World

29, April 2022

An encomium to Reverend Father Maurice Agbaw-Ebai ⁰

An encomium to Reverend Father Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai [Bachelor in Philosophy, Pontifical Urban University, Rome, 2004; S.T.B. – bachelor’s in theology, Summa Cum Laude, Hekima University College, Jesuit School of Theology, Nairobi, Kenya, 2009; Th.M. – Master of Theology, Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry, 2015; S.T.L. – Licentiate in Sacred Theology, Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry, 2015; M.A. in Philosophy with Distinctions, Boston College, Morrisey School of Arts and Sciences, 2018; S.T.D. – Doctorate in Sacred Theology, Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry, 2018; Ph.D. in Philosophy, Boston College, Morrisey School of Arts and Sciences, 2021]; Cameroonian philosophy and theology scholar in the USA, erudite professor, eminent Chaplain of the Cameroon Catholic Community of the Archdiocese of Boston, celebrated former chancellor of Mamfe Diocese, renowned Coordinator of the Benedict XVI Institute for Africa (which promotes research work on the theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI); on the occasion of his appointment as Permanent Formator at St John’s Seminary, Boston, USA by Cardinal Seàn O’Malley of Boston Archdiocese, USA. Written by Nchumbonga George Lekelefac, Doctorate Candidate, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Germany

“Ad majórem Dei glóriam; AMDG” (For the greater glory of God). Motto of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and one of the favorite mottos of Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai

1. Introduction

This encomium is devoted to Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai on his recent appointment in the Archdiocese of Boston. “As of Friday, March 4, 2022, Cardinal Seàn O’Malley, archbishop of Boston appointed our own Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice to St. John’s Seminary, Boston MA, as full-time professor of philosophy and theology, while continuing in his teaching career in the other universities in the Boston area. He is a proud son of Manyu, a division of the Southwest Region in Cameroon, which covers an area of 9,565 km² and as of 2005 had a total population of 181,039. The capital of the division is Mamfe, which happens to be his diocese of incardination. He is also a proud son of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda and Cameroon in general. His tremendous achievement needs to be appreciated objectively without any envy or jealousy. This man of God has achieved a lot through hard work, discipline, and steadfastness. Every objective mind needs to pause for a second and appreciate this son of the soil of Mamfe Diocese.

Reverend Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai is a Priest of the Diocese of Mamfe Cameroon currently serving in the Archdiocese of Boston, USA. He became the very first priest of Mamfe Diocese to obtain a PhD in Sacred Theology in Boston College, USA in 2018. Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai comes from a family of 8. His brother, a refined intellectual by name Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai based in Ireland is one of the founding fathers of the Cameroon Catholic Community in Mulheim an der Rhur, Germany.

Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice Ashley served as Secretary to Bishop Emeritus Francis Lysinge, Financial secretary and also moonlighted as Chancellor of the Mamfe Diocese between 2009 to 2014.

He currently teaches courses in Theology and Philosophy at Woods College in Boston College and at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, MA.

On April 17, 2022, he handed over as Parish Priest of St Anne’s Parish in Salem, MA in order to take up a new appointment as Permanent Formator at St John’s Seminary, Boston, USA. He is also the Chaplain of the Cameroon Catholic Community of the Archdiocese of Boston. He is the Coordinator of the Benedict XVI Institute for Africa, which promotes research work on the theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

Mr. Tambe Tanyi of the Cameroon Catholic Community, Mulheim an der Rhur, Germany wrote after the appointment all the way from Germany: “Cardinal Seàn O’Malley of Boston appoints Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai to St. John’s Seminary, Boston MA. We come to you this day with good news of the promotion of Dr. Rev. Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai to full professor.

As of Friday, March 4, 2022, Cardinal Seàn O’Malley of Boston appointed Fr. Maurice to St. John’s Seminary, Boston MA, as full-time professor of philosophy and theology, while continuing in his teaching career in the other universities in the Boston area.

