PAPAL LETTERS AND TEACHINGS
Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Nigerian Catholic Community in Rome
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
I offer a cordial greeting and welcome to all of you who have gathered to mark twenty-five years of the presence of the Nigerian Catholic community in Rome. Today’s date, 25 March, is significant for several reasons. Normally, it is the celebration of the Solemnity of the Annunciation, which recalls the Incarnation. This year, however, because of Holy Week, the Annunciation is moved to another day. These two realities, namely, the Incarnation of the Lord and the saving mysteries that we commemorate during Holy Week, show us that the Word which became flesh and dwelt among us (cf. Jn 1:14), lived, died and rose again in order to bring about reconciliation and peace between God and humanity. Indeed, the Lord has given his life for us!
In this regard, I would like to reflect briefly upon three elements that I believe are vital for the life of your community: gratitude, richness in diversity and dialogue.
First of all, gratitude. I thank you for all that you have done and continue to do in bearing witness to the joyful message of the Gospel. I join you as well in thanksgiving to Almighty God for the numerous young people from Nigeria who have heard the Lord’s call to the priesthood and the consecrated life and have responded with generosity, humility and perseverance. Some are among you here, young priests and young sisters. Indeed, each follower of Jesus, according to his or her particular vocation, is entrusted with the responsibility of serving God and neighbour in love, making Christ present in the lives of our brothers and sisters. May you always be missionary disciples, grateful that the Lord has chosen you to follow him and has sent you forth to proclaim our faith with zeal and contribute to building a more just and humane world.
Second, richness in diversity. Here, I would say that the diversity of ethnicities, cultural traditions and languages in your nation is not a problem but a gift that enriches the fabric of both the Church and the larger society and allows you to promote the values of mutual understanding and coexistence. It is my hope that your community here in Rome, in welcoming and accompanying the Nigerian faithful and other believers, will always resemble a great and inclusive family in which all can use their different gifts and talents, that are fruits of the Holy Spirit, to support and strengthen one another in moments of joy and sorrow, success and difficulty. By doing so, you will be able to sow the seeds of social friendship and concord for both present and future generations.
Yet it is important to be attentive to a danger, the danger of being closed in, of not being universal but being closed off – here I would say – in a tribal isolation. No. Your roots become closed, isolated in this tribal and not universal, not communal, attitude. Community yes, tribe no. This is very important. And it applies to all of us, to everyone, each according to his or her position. Universality does not mean locking oneself into one’s own culture. True, one’s own culture is a gift, yet not to close it off, but to give it, to offer it. Universal, universality.
Finally, dear brothers and sisters, dialogue. Sadly, many regions of the world are experiencing conflict and suffering, and Nigeria, too, is living through a period of hardship. In assuring you of my prayers for the security, unity and spiritual and economic progress of your nation, I also invite everyone to foster dialogue and listen to one another with open hearts, excluding no one at the political, social and religious levels. Integrating, dialoguing, universalizing, always starting from one’s own identity. At the same time, I encourage you to be heralds of the Lord’s great mercy, working for reconciliation among all your brothers and sisters, helping to ease the burdens of the poor and those most in need and adopting as your own God’s style of closeness, compassion and tender love. And what is God’s style? Closeness, compassion and tender love. Always remember this. God’s style is closeness, compassion and tender love. In this way, all Nigerians can continue to walk together in fraternal solidarity and harmony.
Dear friends, I thank you once again for your presence in this city, at the heart of the Church. It is a providential grace that affords you the opportunity to deepen the awareness of your baptismal call to live always as faithful disciples of the Lord, dedicate yourselves to serving God and his holy people with the charity that Jesus asks of us and celebrate the richness of your diverse heritage as Nigerians. Yes, a great richness, one to give. I entrust your community to the loving protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen and Patroness of Nigeria, and I cordially impart my blessing. And I ask you, please, to pray for me. Thank you.
From Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Nigerian Catholic Community in Rome March 25, 2024
Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to a delegation from the Diocese of Ahiara, Nigeria
I cordially greet the delegation and thank you for coming from Nigeria in a spirit of pilgrimage.
For me, this meeting is a consolation because I am deeply saddened by the events of the Church in Ahiara.
In fact, the Church (and excuse the wording) 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, of which the Gospel speaks (cf. Mt 21:33-44), 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. 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.
I know very well the events that have been dragging on for years and I am thankful for the attitude of great patience of the Bishop, indeed the holy patience demonstrated by him. I listened and reflected much, even about the possibility of suppressing the Diocese, but then I thought that the Church is a mother and cannot abandon her many children. I feel great sorrow for those priests who are being manipulated even from abroad and from outside the Diocese.
