Archbishop José Manuel Imbamba of the Archdiocese of Saurimo in Angola. / Credit: Radio Ecclesia
ACI Africa, Jan 13, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Archbishop José Manuel Imbamba of the Archdiocese of Saurimo in Angola has revealed that he was once on a list of people targeted for assassination for defending truth and justice.
In an interview with Radio Ecclesia on Jan. 7, the day he turned 60, Imbamba recalled the dangers he faced in 2003 following Angola’s post-election conflict.
“My priestly life has been full of misunderstandings. I was ordained during a time of intense war in Luena, and I faced many difficulties,” the archbishop recounted.
“In 2003, during the post-electoral conflict, I was on a list of people to be eliminated,” he said.
Angola’s first elections in 1992 were marred by violence, leading to a civil conflict that ended in 2002.
“I have been threatened face to face by people due to my forthright discussions. These threats aim to intimidate and tarnish my image and that of the Church. However, I take full responsibility for everything I say. I am not anyone’s mouthpiece,” said Imbamba, who also serves as the president of the Bishops’ Conference of Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe.
He emphasized his mission to advocate for the rights of the marginalized and uphold human dignity, saying: “For the poor, marginalized, and those deprived of their rights, I will continue to fight in the name of the Gospel, of which I am a servant.”
Despite the sacrifices and challenges he faced in his 33 years of priesthood, Imbamba described the ministry as a “beautiful and rewarding vocation.”
However, he admitted that much work remains to be done in combating societal injustice and fostering fraternity in the country.
“We have not fully awakened consciences or presented the truths needed to purify the inhuman tendencies we carry,” he said.
As Angola approaches its 50th independence anniversary, the archbishop expressed disappointment in the direction the country was taking.
“This is not the Angola our nationalist founders envisioned,” he said. “The bloodshed and sacrifices made were not for this reality.”
Imbamba faulted the dominance of partisan interests over patriotism, calling for national unity.
“Patriotism should prevail. Angola’s interests must come before party interests,” he said. “Today, we serve political parties more than we serve our nation. It is time for our leaders to foster harmony and guide us out of this state of disarray, helping us rediscover our social, cultural, and national identity.”
“It is time to rethink our country, citizenship, ideologies, and vision for a just and inclusive nation,” he said.
Born in Boma, Moxico province, on Jan. 7, 1965, Imbamba was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Lwena in December 1991.
This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.
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Harare, Zimbabwe, May 30, 2018 / 10:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A group devoted to John Bradburne, a lay missionary to what is now Zimbabwe in the 1970s, is raising money to fund an investigation into his life and virtues, in view of opening his cause for beatification.
The group, led by Bradburne’s neice, Celia Brigstocke, hopes to raise GBP 20,000 ($26,600) for the investigation.
Bradburne was born in 1921 in England, the son of an Anglican clergyman. He served in the British army in World War II, and he converted to Catholicism in 1947 after staying with the Benedictines of Buckfast Abbey.
He wished to become a monk at Buckfast, but had not been long enough in the Church, and he became a wanderer throughout Europe and the Middle East. He was a prolific poet. He stayed at other Benedictine abbeys, with Carthusians, the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion, tried living as a hermit on Dartmoor in England, and became a Third Order Franciscan in 1956.
Through a Jesuit friend in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), Bradburne came to serve at the Mutemwa Leper Settlement, spending the last 10 years of his life there.
Southern Rhodesia declared independence in 1965, and the Rhodesian Bush War was fought from 1964 to 1979 among the white minority government; the Marxist Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army; and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).
As ZANU forces approached Mutemwa, Bradburne was urged to leave, but he insisted on remaining. He was kidnapped, and murdered Sept. 5, 1979.
He had confided in a Franciscan priest that his wishes were to serve leprosy patients, to die a martyr, and to be buried in the habit of St. Francis.
Kaduna, Nigeria, Jan 13, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- Four seminarians, between the ages of 18 and 23, were abducted Wednesday night from their seminary in Kaduna, in northwestern Nigeria.
Pius Kanwai, 19; Peter Umenukor, 23; Stephen Amos, 23; and Michael Nnadi, 18, were taken from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna, around 10:30 pm on Jan. 8 by gunmen. Police are searching for the four young men.
Nearly 270 seminarians live at Good Shepherd.
“The security situation in Nigeria is appalling”, Thomas Heine-Geldern, executive president of ACN International, said Jan. 13. “Criminal gangs are further exploiting the chaotic situation and making matters still worse.”
He compared the situation in Nigeria to that of Iraq prior to the Islamic State’s invasion: “Already at that stage, Christians were being abducted, robbed and murdered because there was no protection by the state. This must not be allowed to happen to the Christians of Nigeria. The government must act now, before it is too late.”
The gunmen, disguised in military camouflage, broke through the fence surrounding the seminarians’ living quarters and began shooting sporadically. They stole laptops and phones before kidnapping the four young men.
A source in Nigeria told ACI Africa that the kidnappers made contact with family members of the seminarians Jan. 11, “but never pronounced any amount of money as ransom.”
Each of the abductees were first year philosophers, sources told ACI Africa.
Good Shepherd Seminary is located just off the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria Express Way. According to AFP, the area is “notorious for criminal gangs kidnapping travelers for ransom.”
The news agency said that schoolgirls and staff from a boarding school also located near the highway were kidnapped in October, and were later released.
Kidnappings of Christians in Nigeria have multiplied in recent months, a situation that has prompted Church leaders to express serious concern about the security of their members and to call on the government to prioritize the security of its citizens.
A version of this story was initially reported by CNA’s sister agency, ACI Africa. It has been adapted by CNA.
