Very Rev. Fr. Anthony Godonu, Director of Social Communications, Archdiocese of Lagos, has ascribed the success story of the 100-year-old Catholic Herald newspaper to passion exemplified by the team. According to him, the centenary accomplishment of the publication is fuelled by the passion. TONY ABAH of The Catholic Television of Nigeria chats with Fr. Godonu on the success factors of the longevity, milestones and challenges of the newspaper, as well as his experiences as the Director of Social Communications of the high brow Archdiocese in Nigeria. Excerpts:
Congratulations Fr., the Catholic Lagos Archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic Herald, just clocked 100 years last Friday. How do you feel? Please tell us about this 100-year old paper
The Catholic Herald newspaper happens to be the first newspaper in Nigeria. And it was established by Bishop Ferdinand Terrien SMA on June 21, 1924 in Lagos. And it started its offshoot from St. Paul Catholic Church, Ebutte-Meta, Lagos, and thereafter, it was printed on monthly basis, then fortnightly, and later, weekly as at then. It was a sought-after newspaper, because it brought a kind of innovation that the Nigerian cum Lagos community had not seen. And during the course of its growth, we had one Fr. Edward Peter Bennigham SMA as well, who in the 1940s worked strenuously to pull the growth of the newspaper to a very high standard as at then.
And since that time, the newspaper has been up and doing, but not without its own ups and downs. Of course, at a point in time, it was not printed at all and later on, it was revived, then it went off again and was revived. So, you can imagine the journey of 100 years. This newspaper was basically created in order to be a kind of a medium for the growth and enhancement of the faith of the lay faithful. Initially, that is what it was established to do. But thereafter, being in the colonial setting as at then, it became a newspaper of socio-political interest because it was speaking truth to power, to the colonial masters, and becoming the voice to the voiceless, and all that. So, basically, the newspaper was established in order to foster the faith of Catholics as well to foster social justice and truth in the society.
For a paper that has seen 100 years, can you please tell us how this paper has fared so far?
Yes, I will tell you that the first and foremost challenge that the newspaper has had over these 100 years has always been funding of how the newspaper can continue to exist and be printed on monthly basis, on fortnightly basis, on weekly basis. At the moment, we print it weekly. Every Sunday it comes out. And it’s not an easy job to keep it rolling. So, the major problem we are having is funding. And the funding; of course, the newspaper has to be able to generate funds for its own funding which comes primarily from adverts. And one of the major challenges this paper has encountered over the years is the fact that many of the corporate organisations, industries, brands and all that which are secular in nature don’t really want to align with the newspaper that has religious colouration.
And that has been a problem that we have been facing. But we give thanks to God that we have a number of Catholics who run industries, who run businesses, mostly come on board in order to support us, but we would have loved to have more for the funding than what we have at the moment. So, that’s one. The second one will also be the primary constituency of the newspaper which is the Church. We don’t find so much support from the Church members and even from clergy sometimes. And it has been something that we have been battling with since I became the Director of Communications in Lagos Archdiocese. But give or take, I am grateful to God that we have been able to survive with it since my becoming the Director for five years now. It has been good.

How has it been trying to print this paper week in week out knowing full well that you have a lot of challenges that come with this job as the Director of Communications?
Well, most times when you get to the tight corner in order to print the newspaper on weekly basis, sometimes you may have to deep hands into your own pockets in order to be able to keep it going. And that’s what I have been doing for the past five years which sometimes we have to borrow to print just to make sure we don’t fail to print on a weekly basis as the case maybe. So, give or take, sometimes we have to stoop to conquer and try to do whatever we can to keep the newspaper going.
What are the things you have been doing to keep the paper alive up to these 100 years because many papers both secular and religious have come and gone extinct?
In that sense, first we have to be grateful to the Church. The Church is an institution that exists almost forever. We say forever, because the Church has been existing for over 2,000 years. And the fact that the Church is the owner of this brand, The Catholic Herald newspaper, it makes it easier that even when it goes to the dungeon, it can be revived. So, one of the things I would say that has kept the newspaper going is the nature of the Catholic Church itself to be resilient, to be sustainable, to be surviving. And with that, we do know that this newspaper will go along with the Archdiocese of Lagos till eternity, by the grace of God.
