Pope
Francis, the current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, has scorned
feuding factions in the Diocese of Ahiara crisis over tribalism.
Pope Francis with Nigerian Bishops's delegation to Vatican, Rome
Pope Francis has laid down an ultimatum to defiant Nigerian priests: lose your job if you don’t obey me and your bishop, Premium Times reports.
We had reported on Friday
that Pope Francis on June 8, met a delegation from the Ahiara diocese,
south-east Nigeria where priests have been refusing to accept the 2012
appointment by the then pontiff, Benedict XVI, of the local bishop.
The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, reporting the pope’s unusually harsh order, said on Sunday that Francis was acting “for the good of the people of God” by threatening to suspend the priests from the ministry if they didn’t pledge in a letter, by July 9, “total obedience” to Francis and accept Bishop Peter Okpaleke’s appointment.
Pope Francis told the visiting delegation he was “very sad” about the priests’ refusal to obey and ruled out tribal loyalties as explaining the refusal.
Africa has been one of the continents where the Catholic church is
growing. The faithful and clergy there often imbue their practices with
local culture in dynamic contrast to more traditional routines in Europe
or North America.
Francis’ move to end disobedience to the Vatican aims at ensuring the growing church there will be loyal to the pontiff.
His remarks to the visiting delegation indicated how dangerous he viewed any rebellion against papal authority.
Those priests opposing Mr. Okpaleke’s taking up of his office “want
to destroy the church, which is not permitted,” the pope said in his
address to the delegation.
He added: “the pope can’t be indifferent” to the rebellion.
He has often taken a conciliatory tone in resolving disputes, but
in this one he was entertaining no diplomacy. He demanded that each
priest in the diocese write to him asking forgiveness and “clearly manifest total obedience to the pope.”
They must also accept the bishop chosen by Rome. If, within a
month, each priest doesn’t do so, he will be “ispo facto suspended,”
such as from the celebration of the sacraments, and “will lose his current office,” Francis warned.
Francis acknowledged that his move “seems very harsh.” He
added that he had even considered the extraordinary remedy of
suppressing the entire diocese but didn’t, so as not to hurt
rank-and-file faithful.
He said he thought the rebellious priests might have been
manipulated from outside the diocese or even abroad, but named no
culprits.
In 2015, the diocese served around 520,000 Catholics, out of a
local population of about 675,000, and had 128 diocesan priests and
seven other priests. It wasn’t immediately clear how many of the priests
were involved in the rebellion against the bishop’s appointment.
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