This brings to an end Fr. Maurice’s tenure as parish priest of Ste Anne’s Salem MA, as of March 19, 2022. A new parish priest for Ste Anne’s will be announced, April 17, 2022, Easter Sunday. We thank Fr. Maurice for his dedicated service at Ste Anne’s, and to the Cameroon Catholic Community of Boston in particular. We wish him the best in his assignment of forming priests for the dioceses in the New England area. We entrust his academic vocation, clearly so dear to his heart, to St Joseph, protector of the Universal Church.

In his time as Secretary / Chancellor of the Diocese of Mamfe, Rev. Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai worked so hard with his Bishop – Emeritus Lysinge Teke to ascertain that a Priest of the Diocese of Mamfe be appointed to the Cameroon Catholic Community Mülheim- Germany. The dream became true.

His meritorious promotion makes us happy. He is a good and leading example of what Cameroonian Priest abroad should emulate. Giving a good name not only to his Diocese but to the generality of Cameroon. It brings not prestige but as well impacts how other Catholic Dioceses look at Priests from Cameroon. It motivates the acceptance of Cameroonian Priests in Catholic Dioceses abroad.

To address him Rev. Prof. Dr. Maurice Agaw-Ebai would be an acknowledgement of deserved recognition for a wonderful Priest. Go abroad, make a name for yourself, lead your community to success, let your Diocese and the entire Catholic Church be proud and happy of your endeavours.

Rev. Professor. Dr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai, you make us happy and proud. May God continue to help you be the good shepherd. We say THANK YOU!To God be the Glory.”

2.The Indomitable Role of Rev. Fr. Professor Dr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai in assisting Bishop Lysinge from 2009-2014

The history of the Diocese of Mamfe cannot be complete without mentioning the name of Rev. Fr. Professor Dr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai, who played a tremendous role in assisting Bishop Lysinge in building the structures and making the diocese of Mamfe known worldwide.

It was only after his nomination as the Diocesan Chancellor, the Diocesan Finance Administrator and the Private Secretary to Bishop Lysinge in 2009 that the Diocese came back on track. In a very short time after the Mamfe Diocese had derailed financially for 10 donkey years, with almost no project been completed, the presence of the newly ordained Rev. Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai and his nomination as the Diocesan Chancellor, the Diocesan Finance Administrator and the Private Secretary to Bishop Lysinge, fresh from Hekima University College, Jesuit School of Theology, Nairobi, Kenya, in 2009 changed the modus operandi (that is, a particular way or method of doing something, especially one that is characteristic or well-established) of the Diocese of Mamfe.

Construction of the bishop’s house and the Cathedral was accelerated. In less than no time, the Mamfe bishop’s house was completed. For the past ten years, from 1999 to 2010, Bishop Lysinge lived in tiny bishop’s residence found opposite St Johns College, Nchang. The construction of bishop’s house at Mamfe became a mystery, until Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice arrived to set financial records straight and transparent. Few years later after his arrival, the bishops house project was completed. Finally, Bishop Francis Teke Lysinge moved to live in the bishop’s house behind the Mamfe Cathedral.

As if that was not enough, Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai fast-tracked the completion of: 1) The Mamfe Diocesan Secretariat; 2) The dusty Mamfe Cathedral which was sometimes watered before sweeping. There was no concrete; 3) The Minor Seminary in Fotabong; 4) The Spiritual Centre; 5) Countless presbyteries, and many parish churches and parishes were established.

