AHIARA DIOCESE IN CROSSHAIRS: THE REAL STORIES …45 [EXCERPTS FROM A BOOK IN PRINT]

Conclusion: Lessons of Ahiara Diocese Crisis [updated]

One of the greatest ironies of the bishopric storm that swept through Mbaise land in the recent times is that embedded in that devastating gale were some of the therapeutic seeds that could not only cure the malignant ailments of Igbo Catholicism but also ensure its rapid growth and triumph for the foreseeable future. No matter how it is seen now or in the future, it should be obvious to everyone that there are many lessons to learn from the bishopric crisis Ahiara Diocese has been going through in the last several months and years. Looking back I do not think anybody could reasonably doubt the fact that our most provident Lord used the bishopric crisis in Ahiara Diocese to put aright some of the terrible anomalies that had over the years become endemic in Igbo Catholicism in particular and the Catholic Church in Nigeria as a whole. And this gives a new meaning to the aphorism that God writes straight on a crooked line.

The first lesson to be learned from Ahiara Diocese crisis is that the Catholic Church in Igbo land is still very young. In comparison with the Catholic Churches of many other parts of the world, the Church in Igbo land is a toddler. Granted that the Catholic Church as a body has completed its centenary celebrations in the two Igbo Catholic provinces, it must be borne in mind that the average age of the Catholic Church in most Igbo communities is not up to a hundred years.This means that we are dealing with a very young Church in Igbo land and even in Nigeria as a whole.

As a result of its youthfulness, the Catholic Church is yet a novelty in most Igbo communities. She is still being tested out whether she will endure. The situation of the Church in Igbo land is exactly like that of a new bride in any Igbo community who is being observed closely whether she will make a good wife of her husband and his kinsmen. Just like in ancient Igbo world, a new wife that is observed not to possess the qualities of a good wife could easily be divorced, or, she could have another wife brought in to supplant her and edge her out in the pecking order of the family. So also a Catholic Church that does not rise to the occasion of satisfying the moral expectations of Igbo people could easily be divorced or have another Church brought in to supplant her.

And because Igbo Catholicism is a toddler in every sense of the word, whatever is done in her, must be done with this very fact in mind. Just as wise adults try very hard not to scandalize toddlers and lads, so must every care be taken not to scandalize the youthful Church in Igbo land. There are some scandals the Igbo Church is not yet old enough to take and understand. Such scandals associated with injustice of all kinds will almost certainly inflict a mortal blow on the psyche of Igbo Catholicism. Any crisis resulting from injustice, cronyism and dishonesty in her leadership structure could either kill completely this vibrant young Igbo Church or set her backwards almost irredeemably.

Also, as a young Church without much experience in crisis management, every effort must be made to minimize the outbreak of crises in her rank and file. Igbo Catholicism is not yet old enough to bear the monstrous weight of scandals and crises. And the greatest panacea to the outbreak of unnecessary crises in Igbo Catholicism is justice and fairness. To bring down to the barest minimum the occurrences of crises in her body fabrics, Igbo Catholicism must ensure justice and transparency in all her dealings.

Second, the leaders of the Catholic Church everywhere should take to heart the peculiar nature of Igbo Catholicism. Ours is a Catholicism that is planted in independent Igbo communities. Igbo people have no history of monarchy or feudalism. They have no history of absolute domination by individuals or foreign communities. Every community in Igbo land is by its very nature autonomous and independent from and of one another.

The implication of this all-important principle is that it is an abomination for another community to attempt or to pretend to be able to dominate and colonize its counterpart community. This is always considered a humiliation, which, in the pre-colonial days always resulted in inter-communal wars. As a result, any community that appeared to enjoy practising colonialism or domination of other communities did not enjoy any good reputation among its peers. The Arochukwu and other Aro communities as well as the Ohafia, Abam and Item communities were loathed for these same reasons in the pre-Christian and pre-colonial era. Igbo communities are created to be independent of one another. The selection of leaders in the Church must as much as practicable give deference to this principle of autonomy of the various Igbo communities.

