Ahiara Crisis: A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

By

David Asonye Ihenacho*

[An Essay sent to many Nigerian Catholic bishops on May 11, 2013]

The Roman Catholic Church is unquestionably one of the oldest institutions in the contemporary world. In this year, 2013, it is celebrating her 2,013 years of a continuous existence in the world. Her last census put her entire population a little above 1.2 billion members. By sheer number and spread, the Catholic Church is the largest and the most successful single-run organization in the world.

In fact, there is no contesting the fact that the Roman Catholic Church is a very successful organization. In secular management and institutional studies around the world, the Catholic Church is always held up as a model in spite of some obvious lapses present in her structures. One of the secrets of her popularity, longevity and resilience has been her ability to weather and resolve crises she encounters in the various places from time to time. The universal Catholic Church is a master in weathering and resolving crises.

But every once in a while, local church leaders tend to remove their eyes from the ball and mismanage some innocuous local crises which end up plunging the universal church into some unmitigated confusion and disasters. One must remember here the Arian crisis of the fourth century in Alexandria, Egypt, the Nestorian heresy of Ephesus in the fifth century, the East-West Filioque controversy of the 6th century, and the indulgence crisis of the 16th century that resulted in the disintegration of Christianity.

And coming closer to our time, we must remember the recent priests’ sex abuse scandal of 2002 in America and the Vatileaks of 2011 and 2012. All these to a large extent were local crises which could have been better managed but were not. So they ended up inflicting a terrible damage on the psyche and fabrics of the universal Church. The history of the Catholic Church reveals that mismanaged local crises have a way of imposing themselves as devastating burdens on the universal Church. That is why the time-honored aphorism – a stitch in time saves nine, should always be kept in mind in the management of local crises in the church. In such managements, time is usually of the essence.

The Catholic Church in Nigeria is a very young institution in comparison with the universal Church and other older churches around the world. The Catholic Church here is barely above one hundred years old. As a result of its youthfulness, Nigerian Catholicism does not appear to have much experience managing potentially damaging crises that could end up impacting her seriously as well as the continental and universal Catholic Church.

The crisis in the Catholic Diocese of Ahiara, Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria, is shaping up to become one of such crises that could inflict a very damaging repercussion on the corpus of the Catholic Church of Nigeria and Africa as a whole, if not well managed. It would be recalled that on Friday, December 7, 2012, the Holy Father, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, appointed a priest from Awka Diocese, Msgr. Ebere Peter Okpalaeke, as the bishop-elect of Ahiara Diocese, Mbaise. Mbaise people were rattled by the appointment and furiously sent protest letters to the Pope and the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria rejecting the appointment.

However, in the Catholic Church, the pope is the only one vested with the authority to appoint bishops. And when he makes such appointments, it is always regarded as final. But the pope does not make such appointments casually and fortuitously. The appointments made by the pope are usually the products of wide-ranging consultations and inquiries in which the priests and lay people of the dioceses concerned make far-reaching inputs. The people of Ahiara Diocese claim not to be challenging the authority of the pope to appoint bishops. But they insist that the process that produced Msgr. Okpalaeke as their bishop-elect was flawed and unjust.

Since the announcement of Msgr. Okpalaeke as bishop-elect of Ahiara Diocese and his rejection by the people of Mbaise, tension has been building. Ahiara diocesan clergy and lay faithful have been using all sorts of means to draw the attention of His Holiness, Pope Francis and his legate in Nigeria, His Excellency, Archbishop Augustine Kasujja, to review the process that produced Msgr. Okpalaeke as their bishop-elect. But there seems to be an insistence that what is written is written. The situation has gradually moved from complaints and petition writing to threats and counter-threats. Yet there seems to be no resolution in sight. In fact, the matter appears to be growing worse every day.

But now the situation is about to blow over with dire consequences. The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria [CBCN], Owerri Province, has scheduled the ordination and installation of Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke in Maria Mater Ecclesiae Cathedral of Ahiara on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. And the people of Ahiara Diocese have responded by saying that there will be no Episcopal ordination in Ahiara Diocese on the said date. The standoff in Ahiara Diocese is now more than palpable. The Mbaise land is now under a veritable siege. People are now keeping overnight watches to prevent the so-called invasion that is imminent. And dangerous rumors have begun to fly all over the place.

But there is a telling rumor that is unsettling everybody in Mbaise these days. It is being said that the bishops, having successfully used the police and the military to install Archbishop Augustine Akubueze of Benin City Archdiocese some two years ago, are planning a repeat of their successful venture in Ahiara Diocese. Hence they have begun to mobilize to use the Nigerian military and police forces to invade Ahiara Diocese on the said date in order to get the bishop-elect ordained and installed. However, Nigerian Catholic bishops have continued to deny very strongly the allegation that the bishops employed the army and police to procure the installation of Archbishop Akubueze in Benin Archdiocese. Reacting, one of the princes of the Catholic Church in Nigeria stated: “By the way, it is NOT true that we brought soldiers and troops to Benin. The government heard of what was happening and decided to prevent any break down of law and order.”

A corollary to the rumored mobilization by the bishops is another rumor that Awka Diocese, the birthplace of the bishop-elect has arranged with the governments of Anambra and Enugu states to use their governors’ police convoys to stampede Ahiara Diocese and get their son, Msgr. Okpalaeke delivered safely to Ahiara Cathedral for his ordination and installation.

In response to all these rumors, the people of Ahiara Diocese, Mbaise, have begun to mobilize their population to counter the so-called invasion. As a result, the once peaceful communities of Mbaise are now being transformed to quasi-militia camps training vigorously to counter what is being seen as an imminent military invasion of Mbaise land. All these are happening in the name of the Catholic Church!

What all this means is if the rumors prove to be true, a violent encounter with dire consequences is about to break out in Mbaise land. First, if such an encounter is allowed to take place, it will be the ultimate mismanagement of a local crisis in the history of the Catholic Church in Africa. The CBCN should immediately intervene to nip this potentially violent encounter in the bud. The young Catholic Church of Nigeria can ill-afford such an encounter. It will be forever destroyed if she allows such an intra-religious war to ever happen.

Second, the CBCN should immediately implement the advice of His Holiness, Pope Francis. He recently advised that dialogue be used to resolve the crisis in Ahiara Diocese. The CBCN should immediately impanel a group of her expert members to dialogue with Ahiara Diocese and the bishop-elect. Both the bishop-elect and the people of Ahiara Diocese will be willing to make concessions for peace to reign.

Third, the Nigerian law enforcement agencies and the military must be prevailed upon to back off this Church matter. The current crisis in Ahiara Diocese is not yet beyond the Church in Nigeria to manage. The use of secular law enforcement agencies and the military to resolve disputed issues in the Church, in whatever guise imaginable, is a strategy that will attract the harshest condemnation of history.

If the military is involved in Ahiara crisis, innocent people will likely get killed or injured. And should this ever be allowed to happen in the young Catholic Church of Nigeria, the scandal will attract the severest consequences both here and in the hereafter. The worst being the Catholic Church losing her moral authority in Nigeria as well as her grip on a sizable population of Nigeria.

Fourth, if there is any scintilla of truth in the rumored involvement of the government houses of Anambra and Enugu States, the two Catholic governors must be sternly warned to refrain from exacerbating the problem. The Gestapo-mentality they may want to introduce in the crisis will ruin the reputation of the Catholic Church in Nigeria.

Once again, I wish to conclude by repeating this well-worn aphorism: A stitch in time saves nine.