Catholic Archbishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of Jos marches alongside evangelical leader Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam in front of the Plateau state governor’s office building in Jos, Nigeria, Jan. 8, 2024. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam, photo by Plateau State Government Media Team.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 9, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Thousands of Christians rallied yesterday in front of the governor’s office in Nigeria’s Plateau state to demand action after more than 200 were killed in a series of Christmas massacres.
The attacks, which targeted Christian villages beginning Dec. 23 and continuing through Christmas day, left Christian communities in Nigeria’s Plateau state reeling. Photos obtained by CNA after the attack showed villagers burying their slain relatives and loved ones in mass graves.
According to Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam, an evangelical leader who helped to organize the rally, the attacks also left 15,000 people displaced without homes.
Among the demands being made by the protestors, Para-Mallam said that they asked for an “urgent humanitarian relief material response by the state and federal government” and for the arrest of the perpetrators of the Christmas massacre, which he called a “genocidal,” “terrorist” attack.
Thousands of Christians peacefully and prayerfully march to a rally in front of the Nigerian Plateau state governor’s office building in protest of the 2023 Christmas massacre that left over 200 Christian Nigerians dead, Jan. 8, 2024. Credit: Photo courtesy of Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam, photo by Plateau State Government Media Team.
The attack marks the latest instance of terrorists targeting Christian Nigerians on significant Christian feast days. In 2022, on Pentecost Sunday, 39 Catholic worshippers were killed at the St. Francis Xavier Owo Catholic Parish in Ondo Diocese.
Religious freedom advocates believe that militant Muslim Fulani herdsmen were responsible for the Christmas attacks. In Nigeria as a whole, at least 60,000 Christians have been killed in the past two decades. An estimated 3,462 Christians were killed in Nigeria in the first 200 days of 2021, or 17 per day, according to a new study.
Due to continued attacks, Nigeria is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a Christian, according to a 2023 report by the advocacy group International Christian Concern.
Para-Mallam told CNA that Nigeria’s middle belt region, of which Plateau state is a part, has “suffered sustained attacks for over a decade now with destruction of lives and properties.”
The thousands of protestors at the rally, he said, were “mournful, angry, but surprisingly joyful.”
Their “central objective,” he explained, was “to ask for an end to the killings not just in Plateau but Nigeria and seek justice for the people.”
Just-In: CAN Plateau State Chapter is having a Peaceful Walk to Government House pic.twitter.com/YbFRqtFI9J
“Above all, it was very peaceful and prayerful,” he added. “The old, the young all together felt that we had to do what we had to do to get our message across.”
According to Para-Mallam, the crowd numbered about 5,000 and included both Catholics and Protestants. Together, he said, they peacefully and prayerfully marched, ending in front of the governor’s office building in the city of Jos. Archbishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of Jos and several Catholic priests also took part in the march and rally, according to Para-Mallam.
The demonstration was “mournful, angry, and surprisingly joyful,” according to Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam. Credit: Photos by Nigerian multimedia journalist Jœy Shèkwônúzhïbó, used with permission.
The rally was organized with the help of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), a coalition of Nigerian Christian Churches and groups that includes the Catholic Church in Nigeria.
Para-Mallam said the purpose of the demonstration was to “mourn in solidarity” with the devastated communities as well as to show them that the Church “cares” and “identify with them in the moment of suffering and mourning.”
A secondary purpose for the rally, Para-Mallam said, was to “get the Church on the Plateau to unite and to speak with one voice around the issues of social justice” and to “create awareness nationally and globally about the Christmas season attack.”
Para-Mallam said that Plateau’s governor, Caleb Mutfwang, addressed the crowds at the rally and was “sympathetic and understanding and spoke well on the pains of his people.”
Mutfwang condemned the attacks shortly after they occurred in a Dec. 26 statement in which he said: “This has indeed been a gory Christmas for us.”
“He promised to relay our concerns to the president and committed to work with the president to end the killings in the Plateau state,” Para-Mallam said.
Despite the governor and president voicing their support for the impacted communities, several religious freedom advocates have been critical of the lack of government response to the growing terrorist attacks.
Maria Lozano, a representative for the papal relief group Aid to the Church in Need, told CNA after the attacks that tangible government support was largely absent after the Christmas massacre and that a “lack of response from the government” over the years has worsened the situation in the region. The absence of government support, Lozano said, has forced Christian churches to take on the “primary responsibility of providing assistance.”
Para-Mallam asked for Christians outside of Nigeria to help by offering prayer, advocacy, and humanitarian intervention.
“We also want fellow believers to encourage policymakers to encourage the Nigerian government to do more to end the killings in general and particularly those targeted at Christians,” he said.
For several years now, religious freedom advocates have criticized the U.S. government for failing to include Nigeria in the State Department’s “Countries of Particular Concern” list, which some consider to be America’s most effective tool to encourage foreign governments to address the persecutions in their countries.
“There is no justification as to why the State Department did not designate Nigeria or India as a Country of Particular Concern,” said U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom chair Abraham Cooper and vice chair Frederick Davie in a Jan. 4 statement.
Cooper and Davie mentioned the Christmas massacre as “just the latest example of deadly violence against religious communities in Nigeria.”
Speaking on “EWTN News Nightly” on Monday, Davie said that the decision to leave Nigeria off the list was “particularly” concerning and a “huge mistake.”
Davie told EWTN that “there are some who are saying that the government [of Nigeria] if it is not actively participating in some of this religious persecution is actually standing by and not doing what it can to prevent it.”
“We just believe,” Davie explained, “that by designating Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern, the United States puts itself in a position to work more closely with the government of Nigeria to address some of those fundamental security issues that are going unattended to.”
Despite this, the State Department has left Nigeria off the Countries of Particular Concern list since 2021.
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