Leadership in Igbo Catholicism must reflect and respect the autonomy of Igbo communities. To establish any leadership in Igbo Catholicism in a way that it tends to undermine and even contradict the independence and pride communities take in being what they are will never augur well for the progress of Catholicism among the Igbo people. For instance, to concentrate the leadership of Igbo Catholicism in the hands of people from one section of Igbo land will automatically make Catholics from the disfavored communities feel that they are second-class citizens in the Catholic Church. Such a feeling will only retard the progress of the Church in Igbo land.

To forestall a situation in which a section of Igbo land appears to be constituted into second-class citizenship in the Catholic Church, leadership in Igbo Catholicism must always be allowed to evolve from each Igbo community. In an aggregation such as a parish, diocese or province, that comprises more than a single community, every community of the aggregate must be made to know that it has equal opportunity to contribute to the leadership structure of the aggregate as any other community of the group. For instance, in many parishes in Ahiara Diocese, the post of say parish council chairman or president of the Catholic Women Organization, or president of Catholic Men Organization, etc, is often rotated among the different communities making up a parish. This is a way to ensure that every autonomous or independent community of the parish participates in the leadership structure of the parish and enjoys a sense of belonging. For the sake of peace and harmony in Igbo Catholicism every community must always be assured of her fair share in the leadership structure of the large community aggregate. Anything short of this will always result in that type of crisis Ahiara Diocese has been going through in the last few years.

Third, Igbo Catholicism shows its uniqueness in the type of laity it has. The laity of Igbo Catholicism is knowledgeable and highly committed. It will be hard to find a laity of any people that could compare with the type of lay people that are available in Igbo Catholicism. Igbo Catholicism’s laity ranks among the best throughout the world. Igbo laity knows its rights in the Church.They appreciate the fact that the Nigerian Catholic Church accords her lay members some rights and privileges as members of Christ’s faithful.

However, this gift to Igbo Catholicism carries with it some responsibility. In establishing the leadership in any part of Igbo Catholicism, the laity must not be taken for granted. Rather, they must be given their due. Policy makers in Igbo Catholicism must always be aware that they are dealing with some of the most sophisticated, enlightened, knowledgeable, dedicated and holy laity across the world.That is to say, the lay people of Igbo Catholicism must always be given their due. If Igbo Catholicism does not accord the laity its due in the choice of Igbo Catholic leadership, they will most certainly cause crisis. To forestall this possibility, the lay people must always be carried along in Igbo Catholicism especially in leadership matters.

Many lay people are suggesting that as a way forward to ensure that only the best are called up to lead in the Catholic Church of Igbo land, a pool of potential candidates being considered for the office of the bishop must first be drawn up and their banns published as is the case when people are being prepared to enter the clerical state. That is to say, if there is a vacancy in a diocese, or when there is the need to appoint an auxiliary bishop, the preliminary inquiries should generate a few names whose banns are published throughout the diocese in question. The lay people would be invited to make their inputs about the potential candidates. The information collated therefrom should be packaged and sent to the Holy Father, who will make the final appointments from the pool of potential candidates in which the laity have made their contributions. A process like this will to a large extent achieve the intended purpose of producing good bishops for any local church in Igbo Catholicism.

Fourth, a very important lesson for everybody, both Catholics and non-Catholics, both Catholicism in Igbo land and the world over is that injustice cannot stand forever. Rather, justice must always find a way to prevail. Also, no virtue should be invoked to cover up injustice. Rather, injustice undercuts every other virtue that wants to cover it up. Such virtues as obedience, charity, prudence, humility, meekness, etc cannot take precedence over justice. Give people justice first before you exhort them to embrace these other virtues.

