NEWS UPDATE:
Pope's Visit to Nigeria
and Beatification of Father
Tansi (2)
NEWS UPDATE:
Pope's Visit to Nigeria
and Beatification of Father
Tansi (2)
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JOHN PAUL TO BEATIFY NIGERIAN MONK
ABUJA, Nigeria (CNN) March 21, 1998-- 1998. The main purpose of the pope's three-day trip -- the 82nd international journey of his papacy and his second visit to Nigeria -- is Sunday's beatification in the city of Onitsha of ascetic monk Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi, who died in 1964. Beatification is a preliminary step before sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.
The Nigerian monk will be the first West African to be so honored.
Although the pope's visit is billed as pastoral, Abacha treated it like a state visit, including arranging cannon salutes at the airport. The Nigerian leader accompanied the pope down the red carpet leading from the plane.
"I call on Allah to continue to grant you long life and good health," Abacha said, using the
Muslim reference to God
ABUJA, Nigeria (CNN) March 21, 1998-- Combining faith and festivity, Nigerians began arriving in bush-taxis and buses at a huge field outside the capital Saturday, two days before an open-air Mass by the pontiff.
There was a carnival atmosphere in the field in Abuja, where vendors set up drink stands in the hot, dry expanses around the large, green-roofed dais where the pope will officiate.
"He has come to bless us," said 9-year-old Philip Akabuse, one of the early arrivals. Officials expect up to 1 million people at Monday's Mass.
A smaller, more sedate reception awaited the pope at the Nnamdi Azikiwe airport, 25 miles outside Abuja. A few modest posters at the airport read "Welcome Your Holiness."
AGULERI, Nigeria (AP, March 21) -- They say miracles happen here.
A dusty, remote village of five houses and a church, Aguleri has found a place on the map through the work of a quiet, pious man named Iwene Tansi.
More than three decades after his death, Tansi is to be beatified Sunday by Pope John Paul II -- the last step before possible sainthood.
``If you call his name when you pray, we know your prayers will come true,'' said Tansi's only living sibling, Godwin Tansi.
Holding a wooden crucifix in trembling hands, Godwin sat on the front step of his family home. Children crouched around the old man to hear the story of their community's most famous son.
Born in 1903, Tansi was baptized at age 10 and took the Christian name Michael. He became an altar boy and showed a flair for persuading his friends to attend church.
In 1937 he was ordained. Father Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi later turned to monastic life at Mount Saint Bernard in Leicester, England, where he died of tuberculosis in 1964.
Tansi is the first African priest who was not a martyr to be so honored. He was cited for his holiness and commitment to the priesthood, on a continent where the celibate life of a priest is often disparaged.
But it was the miracles that his fellow villagers say he performed that left a lasting mark on this settlement.
They say a young girl dying of cancer touched Tansi's coffin after his remains were sent back to Nigeria in 1986 -- and that within days her cancer was gone.
In Aguleri, his brother remembers when Tansi defied an order from the village chieftain against going to the nearby Ovilivo River.
Nobody here recalls why the chieftain ordered the injunction, but they say Tansi gathered water from the stream and mixed with it with sand from the village square. The simple paste was used to soothe sores and cure illness of all kinds, Godwin Tansi says.
Even invoking his name, Godwin says, offers the people of Aguleri protection.
Mary Tansi, another relative, says she cried out his name when a bus she was riding plunged into a ditch. No one aboard was hurt, she said.
``He worked miracles through the grace of God,'' said Sister Mary Joseph Anne of the Sisters of Jesus Savior Order.
For beatification, one miracle, certified by a panel of Vatican experts, is required.
Despite his years -- which nobody bothered to count -- and frail condition, Godwin Tansi on Sunday will make the 20-mile trek along a dirt road to Onitsha, where the pope will say an open-air Mass.
Then, he will watch as John Paul honors Godwin's older brother's memory and devotion to the church during the beatification ceremony.
