₦airaland Forum

June 2017 Thread: https://www.nairaland.com/3855409/angry-pope-francis-threatens-fire

Drama In Imo As Catholic Priests Protest Against New Bishop !

•Say ‘he’s not an indigene’

Priests and the lay faithful of the Catholic Diocese of Ahiara, Mbaise in Imo State recently protested through the major roads of the Diocese against the appointment of Monsignor Ebere Peter Okpalaeke as the Bishop-elect of the Diocese on the grounds that he is not an indigene.

The bishop-elect, Monsignor Okpalaeke is from the Igbo-speaking area of Delta State, which is in Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province. He was appointed last year by Pope Benedict XVI, to replace the late Rt. Rev. Dr. Victor AdibeChikwe, the pioneer Bishop of Ahiara Diocese who died about three years ago.

When the late bishop passed on, the diocese went into days of fasting, petitioning God for a replacement. And that prayer ‘was answered’ last year when Okpalaeke was appointed. But rather than accept the appointment in good faith, the priests see the appointment as an embarrassment in the sense that of the many priests from Mbaise, none was found worthy to be promoted to the rank of a bishop to shepherd the flock of Jesus Christ in Ahiara Diocese.

Ever since, the Catholic faith which enjoys a monopoly of sanctity and uniqueness appears to have experienced some cracks and apprehension.

On Thursday 16, 2013 the priests numbering over 400 marched through the streets disrupting economic activities. The protesters, who wore black attire, disrupted vehicular and human movement for several hours as they marched through major streets displaying placards and chanting anti Vatican slogans.

Some of the placards displayed by the aggrieved Catholics read: “No ordination of Okpalaeke in Mbaise”, “Awka has five bishops, Mbaise has no bishop”, “Mbaise unequivocally rejects Okpalaeke”, “We reject injustice”, “We want Mbaise son as Mbaise bishop”, among others.

In a six-page declaration signed by the President and Secretary, Ahiara Diocesan Priests Association, ADPA, Rev. Fr. Austin Bernadine Ekechukwu and Rev. Fr. Dominic N. Ekweariri respectively, the protesters strongly contested Okpalaeke’s suitability for Ahiara Diocese, given its uniqueness and pastoral realities.

“We, the priests and lay faithful of Ahiara Diocese, having in view the peculiarities of our diocese, state that we categorically reject the appointment of Msgr. Peter Okpalaeke as the bishop-elect of Ahiara Diocese”, the priests stated.
http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/drama-in-imo-as-catholic-priests-protest-against-new-bishop

As a Catholic, I'm really disappointed to say the least!
Our brothers & sisters in the East sometimes take things too far

julioralph: As a Catholic, I'm really disappointed to say the least!
Our brothers & sisters in the East sometimes take things too far

That man cannot speak Mbaise and it is a rural diocese as we know. This issue has lasted too long with a lot of lies and blackmails against Mbaise people. The best thing is to give an Mbaise man Bishop of Awka if they want an Awka man as Bishop of Ahiara. That settles the suspicion of conspiracy.

Abagworo: That man cannot speak Mbaise and it is a rural diocese as we know. This issue has lasted too long with a lot of lies and blackmails against Mbaise people. The best thing is to give an Mbaise man Bishop of Awka if they want an Awka man as Bishop of Ahiara. That settles the suspicion of conspiracy.

Why didn't rome reject an Argentine pope?

If this actualy hapened then i'm ashamed as a catholic. The archbishop of jos, who doubles as the chairman of the catholic bishops conference is not from plateau st but from taraba. Some years back a similar problem like this arose in edo state where an igbo man was made the bishop of one of the dioceses there. Everyone condemed the behaviour of the edo catholic faithfuls including my igbo brothers. The most annoying thing perhaps is that the priests led this protest. Cardinal Arinze who is not from italy was(and maybe still is) the archbishop of a diocese over there. This is just too disgraceful. No matter the level of misunderstanding between them, they should'nt have taken to the streets.