I think that, in this case, we are not dealing with tribalism, but with an attempted taking of the vineyard of the Lord. The Church is a mother and whoever offends her commits a mortal sin, it’s very serious. However, I decided not to suppress the Diocese. Instead, I wish to give some indications that are to be communicated to all: first of all it must be said that the Pope is deeply saddened. Therefore, 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. We all must share this common sorrow. In the letter
1. one must clearly manifest total obedience to the Pope, and
2. whoever writes must be willing to accept the Bishop whom the Pope sends and has appointed.
3. The letter must be sent within 30 days, from today to July 9th, 2017. Whoever does not do this will be ipso facto suspended a divinis and will lose his current office.
This seems very hard, but why must the Pope do this? Because the people of God are scandalized. Jesus reminds us that whoever causes scandal must suffer the consequences. Maybe someone has been manipulated without having full awareness of the wound inflicted upon the ecclesial communion.
To you brothers and sisters, I would like to express my sincere thanks for your presence; and also to Cardinal Onaiyekan for his patience and to Bishop Okpaleke, whose patience and humility I admire. Thank you all.
From Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to a delegation from the Diocese of Ahiara, Nigeria June 8, 2017
Pope Francis Letter to Nigerian Bishops
Dear Brother Bishops,
While we walk this Lenten journey towards the Resurrection of the Lord united with the whole Church, I wish to extend to you, dear Archbishops and Bishops of Nigeria, a fraternal greeting, which I extend to the beloved Christian communities entrusted to your pastoral care. I would also like to share some thoughts with you on the current situation in your country.
Nigeria, known as the “African giant”, with its more than 160 million inhabitants, is set to play a primary role, not only in Africa but in the world at large. In recent years, it has experienced robust growth in the economic sphere and has again reasserted itself on the world stage as an attractive market, on account of its natural resources as well as its commercial potential. It is now considered officially the single largest African economy. It has also distinguished itself as a political player widely committed to the resolution of crisis situations in the continent.
At the same time, your nation has had to confront considerable problems, among them new and violent forms of extremism and fundamentalism on ethnic, social and religious grounds. Many Nigerians have been killed, wounded or mutilated, kidnapped and deprived of everything: their loved ones, their land, their means of subsistence, their dignity and their rights. Many have not been able to return to their homes. Believers, both Christian and Muslim, have experienced a common tragic outcome, at the hands of people who claim to be religious, but who instead abuse religion, to make of it an ideology for their own distorted interests of exploitation and murder.
I would like to assure you and all who suffer of my closeness. Every day I remember you in my prayers and I repeat here, for your encouragement and comfort, the consoling words of the Lord Jesus, which must always resound in our hearts: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (Jn 14:27).
Peace – as you know so well – is not only the absence of conflict or the result of political compromise or fatalistic resignation. Peace is for us a gift which comes from on high; it is Jesus Christ himself, the Prince of Peace, who has made of two peoples one (cf. Eph 2:14). And only the man or woman who treasures the peace of Christ as a guiding light and way of life can become a peacemaker (cf. Mt 5:9).
At the same time, peace is a daily endeavour, a courageous and authentic effort to favour reconciliation, to promote experiences of sharing, to extend bridges of dialogue, to serve the weakest and the excluded. In a word, peace consists in building up a “culture of encounter”.
And so I wish here to express my heartfelt thanks to you, because in the midst of so many trials and sufferings the Church in Nigeria does not cease to witness to hospitality, mercy and forgiveness. How can we fail to remember the priests, religious men and women, missionaries and catechists who, despite untold sacrifices, never abandoned their flock, but remained at their service as good and faithful heralds of the Gospel? To them, most particularly, I would like to express my solidarity, and to say: do not grow tired of doing what is right!
We give thanks to the Lord for them, as for so many men and women of every social, cultural and religious background, who with great willingness stand up in concrete ways to every form of violence, and whose efforts are directed at favouring a more secure and just future for all. They offer us moving testimonies, which, as Pope Benedict XVI recalled at the end of the Synod for Africa, show “the power of the Spirit to transform the hearts of victims and their persecutors and thus to re-establish fraternity” (Africae Munus, 20).
Dear Brother Bishops, in perseverance and without becoming discouraged, go forward on the way of peace (cf. Lk 1:79). Accompany the victims! Come to the aid of the poor! Teach the youth!Become promoters of a more just and fraternal society!
I gladly impart to you my Apostolic Blessing, which I ask you to extend to priests, religious, missionaries, catechists, lay faithful and above all to those suffering members of the Body of Christ.
May the Resurrection of the Lord bring conversion, reconciliation and peace to all the people of Nigeria! I commend you to Mary, Queen of Africa, and I ask you also to pray for me.
FRANCISCUS PP.
From Letter of his Holiness Pope Francis to the Bishops of Nigeria March 2, 2015