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP, Friday, March 20, 1998) -- Down on Church Alley, the rock 'n' roll Christians weren't invited to meet the pope, but that won't dim their arms-in-the-air singing, Bible-thumping, or joy.
``He's the big man,'' exulted Sister Hauwe Malik, a willowy woman with a wide smile, outside the reverberating Living Faith Church. ``Of course, I will go to see him.''
Pope John Paul II arrives in the capital Saturday for a brief visit to Nigeria, where millions will see him in Abuja and Onitsha and many more will watch him on live television.
For the Pentecostals -- as numerous in Nigeria as Catholics -- John Paul is the symbolic father of all Bible devotees, a rallying point for Christians in a country shared with Muslims and animists.
``We both believe in Jesus,'' Pastor George Adjeman explained at Living Faith. ``Let's just say we differ in approach.''
And how. While even the Catholics might enliven a ritual Mass with drums and dancing, the Pentecostals celebrate life with joyful noise.
Adjeman holds forth like a blend of James Brown and Eddie Murphy with a clean mouth, prancing, ranting, cracking jokes and driving home his message with theatrical fervor.
``Look at the person to your right,'' he commands. ``Tell them, `Be fruitful and multiply!' Tell them! Now ask them, `Did you hear me? DID YOU HEAR ME?'''
In 1,000 folding chairs, worshippers respond with thunderous amens and hallelujahs, rising frequently to sing praises to a Lord who died for their sins so they could live in spiritual peace.
Around them, slogans on the wall proclaim, ``1998 is my year of happiness'' and ``I have a very big God always on my side.''
Big prayer meetings are usually twice a week, but many people come for services every morning at 6 a.m.
Pentecostals predominate on Church Alley, a dirt track at the edge of Abuja winding past 30 precariously built houses of worship. There are also Anglicans, Baptists and Seventh Day Adventists.
Bishop John Praise of the Dominion Chapel, chairman of Abuja's Pentecostal churches, is not attending ceremonies to welcome the pontiff Saturday.
His deputy, Wakili Power, said there was no invitation, but he shrugged that off. Pastor Adjeman was not invited either, and he plans to watch the 48-hour papal visit on television.
``The pope's trip here is important for all Christians,'' Power said. ``It gives us a common identity.''
The Rev. Emmanuel Badejo, spokesman for the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, played down any rivalry among denominations in Nigeria.
``Apart from any problems, there we have a fatherhood of religions, represented by the Holy Father,'' he said.
For a while, he said, young Catholics were defecting to what he called the `New Age' religions. But now, many are returning.
``There is a sort of coming and going,'' Badejo said. ``Sometimes it is not even clear what the divisions are.''
In Nigeria, where generations of missionaries brought conflicting yet similar religions to people who worshipped multiple gods, belief systems are a complex subject.
Muslims and Christians each claim a majority in Nigeria. But no one can say for sure. Because of regional rivalries, not even census figures are reliable. And many Nigerians worship alternatively.
Each day, the papers report incidents evoking old superstitions.
This week, the daily National Concord said, a mob of students beat to death a woman accused of being a witch. They said she was guilty of having transformed herself from a bird, and deserved to die.
But far more space is dedicated to acts of faith, religious advertising and church politics.
``There are so many churches in Nigeria, I can't guess how many,'' Power said. ``We church leaders just go about the way the Holy Spirit commands us.''
He was a senior government auditor and a part-time preacher until two years ago when he gave up his day job.
``Now I finally have peace of mind, saving souls,'' he said.
On church outings, Dominion Chapel congregants seem happy enough to have had their souls saved. Singing spills out of their battered bus, which is painted across the back: ``We are enjoying Jesus.''
On Monday, the bus will remain parked and empty on Church Alley. Most of the Bishop John Praise's flock will be watching the pope.
