Archbishop Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso of the Archdiocese of Kaduna, Nigeria, holds a relic of St. Marianne Cope in front of her gravesite in Kalaupapa, Molokai, July 14. (Photo courtesy of Darlene Namahoe)
Visiting African archbishop hopes a relic of the Molokai saint will inspire healing in his violence-stricken country
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
The St. Marianne relic, a piece of the saint’s coffin, on display in a reliquary made by Oahu craftsman Manny Mattos at St. Francis Convent in Manoa, Oahu.
For the first time, a relic of St. Marianne has been given to a diocese outside of the U.S.
That diocese is Kaduna, in north-central Nigeria, and its leader hopes that sharing the story of Mother Marianne will be a positive symbol in his war-torn country. The north and central regions of Nigeria in particular have experienced a rise in violence in recent years.
“On a daily basis, hundreds of people are being killed,” said Kaduna’s Archbishop Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso in a July 19 interview with the Hawaii Catholic Herald. “Communities are being wiped out.”
Fighting has primarily been between farmers and nomadic herdsmen over land use. Lake Chad and grazing lands have shrunk with rising temperatures. Majority Muslim herdsmen compete with primarily Christian farmers for space.
Recent violence resulted in the killing of 19 people, including two priests, at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Ayar Mbalom, Benue state, on April 24. Fifty houses in the village were also burned.
“Human life has become like chicken life,” the archbishop said. “We want the international community to know this is happening.”
“We are pleading on behalf of all Nigerians that are being killed today.”
Archbishop Ndagoso and his fellow Nigerian bishops have called on President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military leader and Muslim who was elected president in 2015, to do more to stop the violence or resign.
“His duty is to make sure that he secures our country, to make every Nigerian, regardless of your religion, regardless of your tribe, feel secure.
“Right now there is division,” the archbishop said. “Where there is division you need to bring healing.”
St. Marianne’s relic
Archbishop Ndagoso visited Hawaii July 12-19. His trip included a July 14 stop with Honolulu’s Bishop Larry Silva to the Kalaupapa peninsula on Molokai.
There Bishop Silva gave Archbishop Ndagoso a tour of the Hansen’s disease settlement. The archbishop also celebrated Mass to honor past and present Kalaupapa residents and the service of Sts. Damien and Marianne of Molokai.
During the pilgrimage, Sister of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities Alicia Damien Lau presented the archbishop with a piece of St. Marianne’s coffin, a second-class relic, on behalf of the Sisters of St. Francis.
On July 15, Archbishop Ndagoso took the relic to Sacred Heart Church in Pahoa on the Big Island to celebrate Mass and meet families displaced by the Kilauea eruption.
St. Marianne’s coffin fragment relic was held in a reliquary made of native Hawaiian woods by craftsman Manny Mattos, a parishioner of Resurrection of the Lord Parish in Waipio, Oahu.
“She’s a model of leadership that we can hold up,” said Archbishop Ndagoso of why he wanted to take the relic back to Nigeria.
He pointed out of her willingness, as the superior of the Syracuse Franciscan sisters, to come to Hawaii herself along with a group of sisters when called to help with nursing needs in the island. “She didn’t just ask others to go, she actually led them.”
Having Marianne’s relic will be a great example of that servant leadership, the archbishop said.
“Marianne and Damien, what they did in Molokai was to heal people, to bring them fullness of life, to give them their dignity.”
Two Hawaii visits
Archbishop Ndagoso came to Hawaii for the first time last year at the invitation of his friend and Hawaii resident Darlene Namahoe. Namahoe met the future archbishop in the late 1990s in Rome, when both were living in the city and attending Mass at Chiesa di San Patrizio.
Manny Mattos was his guide during his four-day visit in 2017, which included a stop at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu. There Archbishop Ndagoso prayed in front of the relics of St. Damien and St. Marianne.
Mattos recalled the effect the cathedral visit had on the archbishop. “As soon as he walked out of the church, he said, ‘Manny, is there any way I can take a relic of Mother Marianne back to Nigeria?’”
Mattos spoke with Sister Alicia Damien, who worked on acquiring the coffin fragment for Archbishop Ndagoso.
With about 196 million people, Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa and has the seventh highest population in the world, according to current United Nations statistics.
Catholic News Service contributed to this story.
