Vatican City, Jun 12, 2017 / 10:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis met on Thursday with a delegation from a Nigerian diocese which for the last four and a half years has refused to recognize the bishop who was appointed as its shepherd.
He demanded that the clerics of the Diocese of Ahiara accept the bishop appointment that has been made, or face suspension and loss of office.
Fr. Peter Okpaleke was appointed Bishop of Ahiara in December 2012 by Benedict XVI. But the Ahiara diocese is dominated by the Mbaise ethnic group. As an outsider from the nearby Diocese of Awka, Fr. Okpaleke was rejected by much of Ahiara’s clergy and laity, who wanted one of their own to be appointed bishop over them.
The Mbaise are among the most Catholic of Nigerian peoples – 77 percent of the diocese’s population of 670,000 are Catholic. Nearby dioceses range between 19 and 70 percent Catholic.
Families in the rural diocese foster priestly and religious vocations, with at least 167 priestly ordinations for the diocese since its establishment in 1987.
With such a wealth of priests, the Ahiara diocese sends many as missionaries to Western countries, and many Mbaise hoped that one of its own would become their bishop.
In May 2013, an Mbaise emigrant to California and a representative of Mbaise USA, George Awuzie, told CNA that “The Mbaise people wanted their own bishop, who knows what’s going on within the community. They’re sending someone from a different community, a different village, that doesn’t know what we do within our area.”
Mbaise opponents of the appointment blocked access to Ahiara’s cathedral. Due to the strong opposition, Bishop Okpaleke was consecrated and installed outside his new diocese, at Seat of Wisdom Seminary in the Archdiocese of Owerri, May 21, 2013.
In July 2013 Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja was appointed apostolic administrator of Ahiara, but proved unable to solve the problem.
In light of the impasse, Pope Francis met with a delegation from Ahiara June 8 and gave them an ultimatum, saying he is “deeply saddened” by the events there and that the Church “is like a widow for having prevented the Bishop from coming to the Diocese.”
“Many times I have thought about the parable of the murderous tenants … that want to grasp the inheritance. In this current situation the Diocese of Ahiara is without the bridegroom, has lost her fertility and cannot bear fruit.”
“Whoever was opposed to Bishop Okpaleke taking possession of the Diocese wants to destroy the Church,” he charged. “This is forbidden; perhaps he does not realize it, but the Church is suffering as well as the People of God within her. The Pope cannot be indifferent.”
He expressed gratitude for the “holy patience” of Bishop Okpaleke, and said he had “listened and reflected much” on the situation, even considering suppressing the Ahiara diocese.
“I feel great sorrow for those priests who are being manipulated even from abroad and from outside the Diocese,” the Pope stated.
“I think that, in this case, we are not dealing with tribalism, but with an attempted taking of the vineyard of the Lord.”
The Bishop of Rome charged that “the Church is a mother and whoever offends her commits a mortal sin, it’s very serious.”
“I ask that every priest or ecclesiastic incardinated in the Diocese of Ahiara, whether he resides there or works elsewhere, even abroad, write a letter addressed to me in which he asks for forgiveness; all must write individually and personally,” Pope Francis said.
In their letters asking for forgiveness, the clergy of Ahiara must “clearly manifest total obedience to the Pope” and “be willing to accept the Bishop whom the Pope sends and has appointed.”
Moreover, the Pope demanded that each cleric’s letter be sent within 30 days – by July 9.
“Whoever does not do this will be ipso facto suspended a divinis and will lose his current office.”
Acknowledging that this measure “seems very hard,” Pope Francis said he must do this “because the people of God are scandalized.”
“Jesus reminds us that whoever causes scandal must suffer the consequences,” he told the delegation. “Maybe someone has been manipulated without having full awareness of the wound inflicted upon the ecclesial communion.”
At Bishop Okpaleke Mass of episcopal consecration, Bishop Lucius Ugorji of Umuahia had said that “acceptance of the papal appointment is a respect for the Pope, while the outright rejection and inflammatory statements and protests are spiteful and disrespectful of papal authority,” according to The Sun of Lagos.
Ahiara’s first ordinary, Bishop Victor Chikwe, served from 1987 until his death in Sept., 2010. The diocese was vacant for 26 months before Bishop Okpaleke was appointed.
