Giving highlights on the beatification process of Vivian Uchechi Ogu, the Archbishop of Benin, Most Rev. Augustine Obiora Akubeze, disclosed that Vivian Ogu lived a life worthy of emulation, especially for the younger generation. He emphasized that the church wants to declare her a martyr so that other young people will know that it is good to keep themselves pure.
“Ogu was a good Catholic girl; she lived an upright Christian life. When she was asked to give herself to the robbers, when they wanted to defile her, she refused and resisted vehemently, and she was murdered.”
The prelate revealed this in a media chat with CSN Media at the ongoing first 2024 plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) in Abuja on Wednesday, February 21, 2024.
Archbishop Akubeze, who established the Vivian Ogu Movement (VOM) in 2014 to promote the heroic virtues of Vivian, a 14-year-old girl who lived an exemplary holy life through her missionary works and died a courageous death by opting to be killed rather than being sexually defiled, further disclosed that the Church has a way of beatifying those who died on account of holding on to the Christian faith and protecting their belief in God.
“The Church has a way of beatifying those who died on account of holding on to the Christian faith and protecting their belief in God. All that is required of the process is that we are following it slowly and gradually, and we are glad that everything is going well.”
VOM seeks to promote awareness of the life of Vivian Ogu so that many more may strive towards her heroic virtues and seek her intercession. The Movement equally seeks to develop the ground on which Vivian Ogu was martyred into a befitting pilgrimage center known as the Vivian Ogu Missionary Animation Centre (VOMAC).a