Modified:

I've even forgoten that i commented on a thread like this four years ago until i saw a mention. It's sad this issue is still unresolved four years down the line.
Prof. Joe Ahaneku, an MBAISE man is presently the VC of Unizik in AWKA. But Mbaise people are refusing an Awka man as their Bishop. What an irony!
How i wish his holiness, Pope Francis will extend his ultimatum to the Knights of Ahiara diocese too cos some of them are also behind this evil. I'm so ashamed right now.

And why protest on public roads? Why not protest outside the church itself?

So much unrest from my Eastern brothers

Ki lo n sele?

Se ko si?

Is something in the water y'all are drinking?

Abagworo: That man cannot speak Mbaise and it is a rural diocese as we know. This issue has lasted too long with a lot of lies and blackmails against Mbaise people. The best thing is to give an Mbaise man Bishop of Awka if they want an Awka man as Bishop of Ahiara. That settles the suspicion of conspiracy.

No wonder no blackman has smelled the papal chair. No matter what, those priests should'nt have held that public display of shame called protest. Ifu eziokwu, i kwuo...

That rev father in question here should be arrested for unlawful protest.

Wount be surprised if this case reaches the court of law. Too bad

This gives further insight. It is not about what most posters think. I'm sure the Ahiara people would rather accept a White Bishop.

For more than four months now, the people and the church of the Catholic diocese of Ahiara Mbaise have been on the fire of religious tension and threat incited by some highly placed church hierarchies in the Vatican and Nigeria. Unfortunately, the advantage of hierarchical superiority, the propaganda of “it was done by Rome”, “they are rebellious and disobedient” and “they want only a bishop from their diocese”, have turned a wrong verdict on the neck of Mbaise people in the mind of few biased and uninformed people.  It is pertinent therefore to break the Emmaus bread in order to open the eyes of those either ignorant or biased regarding the truth of the current episode of Fr. Peter Okpaleke, why the people of Ahiara Diocese are resisting and why Okpaleke and his cohorts are still deadly daring and insisting. This excurses is necessary because of the few who have been biased to brand the Mbaise people ethnic or rebellious because of indisposition to the truth.

Before the Okpaleke saga, there has been a history of systemic, silent and consistent marginalization and suppression of Mbaise in the Catholic Church and a power play in and against the entire present Owerri Ecclesiastical Province and which has always at the long run boiled down to the detriment of the Mbaise church. This charade of organized discrimination and relegation machinery was instituted and pioneered by a single personality force in the Church since the 1950s. It is an imperial religious fascism which has long been parceled, garlanded and ornamented beautifully in such a presumptuous religious creed that has rather sanctified and made it sacrosanct and hidden its sin in the pious docility of the people and deceptively applied papal infallibility.  It is said in Igbo that aru gbaa afo, o buru omenala (when evil is allowed unchallenged for a whole year, it becomes a tradition).  But when evil is challenged and questioned for once, those who challenge it rather become evil themselves in the eyes of its beneficiaries and the uninformed.

The history of the manipulation of the bishopric succession in Igbo land and the constant shoving of the Mbaise right with complacent impunity has been a recurrent datum from the earliest time.  There was the incident in which Rev. Fr. Edward Ahaji of Umuokirika Ekwereazu Mbaise who was considered one of the best and was expected to be a bishopric candidate of the then prospective Umuahia Diocese, was eliminated in favour of Fr. A. Gogo Nwedo of Umuahia in 1945 even to the surprise of Fr. Mark Unegbu. But “There was no cry of anit-Mbaise sentiments or stereotype then when Ahaji was not selected”. Again, history had it that Fr. Nwedo was supposed to be transferred from Umuahia to succeed Bishop Heery in the then Onistsha Diocese in 1967 as the Holy Ghost Fathers did not want Arinze to succeed Bishop Heery.  But Nwedo was frustrated and prevented  from being the bishop of Onitsha by the combined forces of Bishop Mark Unegbu and Fr. Francis Arinze. Arinze personally insisted that only the son of the soil could become the bishop of Onitsha Diocese. Bishop Unegbu being his mentor, fought tooth and nail in his favour and helped Arinze enthroned on the Onitsha Episcopal seat.  Another most favoured Mbaise priest, Rev. Fr. Ignatius Okoroanyanwu was again denied the bishopric of old Owerri Diocese in favour of Rev. Fr. Mark Unegbu. This time, Bishop Arinze had to “pay off”  Fr. Mark Unegbu for giving him the Episcopal seat of Onitsha. Thus, another favoured Mbaise priest was stopped against the will of the predecessor. This Same act was initiated, superintended and achieved, in the words of erudite Fr. David Iheanacho, when, “In non-subtle manoeuvre, Archbishop Arinze cornered the Episcopal See of Owerri Diocese to his mentor, Fr. Mark Unegbu while blocking the will of Whelan and the missionaries that stated quite clearly they wanted Msgr. Ignatius Okoroanyanwu to shepherd the Episcopal See of Owerri Diocese”.  It is not surprising that this accumulated vendetta annoyed Mbaise people and soured their relationship with Bishop Unegbu for long. It was this relationship of victimization and animosity that resulted in the long refusal to create the Diocese of Ahiara until after a long drawn fight.

