Cardinal Onaiyekan Congratulates Bishop Okpaleke on Appointment as Cardinal
- Rachel Kogi
Following the surprising appointment of Bishop Peter Okpaleke as the fifth Cardinal from Nigeria by the Holy Father, Pope Francis, heads of the Catholic Church in the country have continued to doff their hats for Pope Francis.
Top among them is the Prince of the Church and Emeritus Archbishop of Abuja, His Eminence, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, who congratulated the newly appointed Cardinal, Most Rev. Dr. Peter Okpaleke of the diocese of Ekwulobia.
In an exclusive interview at his residence in Abuja with the National Director of Social Communications, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN), Very Rev. Fr. Michael Nsikak Umoh, the Cardinal expressed joy on the addition of another Cardinal, noting that he would be in Rome come August 27, 2022 to support his “younger brother” during the creation ceremony.
It would be recalled that while the Church celebrated the World Communications Day on Sunday, May 29, 2022, during the Regina Ceali, the Holy Father pulled a surprise when he announced the name of Bishop Okpaleke as one of the 21 new Cardinals.
Cardinal Onaiyekan noted that Pope Francis has a style of pulling such surprises, affirming that “the Pope has preference for the peripheries.” He explained that contrary to public expectation of the appointment of foremost Archbishops or outspoken Bishops, “Pope Francis takes the prerogative of surprising everyone with his appointments, because “there is no clearcut process in the appointment of Cardinals, it is the full prerogative of the Pope.”
In this same vein, apart from Bishop Okpaleke, His Eminence observed that the Pope also appointed another Bishop, Richard Kuuia Baawobr from WA diocese in Ghana and Archbishop Giorgio Marengo from Mongolia, a country with only about 1400 Catholics and six parishes.
Going further, the Prince of the Church and a foremost ecclesiastic in the Catholic Church in Nigeria explained that the situation where a Cardinal administers a diocese which is a suffragan of an Archdiocese is not new to the Church in Nigeria, citing the example of the first Cardinal of Nigeria, Dominic Cardinal Ignatius Ekandem, who was appointed by Pope VI and was still the Bishop of Ikot-Ekpene, a suffragan diocese under the then Onitsha Archdiocese.
His Eminence further disclosed that the Pope has fixed August 28 to 29, 2022 as consistory of all the Cardinals, and the creation of the newly announced 21 Cardinals on August 27.
Bishop Okpaleke was born on March 1, 1963 and was first appointed Bishop of Ahiara Diocese by Pope Benedict XVI on December 7, 2012 and ordained on May 21, 2013. He resigned as Bishop of Ahiara on February 19, 2018 and was appointed first Bishop of the newly erected diocese of Ekwulobia on March 5, 2020 and installed on April 29, 2020.
With the appointment of Bishop Peter Okpaleke as Cardinal, Nigeria now has four Cardinals: Francis Cardinal Arinze, Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, John Cardinal Onaiyekan and the newly appointed Peter cardinaal Okpaleke.