Due to his academic exposure, having studied Theology abroad in Kenya with the Jesuits, Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai saw the importance of sending seminarians to study out of Cameroon. In this regard, he assisted Bishop Lysinge in searching for scholarships in Rome for seminarians of Mamfe diocese and in preparing all the paperwork and visa processing that was needed to send seminarians abroad for studies. It is important to note here that the Congregation of Propaganda Fide issues many scholarships to diocese of mission territories to further their studies in Rome. They live at the Colegio Urbano. Until now, the francophone dioceses in Cameroon had enjoyed this opportunity of sending their seminarians to Rome on scholarship, while our Bishops of the Ecclesiastical province of Bamenda folded their arms and watch these opportunity pass by. Mamfe Diocese became the very first diocese in the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda to send seminarians abroad to Rome to study theology. According to some bishops of the Province, it had to be Bambui. Some bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda were even uncomfortable with the fact that Mamfe was sending seminarians to Rome but this did not deter Fr. Maurice and Bishop Lysinge to forge ahead knowing fully well that they were an autonomous diocese and could take initiatives for the good of their diocese regardless of what some bishops were saying. I would lie to specify that it was only during the tenure of Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai as his private secretary that this was made possible through his selfless and totally indefatigable, utterly unflagging, outstandingly unrelenting, and absolutely untiring assistance to Bishop Lysinge that Mamfe Diocese had numerous seminarians sent to study in Rome, beginning with Mr Marinus Ndifor and many others followed.

Many seminarians were also sent to Nigeria. Mamfe Diocese became known not only in Cameroon, but beyond, in fact worldwide thanks to the presence of Fr Maurice Agbaw-Ebai as private secretary to Bishop Lysinge.

Above all, the first Mamfe Diocesan priest was sent as Fide donum to lead the Cameroon Catholic Community in Mulheim, in the Diocese of Essen in the person of Fr. Constant Leke Ngolefac. Through these pastoral exchanges, Mamfe Diocese became known worldwide.

As you could see, the presence of Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai as Diocesan Chancellor, the Diocesan Finance Administrator and the Private Secretary to Bishop Lysinge from 2009 played a tremendous role in assisting Bishop Lysinge retire on 25 January 2014 with almost all diocesan structures completed. In barely 4 years of service, Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai and Bishop Lysinge accelerated a lot of projects to completion. Who is Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai?

3. Reverend Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Educational Background

Reverend Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai is a former student of St. Joseph’s Primary School in Mamfe town.

He attended Government Bilingual Secondary School and Government High School Mamfe.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy (B.Phil.), Cum Laude Probatus, from St Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary, Bambui, Cameroon, an affiliate of the Pontifical Urban University, Rome in 2004. His Dissertation was titled: “Virtue in the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius” and his Dissertation Supervisor was the late Prof. Christian Mofor, Rector, St Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary, Bambui, Cameroon, of glorious and evergreen memory.

He also earned an S.T.B. – bachelor’s in theology, Summa Cum Laude from Hekima University College, Jesuit School of Theology, Nairobi, Kenya in 2009.

He earned a Th.M. – Master of Theology, from Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry in 2015.

He earned an S.T.L. – Licentiate in Sacred Theology, Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry in 2015: Major Field: Systematic Theology. His Dissertation was titled: “Joseph Ratzinger: The Word Became Love and Truth in the Church,” Dissertation Supervisor: Dr. Barbara Radtke.

He earned a M.A. in Philosophy with Distinctions, Boston College, Morrisey School of Arts and Sciences, 2018: Major Field of Study: Philosophy of Religion

He obtained an S.T.D. – Doctorate in Sacred Theology, Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry, 2018; Institut Papst Benedikt XVI, Regensburg, Germany: Systematic Theology. His Dissertation was titled: “The Aufklärung as the Hermeneutical Framework of the Christo-Ecclesiology of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI,” Dissertation Advisor: Prof. Brian Dunkle, S.J., School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College.

He also earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy, Boston College, Morrisey School of Arts and Sciences, 2021: Major Field of Study: Philosophy of Religion in the era of the Enlightenment and Modern Philosophy. His Dissertation was titled: “The Relation with God in Living Subjectivity in Søren Kierkegaard and Maurice Blondel.” Dissertation Advisor: Prof. Jeffrey Bloechl, Philosophy Department, Boston College.

4. Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Editorial Work

He was: Assistant Editor of the Searchlight Magazine, St Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary, Bambui, Cameroon and the Assistant Editor, Hekima Review, Hekima University College, Jesuit School of Theology, Nairobi, Kenya.

5. Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai : Distinctions

Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice has received the following distinctions:

1. Excellence Teaching/Mentor Certificate of Recognition, Woods, Boston College

2. Summa Cum Laude, bachelor’s in theology, Hekima University College, Jesuit School of Theology

3. Passed with Distinction, master’s in philosophy

4. Teaching and Research Interests Systematic Theology Philosophy of Religion

5. The Person and Theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI

6. June 2018 – Present: Coordinator of the Benedict XVI Institute for Africa

6. Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai : Teaching Experience

He has taught the following courses at Boston College include: Leadership and Decision Making: Ignatian-Based Applied Ethics; Systematic Theology; Foundations in Theology; Philosophical Ethics; Liturgy and Sacraments; Augustine’s Confessions; History of Theology; Christianity in Africa.

7. Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Course Taught at St John’s Seminary, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston

Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice taught “Joseph Ratzinger and the Enlightenment” at St John’s Seminary, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

8. Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Publications – Articles

Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice is a prolific researcher and writer. He has written and published about 39 articles. They include:

1. Benedict XVI: Co-Workers in the Truth (Papal Visit to Cameroon, 2008);

2. On the Reasonableness of Faith in Creation;

3. Catholicism And the Public Culture: Forming an Alternative Public Consciousness;

4. Catholicism as a Beautiful Experience;

5. Catholicism: An Advent and Easter Experience;

6. Benedict XVI and the Criticism of Faith and Church;

7. The Church and the Clown;

8. The Second African Synod – Rekindling the Flame and Vision;

9. Catholicism & Public Culture;

10. Catholicism and Irrational Public Power;

11. Catholicism and the Grammar of Tolerance;

12. Vatican Council II: An Ecclesial Mea Culpa?

13. The Popes and the Jews: The Religious Foundations of the Holocaust: Lessons for the World;

14. The Perenniality of Christian Martyrdom: From Freedom of Speech to Satanic Worship;

15. Catholicism and the Political Order;

16. The Confessing Church & the Two Popes;

17. The Popes and the Prisoners: The Case of Guantanamo Bay;

18. Conversion and the Kindly Light of John Henry Newman;

19. Mary of Nazareth and the Question of God;

20. Catholicism and Conflict Situations in Africa: Contributions from our tradition;

21. When Benedict XVI Was Right, and the World Wrong: Eight Years After Regensburg;

22. Pope Francis and the Culture of Encounter: From Gaudium et Spes to Evangelii Gaudium;

23. The Fear of the Future: Catholicism and the Practice of Divination;

24. The Triumph of Orthodoxy: The 2014 Synod of Bishops;

25. The 2014 Synod of Bishops: The Anatomy of a Crisis;

26. Africa and the Economy of Exclusion – Perspectives and New Horizons fro

27. The Joy of the Gospel of Pope Francis;

28. Blessed Are You, Beloved and Eminent Fr. Christian Mofor, PHD, Because You Believed! (Tribute)

29. Domine, Non Sum Dignus! The State of Grace and the Reception of Holy Communion;

30. Who Do You Say I Am? Evangelizing Today’s Culture;

31. Why I Still Believe in the Sinful Church;

32. Baptism Says It All;

33. The Goal of Ordinary Time;

34. Remembering Benedict XVI Three Years Ago;

35. Why Christians Must Be Strangers: The Church, the World and the God of Jesus Christ;

36. Amoris Laetitia, A Missed Evangelical Opportunity?

37. Father Benedict XVI, A Friend of Jesus Christ!

38. The Leap to Faith: A Kantian Reading of the Figure of Abraham in Soren Kierkegaard/Johannes De Silentio’s Fear and Trembling (Soundings, Penn State University Press, Fall 2020)

39. Conscience and the Discernment of the True and the Good in the Practice of Law

9. Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai : Author of Books

Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice has authored the following books:

1. Bishop Francis Teke Lysinge a Retrospective Legacy (2013)

2. Light of Reason, Light of Faith Joseph Ratzinger and the German Enlightenment (St Augustine’s Press, IN, 2020)

3. Lecture Africaine de la pensée de Benoît XVI (editor), (Presses de L’UCAC Yaoundé, September 2020)

10. Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Conferences and Invited Speaking

