CNA Staff, Mar 19, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).- A Catholic diocese in Nigeria appealed on Thursday for prayers for the “speedy release” of a priest abducted March 15.
Fr. Benedict Okutegbe, administrator of Sacred Heart Cathedral in the Diocese of Warri, said March 18: “Please, join us in prayer for the speedy release of Fr. Harrison Egwuenu who was kidnapped at about 8 p.m. on Monday at a bad spot in Oria-Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government Area, and for peace and security in Nigeria.”
Okutegbe told ACI Africa, CNA’s African news partner, that the priest was returning to St. George’s College, Obinomba, Delta State, where he was recently appointed principal, when he was “kidnapped by armed gunmen who took him to an unknown destination.”
“The authorities have been notified and a manhunt has been launched for the abductors,” he said.
Okutegbe, who previously served as Warri diocese’s director of social communications, described Egwuenu as a “dedicated and hardworking priest.”
The West African nation has faced growing insecurity since 2009 when the Islamist group Boko Haram launched an insurgency. The group has orchestrated terrorist attacks on various targets, including religious and political groups as well as civilians.
Insecurity has also increased due to the actions of the predominantly Muslim Fulani herdsmen who have clashed frequently with Christian farmers over grazing land.
Last December, Bishop Moses Chikwe, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Owerri, was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen and later released unharmed.
In November, unknown gunmen kidnapped Fr. Matthew Dajo during an attack on the town of Yangoji, where his parish is located. They freed him 10 days later.
Okutegbe told ACI Africa: “This has nothing to do with religion. One can say it is simply a reflection of the collapse of the security apparatus of the state and country. No one seems to be safe anymore.”
Nigeria’s Catholic bishops have repeatedly called on the government to do more to protect its citizens.
“It is just unimaginable and inconceivable to celebrate Nigeria at 60 when our roads are not safe; our people are kidnapped, and they sell their properties to pay ransom to criminals,” members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria said in an Oct. 1 statement, marking the country’s independence anniversary.
They added: “Nigerians are experiencing an invasion of their farmlands by armed Fulani herdsmen; a group well organized and already designated as the fourth deadliest terrorists’ group in the world by the Global Terrorism Index.”
A version of this story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s African news partner, written by Jude Atemanke. It has been adapted by CNA.
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This is the politics of garb at its worst! Mother Mary wore a veil. Most nuns and sisters wear a veil. The veil is the symbol of female modesty universally around the world and has been for countless generations. By refusing to allow young Muslim maids to wear their version of the veil, we are tacitly saying that they are unworthy to assume the God given virtue of modesty. It’s a poor and discriminatory decision.
I have no problem at all with the school’s banning “Islamic headscarves.”
“Most nuns and sisters wear a veil.” Yes, because they are nuns and sisters; that doesn’t apply to every woman.
“Mother Mary wore a veil.” There seems to be some discussion about what Jewish women of New Testament times, including Our Lady, wore. But in any event, it was unlikely to be an Islamic headscarf.
“By refusing to allow young Muslim maids to wear their version of the veil, we are tacitly saying that they are unworthy to assume the God given virtue of modesty.” No, we are not tacitly saying that. I could as accurately say “By allowing Muslim girls to wear their version of the veil, we are tacitly agreeing that Moslems have the say-so on what contstitutes modesty, and that anybody who doesn’t weir an Islamic veil is ipso facto immodest.”
I note this from another website: “In a country where 95 percent of the population is Muslim, banning the Islamic headscarf even in a Catholic school is considered unacceptable and against the principle of secularism in education in Senegal.” https://africabriefing.org/2019/09/outrage-as-senegal-catholic-school-expels-scarf-wearing-students/ Oh, reeeeeeally? Telling people who are attending a religious school that they aren’t allowed to wear the headgear of a different religion while at school is somehow “against the principle of secularism?”
To echo Anne, infra, I was at early Mass this morning, the Latin Mass in our Parish, which I find spiritually transformative. Two pews in front was a couple clearly from the Mideast, and the wife was wearing a typical middle eastern headscarf. The tradition may have migrated other places with Islamic conquest but the scarf and its common use is a very old regional tradition, long pre-dating Islam, reflecting modesty. Of all the things that might be considered objectionable about Islam, that is not one of them and I hope Catholics anywhere do not succumb to reactionary bigotry.
Thomas, I was watching a film series about St. Teresa of the Andes & all the women portraying her family in the early 20th Century wore solid black coverings in church-almost from head to toe. It looked very similar to what women wear today in Iran.
I’m assuming that tradition came to South America via Spain & perhaps to Spain originally from the Moorish conquest.
Perhaps considering the sectarian violence Christians have suffered in Africa recently there may be reasons we’re not aware of for this action taken by the school?
Just to mention, my Mennonite friends wear headcoverings all the time, as do the Amish & other Christian girls & women. It’s not so much about modesty, though their dress also reflects that virtue, but they understand the headcovering as more about what women wear in prayer. And since their whole lives are lived in prayer, so the covering is always worn too.