It was January 1, 2021, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Also, World Day of Peace, a day the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to universal peace. Every year on this same day, the Holy Father marks the World Day of Peace with a special message inviting all people to reflect on the important mission of promoting peace and acting likewise. This year’s message titled “A Culture of Care as a Path to Peace” is the 54thPope’s message for this annual event that commenced with St. Paul VI in 1967 and continued with St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and now Pope Francis. In the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos in Nigeria an exceptional culture of observance of the World Day of Peace subsists. The Pope’s Message is read during the Holy Mass and a media interactive session is held thereafter. This year’s edition took same shape but with a deliberate reduction in number of attendees owing to COVID-19 protocol. Customarily, ‘gentlemen of the press’ from the print, electronic and social media sought the views of Most. Rev. (Dr.) Alfred Adewale Martins, Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Lagos on the Pope’s message relative to Nigeria as well as issues pertaining to the role of the media, second wave of COVID-19, Bishop Matthew Kukah’s Christmas message and a host of other matters. The Acting Editor, NETA NWOSU reports.
Pope’s message relative to promoting peace in Nigeria
Peace in the world is obviously one of the concerns of the Holy Father, and the Catholic Church in particular, and indeed peoples of goodwill, and so when the Holy Father talked about steps that we must take to bring about peace, he is referring to the fact that bringing about peace lies to a large extent in the hands of actors in the world. The leaders need to ensure that they take the right decisions. They need to ensure that they take decisions that are for the common good, not for any particular interest or factor but for common good. Because when decisions that are taken seem to exclude some people, doesn’t seem to take care of the interests of some people that is when conflicts arise.
So this whole effort is to say let leaders take decisions and make policies that will serve everybody and that will ensure that everybody feels a sense of belonging and fulfill common needs to ensure that there is peace in the country. Our country has had several issues, all kinds of issues with the Boko haram, with the bandits, with the kidnappers, with different kinds of people. If our government should take bold decisions to address the concerns of the different people, if people feel for instance that they were left out in the scheme of things, people feel that they are not counted as valuable in the scheme of things, naturally they will agitate. That is why we have Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB0); that is why we have all kinds of groups of people, so that I think it’s necessary for government to always put in mind the common good that cuts across all strata of the society.
Pope’s message in relation to human dignity and mutual respect
So the Holy Father has given us direction in the regard of promoting the dignity and good of all as well as advance mutual respect. He has also given us a panacea that we can also use in ensuring that there is peace and that is by reference to what you call the social teachings of the Church that is basically hinged upon ensuring that whatever it is that you do you recognize the dignity of the human person. That the human person is not an instrument to be used and discarded. But rather, is a person made in the image and likeness of God, that is the basic principle upon which things must work; principles of the Church’s social doctrine as a compass on the path of peace.
Then, secondly, the individual is being called to action for ensuring the welfare of other human needs because we recognize the dignity of one another. So that as we go about that this year with hope, we are called as individuals also to pay particular attention to the welfare of the person that is next to us as citizens. During the lockdown that we had last year we had many examples of people showing solidarity, people showing compassion, people showing care for others by the kind of palliatives that different peoples were given , that was given in moments of adversity. Let it continue the moment when everything is well so that we can maintain the dignity of persons.
Common good and dignity of persons are those things that the Pope has given to us as the basis of what we should have so that things can go on well and we can achieve peace. One more important thing that the Holy Father has presented to us is the need to ensure that rather than spend money buying weapons of war, that leaders of nations should create a fund that they make contributions to, that when they create that fund and contributions are made to that fund, that fund can be used to take care of the kind of issues that create conflicts and make peace to be difficult to achieve.
If that fund is there , it can be used for countries where there are difficulties in feeding, countries where there are lack of housings, places where there are wars, places where there are natural disasters, if that fund is applied in that way then the problem of conflicts will be reduced because people have what they need. We thank the Holy Father that he has given us a path to begin the year with and we also will do our best as citizens to carry them out so that peace can be achieved.
