B
lessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with every
spiritual and material blessings
(cf. Eph 1:3-4).
I am highly delighted to see you all and
welcome you to our General Assembly
which is the 17th in the series. The general
Assembly brings us together, representing
the different segments of the Jos Catholic
Archdiocesan family to express our pasto-
ral communion and social solidarity. The
Assembly gives us the singular opportuni-
ty to seek ways to improve our services in
the medical, educational and social fields;
to reflect, pray, and reassess our mission-
ary thrust as a local Church through the
interface between the Archbishop, priests,
religious and the laity. Our theme for the
Assembly this time around is: “An Evalua-
tion of the Youth Apostolate in the Catholic
Archdiocese of Jos”.
All our 57 parishes, 16 pastoral areas and
6 Chaplaincies as well as all the Archdioc-
esan sodalities are represented here. The
youth are specifically represented by their
Archdiocesan and seven deanery EXCO
because our Assembly this year focuses on
them.
YOUTH AT THE HEART OF OUR
REFLECTION
Our previous annual general assemblies
dealt with themes on collaborative min-
istry, peace building and social justice,
Catholic traditions, evangelization, faith,
mercy, the Blessed Virgin Mary, practical
Christianity, just to mention a few. The
general assembly of July 25th to 29th, 2005
dwelt on the theme “Youth Development;
investing in our future generation: The
Church’s Response”. We continue with our
reflections on the youth this year again to
further remind us of what the Church and
the larger civil society can and should do
to improve youth welfare and progress. The
Holy Father, Pope Francis, in recent times
has fervently sought to highlight the sig-
nificance and the positive contribution of
the youth to the Church and the society. He
convened a Synod in October 2018, which
brought together more than 300 Bishops,
religious men and women, lay readers and
young people from all around the world.
At the end, the Synod urged all Catholics
to improve the way they listen to young
people, “taking their questions seriously,
recognizing them as full members of the
Church, patiently walking with them and
offering guidance as they discern the best
way to live their faith” ( cruxnow.com ,
Feb 24, 2019). In his post-synodal Apos-
tolic Exhortation, Christus Vivit (Christ is
alive) Pope Francis reminds the youth that
Christ is alive and he wants the youth to
be alive: “He is in you, He is with you and
He never abandons you. However far you
may wander, He is always there, the Risen
One. He calls you and He waits for you to
return to him and start over again. When
you feel you are growing old out of sorrow,
resentment or fear, doubt or failure, He will
always be there to restore your strength
and your hope” (Christus Vivit no. 2). The
Holy Father encourages the youth to grow
in holiness and in their commitment to
their personal vocation. I, lend my voice to
his and urge all our youth in this era of the
social media to always log into the Vatican
website in order to access Church docu-
ments. I encourage you to study Christus
Vivit thoroughly in your meetings.
EXPECTATIONS FROM OUR
YOUTH
The youth are a gifted people. They have
the talents, the energy, the creativity, the
resourcefulness and vision to do things
positively. They must all bring their noble
gifts to bear on the Church and on the wid-
er society. About gifts and talents, St. Paul
affirms in 1 Corinthians 12 that the Spirit
distributes to all in different ways: wisdom,
knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, teaching,
etc. We urge our youth to use their gifts and
talents sensibly and efficaciously.
I urge our youth to imbibe and allow the
culture of volunteerism to be ingrained in
them, that is, to serve without expecting a
material reward and to give of oneself in
charitable activities selflessly. Volunteering
to do things is a great virtue. Unfortunate-
ly, our mentality has been “Nairanized”
to the extent that every small service or
initiative has a Naira price! If someone
helps you with your luggage at the airport,
courteously welcomes you into an office,
forwards or finds your application file for
employment, assists with security issues,
they look at you with the expectancy of the
cripple in Acts 3:5-6, who wanted money
from the Apostles Peter and Paul. It has al-
most become a Nigerian culture to expect
instant financial remuneration even when
one is paid to perform his or her legitimate
duties. We need to purge ourselves of this
mentality.
