Pope Francis appoints apostolic visitor for Ethiopian Catholics in US and Canada

Vatican City, Jun 12, 2017 / 10:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis met on Thursday with a delegation from a Nigerian diocese which for the last four and a half years has refused to recognize the bishop who was appointed as its shepherd.

He demanded that the clerics of the Diocese of Ahiara accept the bishop appointment that has been made, or face suspension and loss of office.

Fr. Peter Okpaleke was appointed Bishop of Ahiara in December 2012 by Benedict XVI. But the Ahiara diocese is dominated by the Mbaise ethnic group. As an outsider from the nearby Diocese of Awka, Fr. Okpaleke was rejected by much of Ahiara’s clergy and laity, who wanted one of their own to be appointed bishop over them.

The Mbaise are among the most Catholic of Nigerian peoples – 77 percent of the diocese’s population of 670,000 are Catholic. Nearby dioceses range between 19 and 70 percent Catholic.

Families in the rural diocese foster priestly and religious vocations, with at least 167 priestly ordinations for the diocese since its establishment in 1987.

With such a wealth of priests, the Ahiara diocese sends many as missionaries to Western countries, and many Mbaise hoped that one of its own would become their bishop.

In May 2013, an Mbaise emigrant to California and a representative of Mbaise USA, George Awuzie, told CNA that “The Mbaise people wanted their own bishop, who knows what’s going on within the community. They’re sending someone from a different community, a different village, that doesn’t know what we do within our area.”

Mbaise opponents of the appointment blocked access to Ahiara’s cathedral. Due to the strong opposition, Bishop Okpaleke was consecrated and installed outside his new diocese, at Seat of Wisdom Seminary in the Archdiocese of Owerri, May 21, 2013.

In July 2013 Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja was appointed apostolic administrator of Ahiara, but proved unable to solve the problem.

In light of the impasse, Pope Francis met with a delegation from Ahiara June 8 and gave them an ultimatum, saying he is “deeply saddened” by the events there and that the Church “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 … 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,” he charged. “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.”

He expressed gratitude for the “holy patience” of Bishop Okpaleke, and said he had “listened and reflected much” on the situation, even considering suppressing the Ahiara diocese.

“I feel great sorrow for those priests who are being manipulated even from abroad and from outside the Diocese,” the Pope stated.

“I think that, in this case, we are not dealing with tribalism, but with an attempted taking of the vineyard of the Lord.”

The Bishop of Rome charged that “the Church is a mother and whoever offends her commits a mortal sin, it’s very serious.”

“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,” Pope Francis said.

In their letters asking for forgiveness, the clergy of Ahiara must “clearly manifest total obedience to the Pope” and “be willing to accept the Bishop whom the Pope sends and has appointed.”

Moreover, the Pope demanded that each cleric’s letter be sent within 30 days – by July 9.

“Whoever does not do this will be ipso facto suspended a divinis and will lose his current office.”

Acknowledging that this measure “seems very hard,” Pope Francis said he must do this “because the people of God are scandalized.”

“Jesus reminds us that whoever causes scandal must suffer the consequences,” he told the delegation. “Maybe someone has been manipulated without having full awareness of the wound inflicted upon the ecclesial communion.”

At Bishop Okpaleke Mass of episcopal consecration, Bishop Lucius Ugorji of Umuahia had said that “acceptance of the papal appointment is a respect for the Pope, while the outright rejection and inflammatory statements and protests are spiteful and disrespectful of papal authority,” according to The Sun of Lagos.

Ahiara’s first ordinary, Bishop Victor Chikwe, served from 1987 until his death in Sept., 2010. The diocese was vacant for 26 months before Bishop Okpaleke was appointed.

Awka, whence Bishop Okpaleke comes, is located in the state of Anambra. Ahiara, meanwhile, is located to the south in Imo state. The Mbaise assert that the Nigerian hierarchy favors Anambra.

The Mbaise, who are proud of their identity and strong Catholicism, resent what they call the “Anambranization” of the Church in southeast Nigeria, believing there to be corruption within the Church in Nigeria and a “recolonization” of the Mbaise.

At the conclusion of the audience on Thursday, Pope Francis expressed his gratitude for the presence of the Mbaise who came to Rome, as well as for the patience of Cardinal Onaiyekan, and for Bishop Okpaleke, “whose patience and humility I admire.”

Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, is planning to have the Ahiara diocese and its bishop make a pilgrimage to Rome to meet with Pope Francis “at the conclusion of this sequence of events,” the Vatican announced June 11.

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St. Peter’s Basilica / Simone Savoldi / Unsplash (CC0)

Rome Newsroom, Oct 2, 2022 / 03:00 am (CNA).

The world’s newest bishops gathered in Rome last month to learn more about what it means to be a Catholic bishop.

While the week’s presentations spanned a range of topics, three U.S. bishops who attended told CNA that synodality emerged as a key theme.

