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Ten mosques have reopened in Central African Republic (CAR)'s capital city of Bangui, as Muslims begin to return home after months of sectarian violence, a top cleric says. The mosques were closed after people escaped the violence due to fighting between rival ethnic groups in the landlocked country, said Aliou Ousseini, one of CAR's most influential clerics. “A house of worship closing its doors is not a good thing,” Ousseini said, hoping that the recent drop in violence would continue its trend. According to UN figures, over 95 percent of the 436 mosques in the country were destroyed in the conflict between Christian militias and Muslims. Meanwhile, some 3,000 Muslims who fled the violence have returned home, according to Abacar Ousmane, a spokesman for Muslims in Bangui.
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- Ngwa Bertrand
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It was a miracle! Or maybe not. The dried blood of Naples' patron saint Januarius half-liquified Saturday during a ceremony when Pope Francis held and kissed the relic while on a visit to the southern Italian city. Archbishop of Naples Crescenzio Sepe showed the glass vial to the congregation in the city's cathedral and declared: "The blood has half liquified, which shows that Saint Januarius loves our pope and Naples." Francis, known for his plain speaking, quipped that he and his fellow visitors to the city's cathedral had failed to win the saint's full affection. "The bishop just announced that the blood half-liquified. We can see the saint only half loves us." "We must all spread the word, so that he loves us more!" he added.
Each year thousands of Roman Catholic faithful go to the three special services at Naples Cathedral where the dried blood of the fourth-century martyr is said to turn to liquid. Some people say the blood even increases in mass during these displays, though the church does not officially recognise any of the relic's alleged transformations as a miracle. The Roman bishop was decapitated during the persecution of Christians during the reign of the emperor Diocletian in 305 AD. The showing of the vial is eagerly awaited because, according to tradition, whenever the blood has failed to liquify a catastrophe has occurred. The ceremony has been going on, sometimes up to 18 times a year, for the past six centuries.
In 1527 and 1528 non-liquefaction was followed by the plague. In 1559 famine came and in 1833 cholera raged through the city. In 1944 during World War II non-liquefaction was proceeded by bombing raids by Allied aircraft. The "half-miracle" came during Francis's one-day visit to the city in which he was greeted by hundreds of thousands of people waving Vatican flags. Further strengthening his down-to-earth reputation, the pope headed deep into mafia territory, visiting jailbirds and the poor in Naples amid heightened security. The pontiff arrived in the poor, crime-ridden Scampia area of the city in a popemobile and immediately plunged into a crowd of children and young people, two of whom managed to pose for a selfie with the pontiff. "Corruption stinks, corrupt society stinks," he told residents, adding that "we all have the potential to be corrupt and to slip into criminality".
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- Ngwa Bertrand
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Fr. Etienne Khumbah's 40th priestly ordination anniversary is on Saturday April 18, 2015 at St. Bernard Catholic Church, 9647 East Beach St, Bellflower, Ca 90706 in the United States of America. Cameroon Concord understands that the Holy Mass to kick start the festivities will commence at 6:30pm and reception will follow immediately in the parish hall. Roman Catholic Christians all over the world are being encouraged to participate in this great event. Our US bureau chief Bertrand Etukeni Agbaw-Ebai hinted at the time of going to press that the organizers are appealing to Africans to appear in our traditional outfit.
Rev. Fr. Etienne hails from Lebialem Division in the South West region of Cameroon and has served the Lord in various parishes in Cameroon, especially in the South-West region. He is currently taking some courses at the Loyola Mary Mount University in Los Angeles. He does intermittently say mass in the aforementioned church. We of this publication are sending our hearty congratulations to Rev. Father Etienne Khumbah as he continues to spread the Good News.
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- Ngwa Bertrand
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The All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Governors Rochas Okorocha and Rotimi Amaechi of Imo and Rivers States, as well as formers governors of Lagos, Anambra and Abia States, Bola Tinubu, Dr. Chris Ngige and Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, were recently in Owerri on campaign. These chieftains and other notable figures of the APC took some time off their schedule and paid a courtesy call on the Catholic Archbishop of Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, His Grace, Most Rev. Dr. Anthony J.V. Obinna. Vintage Obinna exploited the opportunity to tell his guests his Nigerian story.