But the greatest shock came when on the creation, yet another person outside the new Diocese was being eyed for the Episcopal seat of the diocese but was bluffed. It is also on record that not less than two Mbaise priests still alive today have been denied being the bishops of other dioceses in Igbo land some years back. The plan to appoint them were immediately nipped in the bud before it was ever pronounced, in spite of the fact that they are usually qualified and marketable.  One wonders why a people so treated like this for years by an institutionalized and unjust hierarchy in a civilized and spiritual institution like the church, should not react once to liberate themselves from an entrenched and unjust structure. It is only a pity that the blind Timeus of our time who see human beings as if they are trees walking around, never know these paganistic dealings fraught in favoritism, son of the soil sentiment and despotism meted to Mbaise people in the past and intending to continue it in this age of enlightenment. It is unfortunate too, that they and the papal Nuncio have rather preferred to tag the Mbaise people clannish and ethnic in other to intimidate, blackmail and oppress them further.

The blackmail of the people of Ahiara Mbaise is only a defence mechanism to hide and sustain the holy apartheid against a people and continue the domination trend already institutionalized by those who have shot themselves up to the Vatican by the same sharpness.  Their plan is to extend this colonization beyond the Mbaise church and continue to mystify it with holy obedience to the Church and the Pope when the Pope is not part of their clandestine skirmishes. But embarrassed and shocked that it is now demystified and once resisted, they become hysteric, aggressive and resort to all manner of intimidation, threat and blackmail to transfer the guilt they are supposed to bear on the defenders and discredit them for blocking their prodding ambition. An information reached us that on the rejection of the appointment of Okpaleke, some priests from Awka Diocese said, “Mbaise people have divulged and exposed this thing we have been managing to do for ourselves for a long time now”.

We are therefore bound and forced to tell our story to the world, of the imminent threat and possible clamp down intended to hatch on Mbaise on a date they have fixed and imposed for themselves in order to cause mayhem and blackmail the people for not submitting to their fraud and arbitrariness.

It would be recalled that before the death of the former Bishop, he was supposed to have actually submitted “only names from his diocese” as his prospective successors according to tradition, and this is renewable as directed and demanded by the Canon law and the Vatican. In the event of a sudden death those priests whose names were submitted or other persons outside the list, but who are from the diocese by incardination or as indigenes, would be screened for appointment to the bishopric.  Coincidentally, the bishop died around the time Awka Diocese also needed a replacement for the retiring bishop, Eze Okafor. Rev. Fr. Peter Okpaleke from Awka Diocese was attempted by the godfather(s) to take over Awka, in spite of the then sitting auxiliary bishop of the diocese.  But he was rejected in his own diocese for untoward and unbecoming desperation and other reasons best known to them. It was then that, impelled by frustration and urged by the forces of distorted and unholy ambition and power, he and his allies started manipulating for Ahiara Diocesan succession with great audacious intrusion. It was this hidden and dark interference that made the two year prayer and attempt for smooth selection of the bishop of Ahiara diocese a huge frustration.  Unaware of this, the lay faithful started embarrassing Ahiara priests for their delay in selecting a bishop for two years, ignorant of the fact that it is not the priests themselves that should directly appoint the bishop and that the appointment from those submitted was being compounded by something yet unknown.

