Catholic Priests “must never give in to the calls to arm the Church”: Nigerian Priest

The President of RUPWA, an entity that brings together Diocesan Priests from 16 West African countries, which include Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Mauritania, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and Togo, went on to urge Catholic Priests in the region “to continue to pray for peace in Africa”.

“Without peace, life would be meaningless and short,” Fr. Onukwuba said, and called upon Diocesan Priests in the West African region to “pray for the intervention of the Holy Spirit to give us courage in the face of persecution, and to be strong advocates of peace through dialogue.”

“Let us therefore as a matter of policy, ensure that our homilies emphasize the importance of living in peace with one another, of being our brother’s keeper, of loving our neighbors as ourselves in order to avert our countries from becoming mass graveyards,” the Nigerian Catholic Priest said June 13. 

Catholic Priest, he further said, “must reach out to the political class and our leaders to continue to encourage them to embrace the politics of dialogue in resolving their political differences.”

“We must educate our youths to shun violence and resist being used as instruments of destruction by evil politicians,” he went on to say, adding, “Let us treat as urgent the need to spread peace and not hate.”

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“Indeed, the work that lies ahead is a lot and I encourage each and every one of us to be active in spreading the peace of Christ back home,” said the RUPWA President during his June 13 speech.

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.