Speaking earlier, Gen. Buhari appealed to everybody to go for their permanent voters cards, as well as vote according to the dictate of their conscience. “We are going round to tell Nigerians to get their permanent voters cards ready, to go out and vote and to make sure that it counts. He said that there has been continued dilapidation of the country’s infrastructure, education, health care and the most serious among this is power. “Millions of Dollars, not Naira, have been spent but nothing to show for it”, Buhari told Archbishop Obinna. In his own short remark, the former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, pleaded with the Archbishop to beg politicians to stop playing politics with religion, stressing that no nation that passed through this lane survived. “Poverty has no religious or tribal mark. Some people, who fail in many areas try to hide under religion. The clergy should continue to discourage politicians from playing politics with religion”, Tinubu said. For Senator Chris Ngige, Nigeria is on the verge of vanishing and the church has a role to play in promoting good leadership. Lending his voice during the visit, the former governor of Abia State, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, disclosed that APC is committed to good governance, adding that the party will ensure that everyone elected abides by this. He finally appealed that APC should be given a chance to execute their programmes.
ARCHBISHOP OBINNA RESPONDS
“When I heard you (Buhari) were coming, I went back to my PhD thesis, which I defended in January 1984, and I want to read a part of what I wrote just a few days after the coup d’état of December 31, 1983. “In 1960, the British colonial government relinquished the administration of Nigeria. On January 15, 1966, a military coup d’état ended the rule of the Nigerian leadership, which took over from the British. Corruption was the declared reason for the coup. This coup then led to a three-year civil war, 1967-1970. “A military coup d’état in 1975 ended the leadership of General Yakubu Gowon, a military head of state. In 1979, the military handed back power to a civilian regime. As I was putting finishing touches to this study, the news of another military coup came. In effect, President Shehu Shagari and the civilian leadership were overthrown on charges of the same ineptness and corruption, which he had earlier decried and in the face of which he had called for an ethical revolution. A new military head of state, Muhammadu Buhari, now presides over Nigeria. Where we go from here is yet uncertain. . .
“On December 31st 1983, a moral crisis in Nigeria gave way to a military coup d’état. In his broadcast to the nation on the reasons for the coup, which toppled the civilian government presided over by Shagari, the new military leader of the nation, Muhammadu Buhari, said that the army seized power in order to put an end to the serious economic predicament and the crisis of confidence now afflicting our nation. “Corruption had attended unprecedented heights under Shagari”, said Buhari, dismissing as rigged, the August election that gave Shagari a second four-year term. “There is ample evidence that rigging and thuggery were relative to the resources available to each of the country’s now banned six political parties”. Buhari added that his government would not operate kick backs, manipulated contracts or over-invoicing, nor would it condone forgery, fraud and embezzlement.
After reading a portion of his doctoral thesis, the Archbishop then asked his visitors: “Have we moved forward or backwards from this point?” “I spent a lot of time thinking of Nigeria. My study was with a view to finding a modus vivendi for all Nigerians and I ended up with an ideology for Nigeria, which I called life enhancement. Enhancing the life of every Nigerian on the basis of equal value of every Nigerian. On the other side, I talked about one concept, live and let live. I found one concept to hold live and let live together, which is Convivial, the Convivial of the variety instead of the fittest. So, this is African democratic ideology, Convivialism.
“I ask your Excellency, can we live together as one people, one nation, in Nigeria? Can we, wit the multiplicity of our religions, of our ethnic groups, of our class structure, with the multiplicity of our conflicts, stick together as one country? I keep asking myself. Can we forge one nation, one national consciousness, through which every Nigerian, whether from Yoruba land, from Itsekiri, from Oyo or from Sokoto can live together?