President Buhari New Year’s promise to secure release of Leah Sharibu
The Statement is good, and I think it ought to represent his state of mind and one thing that he would like to do and so we welcome that, but this is not the first time that such a statement is being made and that is why we need the President to match his words with actions that will ensure that the cynicism with which people receive such statements are removed. I think it is possible to still make a lot much effort than have been made before now , particularly because this girl represents a principle, a value, a value that you can be faithful to very important thing and it should help ginger people to have this same kind of attitude to life. So, I would like our President to match his words with actions to ensure that this girl is freed.
Second wave of COVID-19: Role of the Church in curtailing the spread
The Church has a huge size of the population coming to worship God and so the Church has a role to ensuring that first of all, the education and information of peoThe Church does not encourage… ple about what needs to be done and how they need to be done in order to stem the rise of the COVID-19 in our country. So apart from informing the people, we also must continue to let people realise that the cynicism that COVID-19 is not real, they should wipe it off their minds, and in any case even if it is not real in your heart why not tell yourself it is real in order to protect yourself. As they say, it’s best to be on the safe side than to make clueless assumptions. Of course, I would ask that people follow the protocols that have been laid down. It may be uncomfortable but it is a small price to pay for safety of one self and of others.
Possibility of another lockdown
I hope there will not be another lockdown, as lockdown always creates many other problems and so I believe that government and those concerned should just focus on ensuring that people keep the protocol rather than doing another lockdown.
Approaching the year 2021
The year is obviously one that we are approaching with a lot of hope, with lots of belief that things that were wrong last year would be made right in this new year and we are approaching it this way because we are a people of faith, we are people of hope and it is the faith and hope that is enabling us enter the year with courage and positive outlook. I just like that we maintain this positive outlook by ensuring that we begin our days with prayers, we begin our different activities inviting the intervention of God because indeed, it’s only with God and by the power of God that all the things that we are complaining about would be made right. So we depend on God for the courage that we have and the hope that we have as we begin this year. However, we know that hope and courage derived from God is ultimate.
Role of the media in achieving peace
In the message of the Holy Father, he mentioned a numbers of places, professions and bodies that can help to bring about peace, and one of the major ones he mentioned apart from the family and the Church is the communications media that has a major role to play in promoting culture of care through a process of education. In many ways, the media dictates the agenda for discussion, so I just want to ask that whatever agenda that is being presented, let it be an agenda that will lead to peace, let it be an agenda that will help people to follow some of those prescriptions that have been given by the Holy Father today. Whenever, where ever we see positive action that is being undertaken whether by individuals, by groups or associations, they need to be promoted and given front page covers.
Wherever we find people who are taking initiatives to bridge gaps that have created valuable differences, those initiatives need to be promoted more than any other thing. Wherever we find positive action towards common good either by individuals or corporate persons, they should be promoted. I believe the media persons have major roles to play in facilitating peace and of course on the flip side, wherever there are issues capable of bringing conflict, it is also important to weigh it carefully because obviously every item, everything that happens is news but there are some items of news that are capable of building rather than of bringing down, so I would think that the media has a major role to play in promoting peace.
Controversy over Bishop Kukah’s Christmas Message
Indeed the message of Bishop Matthew Kukah has generated so much controversy around but of course we all know very well that, what Bishop Kukah was saying and which he had repeated again is that he was only speaking the minds of a majority of Nigerians, he was like a voice that was expressing the views of the majority of Nigerians with regards to governance in our country and therefore, I believe that the kind of response that he should have got from government is perhaps to be able do an introspection, to say let us look at what this man has said, is it true, and if it is true what are we going to do about it. And in any case, if there is any group of people that have those feelings that were expressed by Bishop Kukah, the appropriate response is to respond to the feelings of those people rather than get unduly hyped up by those comments. I think more than any other thing they ought to think about is an introspection than anger or any other negative value.
That’s what I think should be the response of government towards this message that was given. And the Nigerian people, obviously, mainly received the messages and it says different things to us. Whatever happens let us just realise that we also have a role to play in ensuring that those messages that were given, we take them in such a way as we use them for positive purposes. One thing we are sure of is that the church, part of which Bishop Kukah is never encourages military coup, never encourages seizing power by force but rather we spend our energy and resources informing people, educating them about elections, fairness of elections and helping people to recognize the value of democracy and so all of those twisting of his messages are obviously not in the DNA of us as Catholics, of the Church. But rather we think about democracy as helping people to recognize the need for care, just and equitable elections.