And then of course, the fact that from the point of view of being an independent paper which is owned by the Church, we are not discriminatory, we are not partial in our news reporting. We speak truth to the powers that be, even when we have our own people who are Catholics in power, we still need to say what we have to say to become the voice of the voiceless. So, that is the integrity that has kept this paper going. The fact that the paper has its independence from the influence of government or of powers, and all that.
For the past 100 years, you must have had some milestones that you have achieved. Can you share this with the public?
I will start by saying that the fact that the newspaper is the first newspaper in the Nigeria is a great feat and a milestone of its own. And the fact that today we are talking about 100 years since its establishment is a feat that I want to be proud about. Of course, we also talk about the fact that from time to time, it has influenced some important events and history in the nation. The Catholic Herald newspaper was influential during the course of the independence.
Pre-independence, The Catholic Herald newspaper was the voice on which so many things were said and were done and became a point of discussion in the social circle, and all that. And then, you talk about the new face of The Catholic Herald newspaper as it is right now. It is a brand that came up in 2020 and inaugurated in January 2021 by the Archbishop. So, this is not the masthead that it has always had. It has had many mastheads, but this is the latest one which we have come up with and of course, the acceptability within the society is very high, and it is a newspaper you can’t help but look at when you see it, even if you don’t want to.
What has been the driving force?
The driving force is the passion that I personally have and together with the team that is working with us in the newspaper, that we have the passion to do what we do, because every success story comes with passion. If you don’t have passion for something, you can never achieve anything. So, with the passion that I have, I was trained as a social communicator. I read social communications in Rome, and by the time I came back, I was given some kind of long holiday to just understudy the elder brothers that were in charge of the media outfits in Lagos Archdiocese.
And when I was appointed the Acting Director, April 1, 2019, I took upon myself that I want to do something differently, not spreading what has been there at foundation, but to establish on the foundation something that is new, that is modern, that is acceptable. And that has been the motivation, the vision, the foresight, the consciousness of a mission to be fulfilled, and of course, the pursuit of truth on the platform of a medium that has already been existing for a long while. It was just a very smooth transition to be able to get over it and then start sustaining the newspaper as it ought to be.
There’s this belief that the Catholic Church in the media industry is trying to play a catch-up to the Pentecostals. What do you think the Catholic Church needs to do differently to leverage in this new media evolution in terms of technology, AI to promote evangelisation?
It is very obvious that media consumes money. If you don’t spend money, you will not be able to get to the echelon of media as Pentecostals you have said. But I will not say that the Church has not been doing much, because given the fact that if you go to the media spaces, whether the social media, broadcast, or print media, the Church is there all over. It all depends on what the generation that we have at the moment is looking for, what contents we have? So, what we need to also do, those of us that are well trained social communicators, we must be able to look into the context in which we create the Catholic content, so that in doing so, you will be able to meet everyone at their own level whether it is the elderly for instance, they will prefer the hard copy.
The young ones will prefer the electronic copy. Can you meet them at these different levels because the Church is a very big institution that combines everyone? It’s not Pentecostal that some are focusing on the young, some are focusing on the rich, some are focusing on the wellto-do, and all that. The Catholic Church is open to everyone, both the poor and the rich. So, you must be able to meet everyone at their level. And talking about the new media, we are even exceeding the new technology media and going into AI and then AI is also something we have to grab very quickly. I can say that of late, we have been having lots of discussions on it.
The World Communications Week we had this year was generally centred on AI. And you can see that everywhere in Nigeria, everybody was talking about AI. In the Church, in the society, we were able to spread the message and to spread our own voice from the faith and moral views on AI. But of course, beyond that, we have to also find a moment of engaging the youths in training with AI and also making them useful in creating content that will be Catholic based from AI, in order to have enough content in broadcast, in print media or anywhere else.