He is a refined orator who can hold the audience spellbound. He has delivered the following conferences:

1. Address to the Sons of St Patrick, Boston College, October 22, 2015 at Boston College: The Church in Africa and the Synod of the Family

2. Ratzinger and the Future of African Theology, October 17 – 19 2019 at Mundelein Seminary, Chicago IL: Joseph Ratzinger’s Theological Reading of Political Power: Relevance for the Continent of Africa in the 21st Century

3. African Perspective of Benedict XVI’S Thought, November 27 – 29 2019 at the Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaoundé, Cameroon: Joseph Ratzinger and the Universality of Logos in Cultures: The Preference for Interculturality over Inculturation

4. St. John’s Seminary Faculty Lecture, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, July 1, 2020: The Sacraments of the Church: A Continuation of the Incarnate & Glorified Christ

5. Lecture to the Catholic Lawyers’ Guild of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, October 27 2020: Conscience and the Discernment of the True and the Good in the Practice of Law

11. Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Grants & Funding Received

Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice has received the following funding and grants which assisted him in his research and studies and to assist others and projects in Mamfe diocese:

1. Irish Memorial Fund, Boston College, 2013 – 2019

2. Institut Papst Benedikt XVI, Regensburg, Germany, 2016 – 2018 Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI Foundation, Vatican City, 2019 – 2020

12. Revered Father Doctor Professor Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai : Interview

On May 21, 2019, an interview was conducted by John Tanyi Lebui titled “Boston: A Cameroonian Priest Speaks of His Journey with Pope Benedict XVI” to Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice. Find excerpt of the interview:

“John Tanyi Lebui: Tell us about this today?

Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Today, May 18, 2019, is Commencement day for Boston College. In this context, I received today the Doctorate in Sacred Theology, with humble pride.

John Tanyi Lebui: How did you come to this day?

Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Through the antecedent and consequent grace of God! It is a day that has been long in the making! My journey with Ratzinger/Benedict XVI began with my undergraduate theological studies at Hekima College, Jesuit School of Theology, Nairobi, Kenya. I could say that it has taken fourteen years to get to this day. I did my Licentiate in Theology on Ratzinger, specifically his Ecclesiology, that is, his theology of the Church. I found in Ratzinger a steady and sure compass for my own theological orientation. When my Bishop asked me to do a doctorate, it appeared naturally to me to continue along the theological path with Ratzinger.

John Tanyi Lebui: What is the central question of your doctorate dissertation?

Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: I studied the philosophical framework thanks to which one can arrive at a deeper understanding of the Christological and the Ecclesiological underlining presuppositions and convictions of Joseph Ratzinger, especially in the light of post-modern secular reinterpretations of the figure of Jesus of Nazareth and the community called the Church.

John Tanyi Lebui: Could you describe the main findings of your study?

Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Summarily, I found out that to understand Ratzinger’s Christo-Ecclesiology requires contextualizing Ratzinger in the hermeneutical framework of the Aufklärung, that is, the German Enlightenment, especially the figures of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Of course, the starting point is Descartes’ Discourse on Method, which marks the beginning of modern philosophy, though of French origin. Then Kierkegaard too, of Danish origin, comes into the scene. I couldn’t convince my dissertation supervisor and dissertation committee members of the ratio-character of Kierkegaard as a proto-Ratzingerian, because they tended to see Kierkegaard as fideistic. But I hope to argue for the contrary in my post-doctoral work. These sentiments of the philosophical context of Ratzinger’s thoughts are captured in the topic of my doctoral thesis: The Aufklärung as the Hermeneutical Framework of the Christo-Ecclesiology of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

John Tanyi Lebui: We know your home diocese of Mamfe is really proud of you and this achievement….

Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: After the defense of my doctoral thesis on April 25, 2019, I received a very generous email from my Bishop, Mgr. Andrew Nkea. He described what has happened as a milestone in my life and in the life of the Diocese of Mamfe. I felt that was very gracious. In addition, Fr. Marcel Sang, a priest of my diocese, was present for the defense. In him, I felt the support of the Presbyterium of my diocese. It was beautiful that he came all the way from Rome to be present at my defense. Fr. Edmund Ugochukwu too was present. He is a priest of Mamfe in spirit, even if juridically he belongs elsewhere. Mamfe Diocese to me is the fairest daughter of Zion. Everything is from her and everything leads to her.