Africa News Service 18-MAR-98, By Paul Ejime, PANA Staff Correspondent
LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA, 03/18/98) - His pastoral functions may be taken for granted but from all indications, it is obvious that when Pope John Paul II comes calling Saturday on his second visit to Nigeria within two decades, this head of the world's Roman Catholic Church, can hadly be politically insular.
Coming after his recent historic trip to Cuba, which resulted in the release of several political detainees, analysts here say the 77-year-old pontiff should brace for socio-political challenges in Africa's restive and most populous nation.
Essentially, the March 21-23 visit, following a six-day swing in February 1982, and the 82nd trip overseas of a remarkable pontificate spanning almost 20 years, had been planned to be pastoral in nature -- for the beatification of Nigerian monk, the Reverend Michael Cyprian Iwene Tansi, who died in 1964.
But Nigerian pro-democracy groups say they plan to use the pope's presence to press for the release of political detainees in the country.
Officials of the Civil Liberties Organisation and the Committee For the Defence of Human Rights said they were intensifying efforts to make representations to the pontiff, through the Catholic secretariat, on behalf of the estimated 120 persons they claim are being detained in the country.
While the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria insists that the pope's visit is for a specific pastoral purpose, many do not rule out the possibility of statements by the pope on Nigeria's political situation.
Underscoring this point, Albert Obiefuna, the president of the bishops conference, said "Nobody tells the pope what to say."
He described the pontiff as "a champion of justice, peace, reconciliation and love whenever he meets with political leaders" and that Nigeria would not be an exception.
"They certainly must have briefed him on the situation in Nigeria and you can be sure that he will show interest," Obiefuna said Monday at the pre-visit briefing in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
Unlike his visit in 1982, under the administration of democratically elected President Shehu Shagari, this visit is coming at the critical stage in Nigeria's chequered political history dominated by military rule.
Nigeria's present military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha, who is implementating a political programme to democracy rule scheduled to begin October with the installation of elected civilians, is expected to receive the pontiff in audience shortly after his arrival Saturday.
Expected to figure at the talks between both men is the evolution of socio-political situation in Nigeria, especially the lingering crisis unleashed by the cancellation by the last military regime, of results of presidential elections in June 1993.
Opponents of the military regime have not only criticised Abacha's transition programme but insist that there could not be true reconciliation in the ethnically diverse and multi-religious nation, without the resolution of the poll-generated crisis.
Moshood Abiola, a Moslem Yoruba from Nigeria's southwest, is among prominent detainees in the country. He is awaiting trial for treason because he declared himself president in June 1994.
Apart from his audience with Abacha, the pope is also expected to celebrate two open air masses, one on March 23 in Abuja and the other at Oba, near Nigeria's eastern market town of Onitsha, where Tansi is to be beatified.
The pontiff has used his homilies at similar masses to address socio-political issues and Nigeria is not expected to be an excpetion.
"The coming of the pope to Nigeria at a time of severe economic hardship and socio-political polarisation and fragmentation, a time when the nation is on the verge of concluding yet another process of transition to civil rule, calls for serious self examination on the part of every Nigerian," the Catholic Bishops Conference said on the papal visit.
As Nigerian commentators also noted, that the Pope is known for his "highly respected moral voice against dictatorships and denials of freedom. Similarly, the travels and presence of the Pope among our several peoples should also encourage us in our belief in the value of the supremacy of democracy and civil rule."
The pontiff is expected to hold talks with Nigerian Moslem leaders on the second day of his visit in Abuja.
Observers say this could present vital lesson in religious tolerance in Nigeria, a constitutionally secular but multi-religious nation that experiences occasional secterial violence.
Religion is considered a sensitive issue, such that many fear putting any figures on the number of the Christian and Islamic faithful which predominate the country, with traditional religionists making up the balance of the estimated 104 million population.
Until recently, not much was known about Tansi not even among the estimated 12 million Catholics scattered in Nigeria's 45 diocesses.