A REVOLUTION OF MENTALITY
When I overheard some people talking
about a “revolution” in Nigeria, I said to
myself that any such revolution should be
first and foremost, a moral and attitudinal
revolution not just a call for some chaotic
political change. Such a social and moral
revolution should start from the family, the
nursery, primary and secondary schools
and go on to our tertiary institutions. It
must be a revolution where indiscipline
gives way to discipline, dishonesty to hon-
esty, laziness to hard work, the consump-
tion of illicit drugs to sobriety, hooliganism
to true patriotism, religious fanaticism to
inter-religious harmony, egocentricity to
serving the interest of others first instead of
a myopic view of life which emphasizes the
superiority of one religious or tribal group
over the common good. The revolution we
need has to first and foremost, do with cul-
tivating attitudes and dispositions which
serve as the panacea for healing a wounded
and insecure nation in order to catapult us
to progress in all ramifications. It is a call
for genuine patriotism.
FAVOURABLE RELIGIOUS AND
SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT FOR
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
It is said that the hope of the harvest is
in the seeds, but I add that a bumper har-
vest requires a conducive or fertile soil.
The parable of the sower shows that as the
farmer sowed the seeds, some fell along the
path, some on rocky ground, some among
thorns and some on good soil (cf. Mt 13:3-
9). Only the ones that fell on good soil bore
abundant fruits. This analogy of the seeds
can be used to refer to our youth, our hope
of the Church and the civil society. Given
a conducive environment they will germi-
nate and produce the good fruits of patri-
otism, holiness, social justice, peace, disci-
pline and dedication to the common good
of humanity. Seeds can be good but with-
out a fertile ground, i.e. a nation of order
and seriousness, a conducive/ rational re-
ligious atmosphere, the seeds will become
weeds or produce very little.
The importance attached to the place of
the young people in the Church and indeed
the secular society is perhaps the reason
for the series of activities that the Catholic
Church has been engaged in recently about
the youth. There is the tradition of the
World Youth Day which brings youths to-
gether from all parts of the world to inter-
act and to listen to what the Spirit is saying
to the young people. The last World Youth
Day held in Panama to which some of our
youth were in attendance was as successful
as the others before it. As already observed,
the Holy Father, Pope Francis, called a spe-
cial Synod on the Youth. This was followed
by a post-Synodal exhortation Christus
Vivit. The Regional Episcopal Conference
of West Africa (RECOWA) recently in
our plenary in Burkina Faso, among other
things, focused on the young people, es-
pecially as regards human trafficking and
migration. Last month, the Bishops of the
Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences
of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) met
in Uganda and discussed evangelization
with the youth at heart.
It behooves us therefore to translate into
reality in our parishes, pastoral areas and
Chaplaincies what the Church is saying
about the pastoral care of the children and
the youth.
PRACTICAL MEASURES IN CAR-
ING FOR THE YOUTH
In our Archdiocese, I request that we con-
tinue to give importance to the following:
The Holy Childhood: this association
aims at fostering in children a keen mis-
sionary awareness and the vital importance
of getting them involved at an early age in
faith and church matters and being sup-
portive to other children even if they are of
a different race or culture. Chaplains and
parish priests need to show more interest
in the Holy Childhood Association.
Neighborhood Block Rosary Gathering:
The coming together of children to pray
the rosary and learn things about prayer
and the Church is to be supported and
greatly encouraged.
Parish youths programmes are a great ne-
cessity. We must invest in Catholic Youth
Organization programmes and train them
to be effective participants and volunteers.
The monthly youth Mass in every parish
should be sustained with greater enthusi-
asm. More should be invested in the cadets,
scouts, teenage girls, altar servers, etc.
School Apostolate: The Young Catholic
Students (YCS) exists especially in sec-
ondary schools. Regular visits by priests
to schools are necessary and I also call on
Catholic teachers and catechists teaching
in such schools to find time to mentor the
youth in the Catholic faith.