For instance, as Ahiara Diocese crisis raged, there was an attempt to present it as a choice between obedience and justice. Catholics of Ahiara Diocese were presented as disobeying the Pope and the universal Catholic Church, while as Ahiara priests and laity saw themselves as doing the holy duty of fighting a veritable injustice. But this is a false choice. Injustice is far more basic than the obligation to obedience. Many a time in the history of humanity the obligation to obedience had been invoked and misused to cover up heinous crimes against various peoples of the world. Colonialists, slave dealers and dictators always invoked the virtue of obedience to mask the terrible injustices they inflicted on unsuspecting people.

The big lesson that must be learned by everybody as a result of the crisis in Ahiara Diocese is that people must know that they have obligation to fight an obvious injustice even to the extent of disobeying constituted authorities. But the procedure should be clear.When there is an obvious injustice, an appeal must be made to the authority perpetrating it to correct it. But where there is no effort to remove the injustice, people have the obligation to resist it. People do not have any moral obligation to endure the injuries of injustice because of obedience. Igbo Catholics have obligation to help the Church in Igbo land become more fair and just. People in leadership positions in Igbo Catholicism need a lot of help from everybody especially the laity in order to foster a more just and fairer Church. This is because an unjust church, a church that fosters injustice cannot have anything to do with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Fifth, the lesson everybody must learn as a result of the crisis in the Catholic Diocese of Ahiara, Mbaise, is that we are living in a world different from the one our forefathers who received the missionaries lived. Our world is that of the 21st century that insists on confining religion to the periphery of people’s lives. As a result, our age has become much more secularist and materialistic. Our present world is such that relishes patronizing strange behaviours and lifestyles.

In view of this situation, there are dangerous tendencies and strange lifestyles that are fighting their way into the Church of our time.The easiest way for such devious lifestyles to overtake a young Church like the Igbo Church is to inundate her with injustices and mistakes especially in the establishment of structures of leadership. This is why every candidate to be appointed to leadership position in any community must be one the community has participated in vetting his lifestyles and history. For the survival of Catholicism in Igbo land, everybody must cooperate to make sure that only the best are advanced into the leadership positions.

Since the Catholic Church leader in Igbo land has a lot of powers, everybody must make sure he comes from among the best. He must be a man of impeccable qualities, a just man and a person whose moral probity is above board. This is because the morality of a church leader and his chosen lifestyle can undo a century of evangelization in Igbo and Nigerian Catholicism. It is therefore very important that a Church leader be chosen from among the people known to the community he intends to serve. The people must have a strong say on who is appointed their leaders in the Church. They must be allowed to make an input in thee process that chooses their leaders. It is through such inputs that we can make sure that the right candidates with the right intentions are being put in leadership positions in Igbo Catholicism.

Furthermore, there is an urgent need for a conversation among the elite of the Igbo Church. Igbo Catholicism in her luxuriant growth today is incubating a lot of problems that must be addressed for her health and future growth. Of grave importance is the gaping fault line between Onitsha and Owerri provinces. When the two provinces shared a common major seminary, Bigard Memorial Seminary, the fault line between seminarians from Onitsha-Enugu zone and their counterparts of Owerri-Umuahia zone was to say the very least scandalous. There was nothing in the two campuses of Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu and Ikot Ekpene, that was not affected by the rivalry between the two provinces.

All through the 70’s, 80’s and even 90’s, Onitsha zone was perpetually at war with their Owerri counterparts. This feud so to speak lay prominently at the background of the rejection of Bishop Okpalaeke in Ahiara Diocese. Many priests confessed that allowing Bishop Okpalaeke to serve as bishop of Ahiara Diocese was tantamount to passing a death sentence on all the priests of Ahiara Diocese. This draws from the fact that there is a terrible history between priests of the two provinces that makes it almost impossible for them to give one another any benefit of the doubt.