Born in 1903 into a non-Christian family in Aguleri near Onitsha in eastern Nigeria, Tansi was ordained a priest in 1937. He took his monastic vows at Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in Leicester, Britain, in 1953.
He was said to have lived an exemplary life of constant prayer, penance, untiring concern for the salvation of souls and self-denial until his death Jan. 20, 1964.
Tansi was originally buried in Britain but his remains were exumed and reburied in Onitsha in 1986.
In accordance with Catholic doctrine, beatification is a stage to sainthood.
While emphasizing the spiritual benefits of the papal visit, the Catholic bishops noted, in their communique, that "all Nigerians must first admit that our nation is critically ill, instead of playing the ostrich."
Reuters 18-MAR-98 By Eniwoke Ibagere
ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) - It may look like nothing more than a large tin shack and the prayer sessions held there may seem a bit wild to traditionalists.
But Nigeria's Pillars of Firebrand Church Assembly is one of hundreds of new Pentecostal congregations fast eroding support for Nigeria's Roman Catholic church, even in its heartland that Pope John Paul II is due to visit Sunday.
``My church members are not concerned about the pope's visit,'' said Anthony Ekwunife of the Pillars of Firebrand Church in the market center of Onitsha, six miles from the site where the pope will celebrate mass and beatify Father Michael Cyprian Iwene Tansi, making the dead monk the first Nigerian to reach the last step before sainthood in the Catholic church.
Times have changed since Tansi's time, in the early years of the century, when the Roman Catholic brand of Christianity was the new and fast-growing faith, challenging centuries of worship of traditional African deities.
It was at Onitsha that the first Catholic missionaries in eastern Nigeria, French Holy Ghost Fathers, pulled up the River Niger in their boat in 1885 and built their church where it has flourished among the Ibo people who dominate the region.
``NEW-BREED'' EVANGELISTS Then, the missionaries fought only traditional demons and did not have to contend with the ``new breed'' of evangelists with outlandish names, disco-style music and offers of quick salvation, both spiritual and financial.
``We can say the new churches have not only creamed off our members but eroded our moral influence as well,'' Archbishop Albert Obiefuna of the Onitsha archdiocese told Reuters.
The Catholic church in Nigeria has remained true to its traditions and is in the front line of opposition to reform proposals on key principles such as the ban on contraception, marriage for priests and the ordination of women.
Apart from adding a little more music and drumming to accompany worship, there has not been much change in style either. Many parishes present a picture of anachronism with priests dressed in white robes in marked contrast to the sharp suits usually favored by their Pentecostal rivals.
``The Pentecostal churches arose from the belief that the Catholic church was too rigid in its doctrines, stiff in ideas and routine in style of worshiping,'' said religion columnist Dickson Adejanju of the independent daily Guardian newspaper.
Even within the Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria, a rift has appeared with a Charismatic Renewal Movement demanding reform and wanting to bring in more of a flavor of the Pentecostal churches that are proving so popular.
``The problem with the Catholic Church generally is that everything begins and ends with the pope ... it doesn't realize that times have changed and so have their followers,'' said Gabriel Ojiekhudu of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission.
POVERTY FEEDS THE DRIFT Growing poverty as oil-producing Nigeria endures seemingly endless economic depression is another factor blamed by many for the drift from traditional churches, which have failed to provide the material aspirations of an increasing population.
For the world Roman Catholic Church, Nigeria's is too big a congregation to lose. At 12 million strong it is the second largest in Africa after the Democratic Republic of the Congo with about 20 million adherents.
But Nigeria's clergy believes it is only by sticking to its old principles that it can keep its flock and encourage deserters back into the fold when they discover the new churches have no quick-fix solutions either.
``We're trying to preach to members the tenets of love and spiritual essence which are the keys to keeping the church one,'' said Obiefuna. ``The pope's visit is not just for the Roman Catholic Church but for everybody, regardless of your sect.''
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