The Nigerian Federation of Catholic Stu-
dents (NFCS) is the coming together of
Catholic students in tertiary institutions
to help them to attend to the issues of faith
and morals while pursuing their academic
life.
The National Association of Catholic
Corpers (NACC) is made up of graduates
who are on the one-year compulsory na-
tional service, often away from their homes
of origin. They need a forum to stay togeth-
er to face the challenges of a new place. Of-
ten, there is very little provision of accom-
modation or adequate logistics for them
upon arrival and they have to rely on reli-
gious organizations for support. Please, be
kind and supportive to them. In our Arch-
diocese, we have donated a family house
and land for the secretariat of NACC.
FAMILIES AND GOVERNMENT
Families are the first schools for the chil-
dren and the youth. We must encourage
once more neighborhood parenting, which
in our culture makes everyone responsible
for the upbringing of children. Before now,
one could discipline a child or a young per-
son in place of his/her parents. Today, even
teachers are accosted and publicly shamed
by some parents because some teachers
take disciplinary measures against their
sons or daughters. Some of such parents
even negatively influence the academic
performance of their children by paying
some corrupt teachers or registering their
children in dubious exam centres.
The Nigerian Government should with
great attentiveness promote the healthy
and disciplined growth of our children
and youth. When one visits some of the
public schools, the school infrastructure
are a pitiable sight, with teachers who
lack integrity and exemplary conduct. I
know of tertiary institutions where stu-
dents are crowded into lecture halls in
their thousands without seats or a func-
tional public address system; where stu-
dents are forced to buy handouts or give
favours in return for marks. Some pro-
ject supervisors make things too difficult
for the students, while some teachers are
not focused always demanding monetary
reward from their students. The situa-
tion is not healthy which is why at every
opportune moment we have not failed to
remind government of the need to return
Church schools taken over and to support
the church contribute its known quota of
sound academic, moral and spiritual up-
bringing of our youth.
We must understand that we must all
individually and collectively do something
towards our youth and this is why we have
chosen the theme on the young people to
remind us of our various responsibilities
whether as individuals, the Church, vol-
untary organizations or the government.
It is incumbent on all of us to seek ways
of bringing about sustained vocational
youth empowerment programmes lessen
the problem of unemployment among the
youth. This is the thought that informed
the establishment of the Bokkos Interfaith
Vocational Training Centre by the Catho-
lic church. His Excellency, Gov. David Jo-
nah Jang, the former Governor of Plateau
State seemingly bought this idea when he
pledged that the Plateau State Ministry of
Education would pay the salaries of the 15
teaching and domestic staff of the place,
but we have been waiting since 2011!
CONCLUSION
I wish in concluding my address to call
on the youth to participate actively along
with other groups as requested by Pope
Francis to celebrate the Extra Ordinary
Missionary Month of October, 2019 by
making a personal encounter with Christ,
to be witnesses like the missionary saints
and martyrs, to engage in deeper biblical,
catechetical, spiritual and theological re-
flection for missionary activity and mis-
sionary charity by investing time, talent
and resources for the spread of the gospel.
It will be a gross omission to forget to ex-
press my profound gratitude to you all and
through you the Parishes, pastoral areas
and chaplaincies you represent for all your
fervent prayers and very wonderful sup-
port to me throughout the years and also
for the commendable sacrifices you have
been making in contributing to our new
cathedral building and many other pasto-
ral projects. You have sacrificed tithes, har-
vest and bazaar proceeds from each parish,
pastoral area and chaplaincy; individuals
and families have donated cement blocks
and bags of cement respectively, which
is why our new Divine Mercy project has
witnessed such remarkable progress.
Congratulations my dear people!!!
May the Lord who has begun the good
work in you bring it to completion.
On this joyful note of our success, I,
now, on behalf of all of us, especially our
children and young people declare the
General Assembly for 2019 open.