Ultimately, the obsession of Fr. Peter Okpaleke and his godfathers is purely a problem of settlement.  There is an accumulation quagmire that might logjam to a frustrating alley if he fails to cling to Ahiara Diocese unstopped. The greatest aggression of a man would always come from the frustration of accumulated and unbridled ambition that trespasses beyond his capacity and the none availability of personal resources. But such aggression could be transferred to whoever becomes the obstacle that neutralizes and brings to vanity an erroneously concluded enterprise. This has been the secrete behind their battle of survival in Ahiara Diocese and Owerri province, making Msgr. Peter Okpaleke, a supposed spiritual priest of the Church saying, “over my dead body” that he should resign the bishopric of Ahiara Diocese, in spite of all persuasions by some wise advisers.

The settlement problem choking up those masterminding the crisis of Ahiara Diocese is obvious. It should be noted that a big shot in the Vatican power broker is alleged to be choked up with the dire urgency of settling Msgr. Jonas Benson Okoye who was once his secretary and personal aid, as well as Denis Isiuzor and Peter Okpaleke, and perhaps others. It is learnt that these have been flown for the bishopric of some dioceses, for instance Awka in 2010 and the attempt met a brick wall.  Nsukka Diocese also failed to yield because the bishop emeritus warned the Nigerian bishops never to attempt to do in his Nsukka Diocese what they have done in Ahira Diocese. Therefore, Nsukka was recently given an indigenous diocesan bishop.  But there is an impending urgency to create Ekwulobia Diocese from Awka where Okpleke rightly belongs. Many wonder why Okpaleke should not have been announced for his new Ekwulobia Diocese to stop the long raging battle for Mbaise.  The obvious reason is to safeguard Ekwulobia for the settlement of the remaining others born for bishopric. Hence, it became necessary and strategic to hurriedly announce Okpaleke for Ahiara Diocese and install him at all cost to create room in Ekwulobia for the remaining lining up for settlement. If Okpaleke is militarily imposed on Ahiara, he becomes the third from Onitsha province in the seven Dioceses of Owerri Province without one from Owerri shepherding in Onitsha and till date no religious from Owerri is heading any religious congregation in Onitsha province. What a Holy Spirit and universality! If Mbaise must continue to obey the Holy Spirit and the Pope against them and in favour of a certain group since the1950s, then the Holy Spirit must have her maternal home with those people. Why then did the same Spirit not continue to allow the Papacy remain in Italy but decided to change to Germany and now Argentina?

The rejection and resistance of Ahiara Mbaise therefore stems from both the history of  suppression of the people of Mbaise in particular, Owerri province,  as well as the above chess play of vain ambition by those who see the episcopacy as their exclusive vocation in Igbo land.  But this is not an Anambra collective action. Although “Anambra”  has been used in the course of this struggle as a matter of illustration, it is never an issue of Anambranaization. The diocese is not fighting against Anambra, the papacy, his infallibility or that it must be their own son, but against injustice by one man, who is coincidentally, from Anambra. It is not a struggle of clannishness or ethnic either on the side of Mbaise people. It is purely a battle against religious imperialism and suppression of a people, who must fight for self-survival and preservation in spite of using the name of the Pope to blackmail and sedate them. Apart from these, have those who preach selfish universality asked themselves the type of justice where the people of Mbaise scattered through out the churches in Nigeria, and one of the first Diocese to loan their priests to almost all the dioceses in Nigeria to start their new dioceses and even now feed them with human, religious and financial resources, not have an indigenous bishop in the midst of the Nigerian bishops in the name of a lop-sided universality?

To crush this resistance against their huge handedness, privileged Church hierarchies have to be employed in sophisticated manners to execute the imposition and conjure up blackmail and stigmatization to indict their challengers.  Like Judas Iscariot, the Papal Nuncio, who seemed to have long perfected the act of external imposition with a grip to an offer in cash or kind, unknowingly betrayed his mind on visit to the Diocese in September 2011 in their midst of anxiety for a new bishop. He was on visit for a thanksgiving reception of a friend in Mbaise, to which he attached “accidental pastoral visit”. He personally enquired from the priests and lay faithful their pulse for the delay in the announcement of the new bishop and to know the type of bishop they would want for their Diocese. He was told. Surprisingly, he told the priests in a sophistry of language that they would be given a “catholic Bishop”, as if they were expecting a muslim bishop. He again unusually emphasized and exaggerated the “universality of the church” without regard to the local regard of the church, thereby adding to the suspicion and scare.