“Right now, we are sitting on a keg of gun powder. We have known war. I was a prisoner of war at the end of the civil war. I was imprisoned in the military camp. So, I come from a background of having survived through the war and have been detained and escaped from prison. God allowed me to be alive till today!
“Well, before I knew you (Buhari), your name has been in my doctoral dissertation, published in 1984, and we are yet trying to forge a nation,one people, one mind. “Do we have one God or many gods? This is part of the problem. If we have one God, we should have one humanity, one national family, but we have many gods, then we have multiple humanity. “This is a very important issue at the apex level. So, the real issue for now is not PDP or APC, but our belonging together as one family, one nation, so that I can move freely from here (Owerri) to any part of the country, as I did in 1985, when I came back from the United States of America. At that time, I was able to travel through Nigeria without any harassment. But today, it is difficult to drive through Nigeria. It is unfortunate because Nigeria is such a lovely and a wonderful place.
“Whether it is the PDP or APC ruling the nation, our concern is how do we become fellow sons and daughters of God and respect and treat one another as such, without the feeling that you are inferior or that I am superior. This is part of my mission to equalize and or equilibrate the perfection of us Nigerians. “We see each other not just as brothers and sisters but as sons and daughters, giving each person his due recognition as son and daughter. So, let everybody humble himself. Some people are suffering from a disease of pomposity, a form of psychosis. “It is a pity that you are being brought back to 1984, when you should have moved on and rested comfortably after having served the nation. This is part of the predicament of Nigeria. If things had been better shaped, it would have been a different thing. Some of the countries that have had things better shaped are doing better. Even the small nations of Asia that were coming to us, including Malaysia that came to borrow palm fruits here, they are now super power in that area. Countries like Korea and Japan have become the Asian Tigers.
“Your Excellency, you will do well to address the issue of religion. See how you can actually transcend the polarization that we see at various levels. Since this nation is multi- religious and multi-ethnic in nature and content it requires something that will hold everybody together. That has been my concern. If we start talking of Christianizing everybody, you create a problem. If anybody talks about Islamization, it will create problems. That’s why there is a need for a certain transcendent that will guide whoever is at the apex of Nigeria. “I think that during the time of Shagari, there was a certain accommodation at that time. There wasn’t too much emphasis on Christianity or Islam as part of any official policy. Efforts should be made to prevent sectarian apostles from manipulating either Islam or Christianity. Let us emphasize those things that are for the welfare of the people: education, health, electricity, because everybody needs these things, whether Muslim or Christian. If there is earthquake here (Assumpta Cathedral, Owerri), all of us, whether Christian or Muslim, will fall in. If there is an accident, all of us will go in. So, there is a certain humanistic strain.
“We shouldn’t buy into Western secularization. Definitely, Muslims, Christians and Africanists, we agree on certain humanistic values. That was why it was easy to fight the issue of homosexuality and lesbianism. We don’t tolerate those, whether as Africans, Muslims or Christians. “The Vatican and the Islamic heads of state have been able to fight secular forces, materialistic forces that are trying to trivialize many things. But again, we have the danger of religious violence. It can come from Christians. It can come from Muslims. We need eliminate it in our body politic. “Here in Imo State, if not for the work of the Justice, Development and Peace Commission, JDPC, and our other education management, this man (pointing at Governor Okorocha) would not have become Governor in Imo State. We sustained our prayer for upright voting, accurate counting and martial announcement of election results and we are praying up till this moment. “There was a revolution in 2011 here in Imo State, under APGA. We insisted that people should cast their votes and remain there until the votes were counted and announced. That was how the votes were secured. The votes were not secured by the politicians. So, we are not new to the political process. “I am a Christian to the core but humanistic in my drives. As a lecturer for 17 years, the values I reeled out were life enhancement principles and they are neither Christian nor Muslim. This is from African Anthropology – Ndubuisi – life is supreme, Chinwendu – God is the owner of life.
This was the basis on which I developed my thesis, not so much on Islam or Christianity, although I studied the various currents in Nigeria, with a view to finding a common ideological framework that will guide us, that will shape our attitude, evaluate us on the basis of which we can operate. So, what is being said here is the ideology of faith and harmony, which can be incarnated within the Nigerian political framework and we will be all the better for it.