How can we leverage on the use of Magisterium AI to promote evangelisation in the face of persecution of the Church in Nigeria so that the faith of many will not grow cold?
The presence of AI gives a lot of opportunities for us to be able to employ and engage what is available in order to foster the values of the gospel which is evangelisation. So, I do really think that first and foremost, people have to understand what AI is, because if you generate what is AI message now with the AI voice for instance, and you teach the part of the Magisterium and you send it to that grandma in the village, will she understand what you are saying? As I said, don’t forget that the Church encompasses all in this situation.
So, those we can really leverage AI in order to reach for evangelisation are the youths. And for us to be able to do that, the priest, the religious, we must also have the moment of learning, enlightenment on AI, know what it is, know what it is not and know how to use it, how to generate it. I am using AI already to generate a lot of my contents, whether in my preaching or in my talks with the youths or elderly. The Lenten series for instance, that I did in my parish, they came through AI Chatgpt. And I told them this thing am reading to you I generated them through AI Chatgpt, and am able to add my own readings here and there in order to present this content to you.
So, these are the things that we have to do extra work, media training, media literacy, the availability of the materials that we need, and the interest and passion on the part of the Church officials; priests and religious and those who are involved in media generally, anywhere to be able to learn and then use this in order to promote the course of evangelisation.
Share experience of the few years you been the Director of Social Communications, Lagos Archdiocese and how you hope to improve on it?
Well, from my personal experience, as the Director of Social Communications in the Archdiocese of Lagos, I will say that it has been very interesting because when they sent me on studies in 2011 to Rome, to study Social Communications from intercultural perspective, I didn’t think I will quickly become the Director of Social Communications because I finished in 2012, I was made the Director of Social Communications in 2019. Well of course, the Archbishop in 2016 told me already, ‘come, start understudying the Director there because we are looking at you to take over.’
We had a lot of discussion in 2016, but it took another three years before he could proclaim and appoint me as the Director. Of course, the Director that was there before was Very Rev. Msgr. Gabriel Osu with whom I worked very closely. And from my own experience, I think that it is something that I didn’t really prepare for initially, but by virtue of my training, my post graduate studies that I did, I knew that one day I could become one. So, I already prepared myself. And so far, it has been good. I have been able to multitask. I have been able to get across certain situations. I have been exposed to the media, both foreign and local. In fact, before then, I was never afraid of camera, of course.
I am able to write piece on the newspaper. So many things have really engaged me as the Director. And the fact that I have to come up with administration and management of different aspects of the Directorate which is the print media, the broadcast media, the press statements from the Archbishop that I have to manage from time to time. And then, the seminars and training for different sections of the Archdiocese. These are experiences that have enriched me as a person, and that has also made me to grow into the media atmosphere and the media world.
What message do you have for your readers and advertisers?
First and foremost, it is an act of gratitude that I want to say here. The fact that for those who have been part of the journey of The Catholic Herald for 100 years; those who have passed, may God rest their souls. Those who are still living, may God continue to sustain their faith and empower them. As we thank God for this landmark achievement, we also want to thank the Archbishop of Lagos, who appointed me as Director and gave me all the unflinching support that I need in order to be where we are today. And of course, to our advertisers, many of them, but we have to single out one which is the SIMS Nigeria Ltd, owned by Sir Simeon Eyisi, who has always been supportive. For the past 15 years we have had that partnership consistently, advertising in the newspaper, and of course other advertisers.
And also, the clergy and lay faithful within the Archdiocese of Lagos and beyond, because we get adverts from schools; from universities, from far and near that advertise in this paper. So, it’s just a moment of gratitude, I will say, and I will tell them that they should not be tired of advertising in The Catholic Herald newspaper. And the Editorial Board, they have been very, very helpful in terms of their thoughts, postulations, their contributions, their commitment and all that. So, we are grateful to everyone that has been part of the journey for the past 100 years.
Where do you see the newspaper in the next 100 years?
To be a world class newspaper that will be available all over the world. That is where I want to see The Catholic Herald newspaper of Archdiocese of Lagos in the next 100 years.