was considered among the best secondary schools in Eastern Nigeria at that time. It would be the school that produced the likes of Chinua Achebe, Ken Saro Wiwa, among many others, all of whom were boyhood contemporaries of the young Francis Arinze. The mother of Francis insisted that her son who was noted for academic brilliance would go there to compete with the best. And to his credit young Francis Arinze had everything to compete with the best of his time. So his mother wanted to seize on those qualities of his to train her son in the company of the best from the young nation of Nigeria.

But Fr Mark Unegbu had other ideas for his beloved Francis. And to get his wish accomplished he threatened to expel all the Arinze-brothers from the primary school he managed in Dunukofia if Francis was not allowed to go to the Seminary. The other brothers of Arinze who were attending the same school with Francis according to the biography of the late Bishop Unegbu were Linus and Christopher. The mother of Francis had wanted any of those two to be taken to the seminary rather than Francis. But Fr Mark Unegbu refused bluntly. He insisted that it would have to be Francis or no other person. Being the tenacious person he always was until his death, Fr Unegbu made sure his own will prevailed in that struggle over the future of young Francis Arinze.

Eventually Francis Arinze was sent to the seminary under the guardianship of Fr Mark Unegbu. There in the seminary his star shone quite brightly as an academic superstar. He was well loved by his white teachers who hailed him as a model seminarian and accorded him every privileged position available. It was this love and goodwill of the white missionaries that would propel young Francis to Rome where he would complete his studies and become ordained priest on November 23, 1958. Coming back in the early 1960’s he was made Education Secretary of the great Archdiocese of Onitsha, a post he would combine with his other post as a professor at Bigard Memorial Seminary Enugu.

But it would be Fr Francis Arinze’s brief role as chaperon and interpreter to the visiting secretary of state, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini that would change his entire life and history as well as that of Igbo Catholicism forever. The Secretary of State to the great pope, John XXIII had visited Southern Nigeria in the early 60’s. The young and vibrant Fr Francis Arinze was assigned as his chaperon and interpreter. The secretary of state spoke Italian, Latin and a few other European languages. But he hardly spoke any English at all. So Fr Francis Arinze became his interpreter. He interpreted from Latin and Italian to English to Igbo and back and forth. With his mastery of both European and local languages Fr Arinze mesmerized the visiting secretary of state who went home with a very high opinion of the young and vibrant priest from Onitsha Archdiocese called Francis Arinze.

Shortly after his visit to Nigeria, Giovanni Battista Montini, as was fortuitously prophesied in the address the premier of Eastern Nigeria, Michael Okpara had read to him in Enugu Stadium during a public reception organized for the visiting Vatican secretary of state, was elected pope on June 21, 1963, following the death of John XXIII. And he took the name Pope Paul VI.

With the ascendancy of Pope Paul VI it was almost a foregone conclusion that Arinze would be made a bishop at some point in time during the early part of the reign of the new pope. Predictably so, Arinze was appointed the auxiliary bishop of Onitsha a few years after Pope Paul VI was elected. He would be ordained an auxiliary to Archbishop Heerey on August 29, 1965 at on official age of 32. Two years into his ministry as an auxiliary bishop to Archbishop Heerey, the later died on February 7, 1967.

And with the new bishop, Francis Arinze, being appointed the new archbishop of Onitsha, coupled with the loss of the civil war and the expulsion of the Irish missionaries from Igbo heartland Dioceses and parishes, the history of Catholicism in Igbo land changed forever.

To be continued ….