The Vatican’s annual formation course, sometimes known by the nickname “baby bishop school,” was canceled for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic — making the 2022 edition the largest yet, with approximately 330 participating bishops across two sessions.

“People kind of picture baby bishop school as nuts and bolts, like ‘how to be a bishop.’ It’s not that at all,” Bishop Erik Pohlmeier of the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida, told CNA at the end of the course.

“It’s kind of whatever the Church is talking about at that time, bringing that to the bishops that are coming on board,” he said. “The synodal process has been … a hallmark of conversation for the last couple of years, so now as we’re new bishops … the reflections revolved around that.”

The seminar’s first session was primarily attended by bishops consecrated in 2019 and 2020, while the second session was mostly those who joined the ranks in 2021 and the first part of 2022.

Thirty-nine U.S. bishops and auxiliary bishops attended, divided between the two weeks.

Pohlmeier was the freshest U.S. bishop to join. He was ordained a bishop on July 22 — just two days after his 51st birthday and seven weeks before arriving in Rome for the Sept. 12–19 course. 

Speaking to CNA in Rome on Sept. 19, Pohlmeier said that as a new bishop, there are many things you do not know, but that’s where one’s fellow bishops come in.

“Every bishop knows other bishops,” he explained, like the bishop of the diocese where they served as a priest. “And they’re always, I mean to a person, helpful.”

Bishop Gregory Gordon, the first-ever auxiliary bishop of Las Vegas, Nevada, told CNA on Sept. 19 that the U.S. bishops’ conference also organizes meetings between bishops of the same ordination year, or “class,” as a way to build fraternity and create a network of support.

While the formal theme of this year’s seminar was how to announce the Gospel in changing times, Pohlmeier, Gordon, and Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria, Illinois, said the unofficial topic of the week was synodality.

What they talked about

“We’re in the midst of the synod,” Tylka, who attended the seminar Sept. 1–8, told CNA by phone from his diocese. So the course, he added, focused on questions such as: “What does it mean to be a synodal Church? What is the ministry of the bishop in relation to that?”

Care for the planet and one’s neighbor, themes important to Pope Francis’ pontificate, were also a major part of the seminar, Tylka said.

The week’s presentations also covered child protection and the sexual abuse crisis.

“That’s one of those things that I think we will take home, saying we will be very, very careful not to neglect,” Gordon said. 

Some talks, Pohlmeier noted, were directly about synodality and what it means. At the same time, those of a more practical nature, such as canon law for bishops, “would always include some comment on the synodal approach.”

“You’re going to get different articulations of what that means depending on who you talk to, but in general, my understanding is that it is more of a listening posture,” the St. Augustine bishop said.

Bishop Gordon said Pope Francis himself modeled this listening attitude in their meeting with him on the final day of formation.

In the nearly two-hour meeting, he said most of the time was spent with the pope answering the bishops’ questions. “So you finished the course, [the pope] said. You’ve heard a lot already… Now I want to hear from you.”

This was Gordon’s big takeaway from the week: “It has to go back to the Holy Father’s words to us as he was answering our own questions, you know, asking us to exercise that episcopal closeness.”

The week also included time for communal prayer, Mass, adoration, and confession. 

Bishop Tylka of Peoria said his personal opinion is that “a big part of synodality is the willingness and openness to create space for people to share their stories, to share their own encounters with Christ, to share their own experiences of how life is going.”

“So I think the role of the bishop clearly is to model that openness and that willingness to engage in dialogue,” he said.

What (not) to wear

But there is also a lighter side to being a new bishop, as Pohlmeier evidenced with an amusing scene from the end of the week.

“Here we are, brand new and so … we got instructions on what we’re supposed to wear to meet the pope,” Pohlmeier said.

He explained that bishops in the Latin Church have two main styles of a full-length garment called a cassock. The new bishops were told to meet the pope. They should wear a black cassock with red trim, a purple fascia, and a purple zucchetto. (There is also a purple cassock with red trim for special liturgical events.)

Pohlmeier said it was funny to watch the bishops get ready for Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and, afterward, the meeting with Pope Francis. Many of them were helping each other figure out where each piece of the complicated attire went — including the tall headpiece, called a mitre, which bishops wear to denote their office.

“Guys are literally opening up bags that haven’t been opened with miters from right there, from Euroclero,” Pohlmeier said, pointing over his shoulder in the direction of a clerical supply store next to St. Peter’s Square.

“You could see everybody that bought one this morning because they all matched,” he chuckled. “There were several people that were literally opening it up and pulling it out of the package and trying to get it on straight, and get things attached right, and not sure what clips go where and what’s right.”

“Those kinds of things are funny,” Pohlmeier said, “but nobody just tells you, ‘OK, buy this stuff, here’s what you need.’”

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Pope Francis and the Vatican were going to be under a microscope during the days between Benedict XVI’s passing and his interment.  There was never any question of avoiding it. The period, however, turned pretty […]