Awka, whence Bishop Okpaleke comes, is located in the state of Anambra. Ahiara, meanwhile, is located to the south in Imo state. The Mbaise assert that the Nigerian hierarchy favors Anambra.
The Mbaise, who are proud of their identity and strong Catholicism, resent what they call the “Anambranization” of the Church in southeast Nigeria, believing there to be corruption within the Church in Nigeria and a “recolonization” of the Mbaise.
At the conclusion of the audience on Thursday, Pope Francis expressed his gratitude for the presence of the Mbaise who came to Rome, as well as for the patience of Cardinal Onaiyekan, and for Bishop Okpaleke, “whose patience and humility I admire.”
Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, is planning to have the Ahiara diocese and its bishop make a pilgrimage to Rome to meet with Pope Francis “at the conclusion of this sequence of events,” the Vatican announced June 11.
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Pope Francis’ connection to the severe side of the Holy Spirit’s scripture in this and in the death penalty ( Rom.1:26-27/Rom.13:3-4) is non existent. His two predecessors were likewise disconnected from other severity related themes ( EV sect.40/ Verbum Domini sect.42). It’s pandemic and started in the early 20th century movement of Catholic biblical scholars towards Protestant liberal biblical scholarship which has good points and very bad habits also. Both the bad and the good entered Catholicism and the problem at its root is Biblical. Romans one is implicitly saying between the lines that heterosexuality is a result of passing many tests of loving God and homosexuality is the result of drift from God into excess which gradually leads to gay acts. The one exception I see would be the biological chimera who is the result of two fraternal twin eggs ( boy and girl) lying too close and merging into one embryo..the resulting one person then has both male and female dna which is the one case I know of…of sincere, non sinful gender confusion.
Hardly ‘disconnected’ with John Paul II.
A temptation regardless of the origination.
The actual act in homosexuality is always a choice.
He called the death penalty “ cruel and unnecessary” in St. Louis in 1999 and sought world abolition of it despite his own catechism being a little better than that. To call some action cruel in itself is tantamount to calling it intrinsic evil and is to contradict the over 33 death penalties God gave to the Jews…and one death penalty God gave the Gentiles. He was not connected to all scripture as Aquinas was.
The defenders of Pope Francis will either embrace this or spin it. Let us see if there is a press release from the Vatican on Monday or Tuesday.
Pope Bergoglio’s statement is blasphemy since he claims that the All-Good God has committed “an act of grave depravity” by creating a homosexual person who, as such, is “intrinsically disordered” morally. This statement is also manifest heresy, directly contradicted by the entire Magisterium of the Church and explicitly summarized in the post-conciliar Catechism.
I can just imagine the press release that is being crafted by Vigano that will attempt to explain this latest example of Pontifical prudential absurdity.
New Gospel fragment discovered in Jordanian cave: “And Jesus said unto him, ‘you’re fine just the way you are; go, and change nothing about yourself.”
Pope Francis seems to flatly disagree with St. Paul’s assessment of the matter. If only Paul the Apostle could have understood Jorge Bergoglio’s take on humility and mercy, I’m sure he would have agreed with our Argentine pontiff and backed off all that nasty stuff we find in Romans 1:18-27. Of course, who could be expected to equal the theological brilliance and consequent insights that Francis has, as Vatican insiders assure us? Ah, we’re just so fortunate to live in this pope’s era of enlightened Christianity!
Oh, yes!!! And if only Bergoglio could have lived 2000 years ago, penned the gospels
and omitted the pesky warnings of Jesus which St. Paul reiterated, there would be so much less confusion in the world!! You need to hand it to Bergoglio. He is doing his best with a false torch of enlightenment to lead the masses already in darkness into a fiery abyss. Bergoglio told an abuse victim that God made him gay and that he should be glad to be gay??? Strange, many former homosexuals claim that sexual abuse was a cause of their homossexuality. Is Bergoglio suggegsting the the guy should be glad that he was abused????
According to what has been reported, Pope Francis did not say homosexual acts were o.k. If Pope Francis did say “God made you that way” he is going against what is in the Catechism in section 2357 says about homosexuality, that is “…Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained…”
One item that would be quite tragic in all of the clergy abuse scandals that I haven’t seen addressed is if the abuse may be at the root of some of the victims’ homosexual tendencies.
Here’s the section in the Catechism on Homosexuality in its entirety:
Chastity and homosexuality
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”