The suspicion for treachery came to limelight when the ordour of blackmail and accusation fouled the air that there was petition and counter petition among the priests of Ahiara. Meanwhile, the papal Nuncio was the only one to whom the documents of enquiry were passed under very high and exclusive secrecy. In a twinkle, the rumour of petition was followed with another strange rumour of a strange name as strong contender among the proposed candidates of priests of the Diocese. Up till today, the bishops and the Nuncio have not answered the question of who put the name, for what reason and when all the possible candidates in the diocese and province were exhausted before extending the search to Awka.

Following the rumour, the Nuncio was immediately warned and appealed to in writing that this suspected imposition “would mean that none of all the Ahiara Diocesan priests is trustworthy now and implicitly poses the question of whether any could become trustworthy in the future. This could cause a big rift between people and priests in this Diocese for a long time because suspicion of sectarian in fighting would have been admitted if not approved. And if this happens, political considerations would have been respected… And on a very serious note, this would make late Bishop Chikwe’s twenty two years’ efforts in correcting the false image of Mbaise among her neighbours and through out the nation come to nothing; and believe me, I know my people they will fight it at the level one may least expect. Let it be clear that any decision based on fabricated, false and unproven information is bound in and by itself to be false and wrong and, as such, may be resisted to the detriment of faith and morals”.

http://www.spyghana.com/ahiara-mbaise-catholic-diocese-rejection-of-anambra-indigene-as-bishop/

Blame these new generation priests

Why did they not revolt when IRISH and other Europeans were the bishops in Nigeria....Charlatans!!!!
Incase they don't know, the pope is the bishop of Rome, guess what, he is not an indegene of Rome
The Bishop of Bauchi is a white man, the Arch-Bishop of Minna is an Igbo man....





To something more serious "for all the Scholars on the thread, I thought INDEGENE is not an English word?"

ooo

It is a shame that Nepotism have find it way into the church...It is highly lugubrious

This is why we have so many different churches and denominations scattered all over the place...

Catholic Church of Indigenous Mbiase loading

Those who love division will never be satisfied and will
stop at nothing to create more artificial divisions.
Imagine discriminating against a priest just because he is
not an indigene even though he is igbo.

What a shame.

I am not surprised, the SE brings not being an indigenous member into every issues. It is sad and embarrasing.

The long-term celibacy is making the dude sexually frustrated.


All I've read does not warrant such reaction from him.

Quest for money

The east seems messed up mehn, so much distrust.

NwaAmaikpe:


The long-term celibacy is making the dude sexually frustrated.


All I've read does not warrant such reaction from him.

And you never disappoint with your ridiculous comments.

hmmmmm

I believe In one holy catholic and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

No matter what happens the church is supreme and the pope is infallible in matters of my faith and morals.

Thank you.
Alpha Conde.

lol

Igbos always discriminating against anything!

You guys are too divisive.

Imagine, this case of Awka vs Mbaise all in Biafraland. You guys are bringing division into the Catholic Church and trying so had to bring to disrepute the respected Cardinal Francis Arinze.

Nigeria would never grant you people an independent Nation because you would constantly try to outdo yourselves. Abia vs Ebonyi today, Anambra vs Imo tomorrow.

I have come to the realization that the greatest problem of the igbos are the igbos themselves and not Nigeria.

a

What has been an indigene gone to do with Christiandom?

[img]http:///media/12-24-2016/E1c7QP.gif[/img]

I'm missing someone in dis forum


Wer is airforce1

Abagworo:
This gives further insight. It is not about what most posters think. I'm sure the Ahiara people would rather accept a White Bishop.

give me just one reason why God won't punish you!!

Abia sacking Imo workers, Anambra against Enugu, Mbaise versus Owerri, Umuleri fighting Aguleri, all of them against Ebonyi.

Ndigbo harbor so much hatred against each other but when the Hausas treat us the same way we treat ourselves, my people start crying like barren witches.

Ka Chineke nyere anyị ka anyị na Alaigbo.

...