Disobey me and lose your job – Pope to Nigerian priests

Pope Francis has laid down an ultimatum to defiant Nigerian priests in Ahiara Diocese in Imo state: lose your job if you don’t obey me and your bishop. The Pope told a delegation from the Ahiara diocese, where priests have been refusing to accept Peter Ebere Okpaleke, appointed the local bishop in 2012 by the then pontiff, Benedict XVI.

The Pope who met them on June 8 at the Vatican threatened to suspend the priests from the ministry if they didn’t pledge in a letter, by July 9, their total obedience to Francis and accept Bishop Peter Okpaleke’s appointment. He added that he was acting for the good of the people of God.

Francis said he was very sad about the priests’ refusal to obey and ruled out tribal loyalties as explaining the refusal. His remarks to the visiting delegation indicated how dangerous he viewed any rebellion against papal authority.

His harsh condition was a means to end disobedience to the Vatican aims at ensuring the growing church there will be loyal to the pontiff.

“Those priests opposing Okpaleke’s taking up of his office want to destroy the church, which is not permitted. The pope can’t be indifferent to the rebellion, “Francis said in his address to the delegation. They must also accept the bishop chosen by Rome. If within a month, each priest doesn’t do so, he will be ‘ispo fact’ 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.

Catholic priests and laity of Ahiara Diocese (Mbaise) in Imo State have said that they cannot accept Bishop Vincent Okpaleke as the prelate of the diocese until the injustice against them was reversed. They also maintained that they were not against the authority of the Pope, but insisted that they should be given some time to heed to the sudden summons of both the clergy and laity of the Diocese to Rome by the Pope.

Okpaleke, a priest from Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province, was consecrated a bishop for Ahiara Diocese on December 7, 2012, at Seat of Wisdom Seminary, Ulakwo in Owerri North Local Government Area of the state after the death of the first bishop, The Most Rev. Dr. Victor Chikwe. He has since then been operating outside the diocese.

The President of the Mbaise Indigenous Catholic Priests, Reverend Father Augustine Ekechukwu, contended that the diocese paraded the highest number of priests in Nigeria with high academic degrees in different disciplines and wondered why no priest from the Presbyterium was elected to take over the mantle of leadership of the diocese, especially one who understood the operational and administrative mode of the diocese.

“With that bull read at Ulakwo, Okpaleke belongs to Ulakwo and not Ahiara and there is nothing like Ulakwo Diocese in Nigeria. What has happened was a well calculated plot to undermine the priests of the Ahiara Presbyterium,” he stated.

In the same development, The Rev. Fr. David Iheanacho noted that the priests were not calling for a bishop of Mbaise extraction for the diocese but a prelate (no matter where he comes from) who is incardinated in the diocese. Citing the Canon law, he stated that since Okpaleke had not taken the authority of his diocese after three months of his consecration, he had circumvented that aspect of the law.

He averred that Okpaleke was currently not acceptable to the diocese sequel to the process that ushered him as a bishop.

NAN