CARDINAL ARINZE AT 90
Holy Trinity Basilica, Onitsha, December 8th, 2022
Homily by +John Cardinal ONAIYEKAN, Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja.
Today, the Church of God celebrates the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. With our Mother Mary, we magnify the Lord who has done great things in her, so much that all generations have been calling her blessed. She alone among all human beings has been born without original sin, and this to prepare her for the great mission of accepting to become the Mother of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Saviour. This is what we celebrate in this Holy Mass. Providentially, however, the Archdiocese of Onitsha has chosen this day to celebrate our dear Cardinal at 90. It is an occasion to thank God for the gift of a long life, the kind that is given to only a few people. In him too, the Lord has done great things, and holy is his name. Scripture tells us that the normal sum of our years is 70, and 80 for those who are strong. 90 is therefore quite exceptional, deserving of great celebration.This Holy Mass is for thanksgiving and rejoicing with His Eminence, and with all his many loved ones gathered around him today and in the days ahead. We do well to start from where it all started: in his natural family of Arinze, and his Eziowele community, that has for long been very proud of him as an illustrious son and a highly regarded patriarch. May the Lord bless them all with joy and peace, both those who are at home and the many who are far away from home.It is however the Church of God that has the most reason to celebrate His Eminence, and this at many levels which I shall only briefly mention.First of all, we are celebrating the Archbishop Emeritus of Onitsha. He started his episcopal ministry here at the very early age of 32, a clear indication of his exceptional ecclesiastical capacity. He soon had to tend the flock of God in Onitsha and its Metropolitan Province through the challenges of the ravages of the unfortunate civil war and its aftermath. He has left behind unforgettable records as President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, CBCN, leading the Bishops’ conference through many post war challenges and the anomaly of military rule.
He was taken to Rome, after almost 20 years as Archbishop of Onitsha, to be at the service of the universal Church at the highest level. The records are still very fresh in Rome, not only in the decasteries over which he presided, but in the many others in which his high level of participation was always highly appreciated. No wonder he rose from Cardinal Deacon, through Cardinal Priest to Cardinal Bishop, a special select group of only about ten members.As we celebrate today the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we see in her the action of God already from her mother’s womb. We see some of this in the lives of some people destined by God for great mission. We see this in the life of His Eminence. He was a man chosen for great things from his mother’s womb. His extra ordinary intellectual prowess was visible from seminary days in Bigard and later in Propaganda Fide College in Rome. He showed the same as a young priest in higher studies and on return home at high ecclesiastical appointments well beyond his age. It was no surprise that he was quickly appointed Coadjutor Archbishop and soon substantive Metropolitan Archbishop.
It was in this capacity as Archbishop that he participated in the last session of the Second Vatican Council in September to December 1965, as the youngest Council Father. He is today the only surviving Council Father among the few who went from Nigeria to that great event, and he is in fact one of the very few in that hallowed category of ecclesiastical ancestors in the entire Catholic world. Brothers and sisters, we have here before us an outstanding legend and icon of the universal Catholic Church.
There are many important Church events and developments linked to the name and hard work of His Eminence. I am aware that this is supposed to be a homily at mass and I know that His Eminence would thoroughly disapprove of – and perhaps even abhor anything that may smack of praise singing. But since the mass is also a sacrifice of thanks giving, I will take the liberty to mention at least three of the many blessings of God to the universal Church which the Lord has used His Eminence to bring about. I will list out the three briefly and then end this homily.The first has to do with the Church and interreligious dialogue under St. Pope John Paul II. This pope took many revolutionary steps in opening up the Church to good rapport with people of other religions. It is not often realized that a lot of background work, studies, contacts and negotiations go into preparing those papal and official decisions and statements. The bulk of the work for this was taking place in the offices of the Pontifical Council for interreligious Dialogue which His Eminence presided over for over 18 years. It was clear that the Pope had absolute confidence in our Cardinal on these matters, which was why he was kept in that office for so long. One of the most significant of these interreligious achievements was the Assisi Annual Gathering of World Religious Leaders.
This has continued for more than twenty years, under the successors of Pope John Paul II.It is worth noting that when the Assisi gathering began, our Cardinal came under very heavy criticism and attacks by many in the Roman circles who firmly believed that the Pope should not be made to pray side by side with Muslims, Hindus, Budhists and African voodoo priests. They blamed “that African cardinal” for such abomination. The reply of His Eminence to such criticism was characteristically both humorous and full of wisdom: “We did not go to Assisi to pray together. We went together to Assisi to pray.” After over twenty years of “going together to pray in Assisi” much progress has been made in our mutual understanding, to the extent that we need no longer hesitate to say that “we go to Assisi to pray together”, to the same one and only God.The Second is his performance at the Congregation for Divine Worship where he served as Prefect for some years before his merited retirement at the age of 80. In his relatively few years in that office, he made a strong and lasting impact in insisting on maintaining the dignity and due solemnity of divine worship in the Catholic Church. He firmly rejected efforts in some quarters to turn the translation of liturgical texts, especially in the English language, into a free for all politically correct, but theologically flawed adventure of dubious literary creativity. The clear rules he put in place have remained after he left office, because they were good rules.
Third and finally, and nearer home is about the beatification of Fr. Iwene Tansi, whom His Eminence had served as altar boy, a special qualification that he is always proud to claim. The relatively quick process for the beatification, which brought the Holy Father to Nigeria in 1998, did not happen just by chance. We thank God for this great honour to our Church and to our nation. But we must also put on record the great role played by His Eminence, through his dogged hard work in the relevant offices of the Holy See and above all with his tremendous influence with the Holy Father, who was happy to approve the process without any unnecessary delay. We hope and pray that His Eminence will still be around to witness the final approval of canonization of Fr. Iwene Tansi in the not too distant future.
Conclusion: We thank God for the long life of His Eminence. We wish him good health of soul, mind and body for the years, many or few, that the Lord may still have in store for him here on earth.
Congratulations – and, seeing how fit and sound he is now at 90, may I be permitted to add also: Ad Multos Annos.