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- Ngwa Bertrand
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Nearly all of the 436 mosques in the Central African Republic (CAR) have been destroyed by months of deadly sectarian violence, the US envoy to the United Nations says. Samantha Power said Tuesday that 417 of the CAR’s mosques have been destroyed since the conflict began over a year ago. Power, who spoke to reporters after a UN Security Council visit to the strife-torn country last week, termed the devastation in the CAR as “kind of crazy, chilling.”
During the inspection tour, the US envoy visited one remaining Muslim neighborhood in the country’s capital Bangui and described the people living there as “a terrified population.” In addition, Power expressed concern about a possible security vacuum in the CAR as 750 troops from the European Union left the country over the weekend. France has also announced a “substantial drawdown” in its forces in the CAR by the end of this year. Paris had deployed 2,000 troops to its former African colony.
This is while a UN peacekeeping force is still not at full strength. According to Power, the UN force stands at about 80 percent of its planned strength of some 10,000 peacekeeping troopers. The UN force includes some 6,000 troopers from the African Union, which the international body took charge of last September. Powers said the combined forces have "averted a worst-case scenario;" however, armed groups remain in the country. The US envoy added that disarmament of the warring groups is a “huge priority.”
The Central African Republic has been convulsed by turmoil since December 2013, when Christian armed groups launched coordinated attacks against the mostly Muslim Seleka group that toppled the government in March that year. Thousands of people are believed to have been killed and over one million displaced by the conflict so far. The interim government in Bangui, which is supported by international peacekeepers, is currently trying to pave the way for a peaceful election in the country.
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Cardinal Burke says that 'through sound family life, our society will be transformed'. The new evangelisation of Western societies will fail unless the Church succeeds in transmitting its teachings on marriage and the family to Catholics, a US cardinal has said. The success of efforts to convincingly preach anew the Gospel in secularised societies rests on the ability of Catholics to faithfully abide by the Church’s teachings, said Cardinal Raymond Burke, patron of the Knights of Malta. He said the obedient Christian witness of faithful married couples was critical to the renewal of the Church and society and said Catholics must be willing to suffer in their efforts to uphold the truth of marriage. “The challenge which confronts the whole Church confronts particularly the Church in the first cell of her life, which is the family,” he said in a March 6 speech, ‘Remaining in the Truth of Christ on Holy Matrimony’.
“If we can’t get it straight with regard to the truth about marriage and the family, we really don’t have much to say about anything else,” Cardinal Burke told more than 150 people at a meeting organised by Voice of the Family, an initiative of Catholic laity in support of the 2014-2015 Synods of Bishops on the family. “Through sound family life, our society will be transformed,” he added. “Without a sound family life, it will never be transformed.” The cardinal said it was clear “that if a new evangelisation is not taking place in marriage and in the family, then it will not take place in the Church or in society in general.” “At the same time, the marriages transformed by the Gospel are the first and most powerful agent of the transformation of society by the Gospel,” he added. “The witness of the family is, therefore, at the heart of the new evangelisation.”
The cardinal said there was “nothing more important” than safeguarding and fostering the truth about marriage and the family. Without naming anyone, he criticised Church figures who, he said, “will obscure the truth of the indissolubility of marriage in the name of mercy, who condone the violation of the conjugal union by means of contraception in the name of pastoral understanding and who, in the name of tolerance, retain silence on the very integrity of marriage as a union of one man and one woman.” In a talk that lasted more than an hour, the cardinal cited the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, St John Paul II and retired Pope Benedict XVI, but made scarcely any mention of the teachings of Pope Francis.
In October, Cardinal Burke, the former archbishop of St Louis and a distinguished canon lawyer, emerged as a prominent critic of the proceedings of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family. Shortly afterward, he was removed from his position as head of the Vatican’s highest court amid “legal restructuring,” a decision Pope Francis said had been made before the synod.
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