African Bishop Recently Appointed to Vatican Dicastery to Foster Media Pastoral Dynamism

He expressed his gratitude to God and Pope Francis “for this appointment of trust and service” and continued, “I am thankful to God to be called upon to serve in such an exalted position of responsibility even from my relatively small corner in the Diocese of Oyo, Nigeria.”

“I feel that this appointment is in recognition of the life of the Church family of God in Africa which I currently serve as President of the Pan African Episcopal Committee for Social Communication (CEPACS),” Bishop Badejo said in reference to the initiative of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

The appointment to the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, the Bishop who was appointed alongside four others observed, “is also a confirmation of the Church’s universal character.”

Those appointed along with Bishop Badejo include Mauro Cardinal Gambetti, the Archpriest of the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican; Archbishop Jorge Eduardo Lozano of San Juan de Cuyo; Archbishop Borys Gudziak of Philadelphia of the Ukrainians; and Sr. Nathalie Becquart, under-secretary of the Synod of Bishops. 

“I believe that the Holy Father appointed an African Bishop to the Dicastery of Communications trusting that the African experience of being Church has value for the universal Church,” Bishop Badejo told ACI Africa.

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He added, “I would like to hope that my role in dicastery as an African Bishop in that service office of the Vatican will be consequential to the mission of Jesus Christ and of his Church worldwide.”

Born in July 1961, Bishop Badejo was ordained a Priest for Oyo Diocese in January 1986. He was incardinated in Nigeria’s Diocese of Osogbo in March 1995 following its erection, having been carved out of Oyo Diocese. 

He was ordained Coadjutor Bishop of Oyo Diocese in October 2007; he succeeded Bishop Julius Babatunde Adelakun as the Local Ordinary of the same Episcopal See in November 2009. 

The alumnus of the Rome-based Salesian Pontifical University is currently serving as the Vice Chairman of the Social Communications Department of the Regional Episcopal Conferences of West Africa (RECOWA).

In an interview with ACI Africa last year, Bishop Badejo encouraged the people of God in Africa to embrace and engage digital media, saying that the Church is no longer in the habit of shying away from the engagement of social media.

“It is important for the Church in Africa to show interest in those who practice media, both the professionals and the mere practitioners, those who use social media, the new incomers who don't have any professional skills but have all the tools at their disposition,” he said during the March 2020 interview.

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