By Fredrick Nzwili OSV News Catholics in northwestern Nigeria celebrated just days before Christmas, as the last group of students kidnapped from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri were freed by their captors. Church officials confirmed that the remaining 130 students were released Dec. 21, ending a monthlong ordeal that began when more than 300 […]
Effie Caldarola: Kidnapped African priest was beloved in Alaskan diocese
Commentary Like many Americans, I remember the terrorist group Boko Haram because of its kidnapping of 276 Nigerian school girls in 2014. The world recoiled in horror, but eventually the news cycle moved on. So I was shocked anew when friends in Fairbanks, Alaska, reported early in June that a priest friend had been kidnapped […]
‘Please hear us, please help us,’ Nigerian bishop pleads’
By Kimberley Heatherington OSV News WASHINGTON — “Death does not announce any day,” cautions a Nigerian proverb. It’s advice the Catholic faithful of the Diocese of Makurdi — in Nigeria’s Benue state — are grimly familiar with as they and their Christian neighbors endure a sustained campaign of terrorism now stretching into a second decade. […]
Bishop says church where massacre occurred to reopen by this fall
By Kurt Jensen Catholic News Service WASHINGTON — Bishop Jude Ayodeji Arogundade of Ondo, Nigeria, is resolute in the wake of tragedy. St. Francis Xavier Church in Ondo, where at least 40 worshippers were slain by terrorists June 5 during Pentecost Mass, will reopen by the fall. “We’ll resume full activities as it has always […]
In Nigeria, nun cares for children labeled as ‘witches’
By Valentine Iwenwanne Catholic News Service UYO, Nigeria — Three years after taking in 2-year-old Inimffon Uwamobong and her younger brother, Sister Matylda Iyang finally heard from the mother who had abandoned them. “Their mother came back and told me that she (Inimffon) and her younger sibling are witches, asking me to throw them out […]
Nigerian bishop says murdered seminarian had courage of a martyr
By Catholic News Service SOKOTO, Nigeria — A murdered Nigerian seminarian had the courage of a martyr, his bishop said after three men were arrested for murder and kidnapping. One of the suspects said Michael Nnadi was killed because he kept asking his kidnappers “to repent and turn their lives around from their evil ways,” […]
St. Marianne’s Nigerian connection
Visiting African archbishop hopes a relic of the Molokai saint will inspire healing in his violence-stricken country By Anna Weaver Hawaii Catholic Herald 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 […]