But this feuding and rivalry is not limited to priests and seminarians from the two provinces. It is quite present and even much more prominent among the bishops of the two provinces.The crisis that arose between the two provinces in the 2003-4 about the title of the Igbo Bible testifies to the bitterness of the rivalry among the bishops of the two provinces.This is why there is need for a heartfelt conversation among the leaders of the two provinces. This sibling rivalry that has been marking the relationship between these two sister-provinces must be addressed or the churches of the two provinces will be pushed several years backwards.

Over the past several decades Onitsha province has been treating her sister province in Owerri as a baby province, a junior partner and a province that must continue to be babysat until the Parousia. As a result, there exists lots of tension in the relationship between the two provinces. This must be addressed for the health of Igbo Catholicism. If the bishops, priests, religious and even some of the lay people of the two provinces could one day sit down in some kind of a synod to talk candidly to one another about their relationship over the years, we might make some headway in addressing some of the forces that have been instigating rivalry and bad blood among the two provinces of Igboland.

Finally, there is an urgent need to embark on some concrete actions aimed at reuniting the Igbo Catholic clergy. The way things are going now, they will only get worse unless there are some concerted efforts by the leadership of Igbo Catholicism to re-unite the clergy and religious of Igbo land. Such organization like Nigerian Diocesan Priests Association whose local Igbo branch goes by the name, ANIMAEE, is too impotent to address the problem of disunity and mistrust among the priests of Igbo Catholicism. There is need for real actions that foster unity in the Igbo Church.

After some two decades of having multiple major seminaries in Igboland, it should be clear to everyone now that the way these seminaries are administered, and the way they draw their candidates is doing a great harm to Igbo Catholicism. The present nature of these provincial seminaries can only have one outcome, namely, consolidation of regional biases and reinforcement of mutual suspicion and resentment among the priests of various provinces. The numerous major seminaries built to decongestant Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu, have created a far greater problem for Igbo Catholicism than they are solving. They have now become seed beds for nurturing attitudes that undercut unity in Igbo Catholicism.

It is therefore our contention that if there must be multiple seminaries in Igbo land, they should draw their students from across the dioceses of the two provinces and beyond. It amounts to nothing but an undercutting of the progress and future of Igbo Catholicism that these provincial seminaries exist only to sanction and consolidate provincial interests and biases. If we could project deep into the distant future; if we could envision what could happen to Igbo Catholicism some fifty to one hundred years down the road, it will surely be something like the crises and mistrust of the present time multiplied by 100 percent. And what should be largely responsible for such a dangerous situation are undoubtedly our numerous provincial seminaries that are glorified bunkers for training provincial jingoists.

As a note of caution; Igbo Catholicism stands to lose permanently her pre-eminent position and influence in Nigerian and African Catholicism if she does not act promptly to correct some of the anomalies that are beginning to manifest in her rank and file. The Catholic Church in Igbo land has deep faith, enough skills and resources to transform her into one of the most respected and accomplished Churches in the history of Catholicism. But she will not be able to realize her potentials, and, in fact, she stands to lose enormous grounds to her competitors from within Catholicism and from the new-age Christian movements unless she takes care of some of the teething problems that are beginning to undercut and hobble her growth. All these internal rivalries, bickering and crises have only one thing in view, namely, the slow-killing of the inimitable Catholicism of the Igbo people. Should we Igbo Catholics ever allow such to happen?

Note:

This brings to a close this volume of Ahiara Diocese in Crosshairs, The real Stories. A second volume, More Real Stories, is being contemplated. It will deal with real stories from the time of the appointment of the first Apostolic Administrator, His Eminence John Cardinal Onaiyekan, in July of 2013 to February 19, 2018 when the present Apostolic Administrator, Most Rev L.I. Ugorji, was appointed by the Holy Father. As materials for this second volume are not yet ready, we will embark on a period to gather materials. Until then, we will occupy ourselves with some other crucial works such as completing our essays on Ahiara Diocese Crisis, the Untold Stories and other research works that are half-done. Keep faith with us.