John Tanyi Lebui: What next for you Dr. Agbaw-Ebai?

Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: (laughs) I really do not think I am comfortable with the title “Dr.” To me, the most esteemed title is that I am called “Fr.” Do you know even my mother calls me “Fr”! It is awesome. That means the world to me. And I think it is the same with all priests. To respond to your question: My bishop, Mgr. Andrew Nkea, has asked me to do another degree in Philosophy. I have to continue working on that. I have always been fascinated by atheism, especially in its theoretical form. If God does not exist, says the Russian Dostoevsky, then everything is possible! Even Nietzsche’s Übermensch is a logical consequence of the death of God.But what kind of a world results from the death of God? Even in Nietzsche, the reaction is ambivalent. After the Churches have become the sepulchers of God, what is left of the human being? What is left, even of God? What kind of God dies? The God of theodicy? The God of metaphysics? The God of religious dogma? Is it necessary for the God of theodicy to die in order for the God of religious experience who suffers and love to rise? Can God return? What is the possibility of the return of God? Can there be a dialectical and existential rapprochement between theism, atheism and anatheism? These are some of the questions that I am considering in my philosophy project. I know this might sound shocking to you: I turn to be deeply fascinated by the thought of atheism, by the promises that it offers. But don’t get me wrong! I believe in the God of Jesus Christ, even if with a small faith! Adauge nobis fidem, I turn to say to the Lord! And perhaps that small faith is enough for the Lord!

In addition, I have my job as a professor at Boston College. Recently, there is the discernment about me going as a visiting lecturer at St. Mary’s University, Minnesota, to teach a course on the major themes of Ratzinger’s theology. Then there is the work of the Benedict XVI Institute for Africa, which is planning two theological conferences this year, in Chicago in October, and at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Yaoundé, in November. Finally, with the permission of the Bishop of Mamfe, Boston is asking to administer a parish. I find this really interesting because it will be the first time that I will be a “resident pastor.” I have always been an assistant, in three parishes in Boston, at Newton, Medford and Georgetown. Now, I am being asked to move to another town. I hope I can help the community to deepen their friendship with Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life. So, summarily, these are the things that will keep me busy and out of trouble (laughs), that is, working in the academia as a professor, while providing pastoral care to my new parish community. I count on your prayers.

John Tanyi Lebui: Any last word?

Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai: Gratitude. Gratitude to God. Gratitude to my mother and family. Gratitude to Mamfe Diocese for all that I have become today. Gratitude to the priests of Mamfe. Gratitude to Bishop Lysinge, my first pastor and father. Gratitude to Bishop Andrew Nkea, who has done so much for me more than I could ever have imagined, especially given what he has asked me to do or permitted me to do.Gratitude to my seminary classmates. Gratitude to the parishes and peoples with whom I have worked and shared my life with here in the Archdiocese of Boston. Gratitude to Fr. Christian Mofor (RIP). I believe his legacy lives on. I am sure he must be very happy that I am finally doing a degree in philosophy. He always wanted that. And finally, gratitude to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, for shaping my life in ways beyond all telling. Best wishes and God’s abundant blessings to the readers of Cameroon Concord News Group.”

13. Bishop Nkea says Father Agbaw-Ebai loves the Church with his whole heart and he’s is not just a Catholic priest, but he is a true son of the Church

On 28, July 2019, at 10th Anniversary Mass of Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice, then Bishop Nkea said that Father Agbaw-Ebai loves the Church with his whole heart, and he’s is not just a Catholic priest, but he is a true son of the Church. These were the exact words of Bishop Nkea who delivered the homily in Boston:

“HOMILY AT THE MASS OF THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY TO THE PRIESTHOOD OF REV. FR. MAURICE AGBAW-EBAI, BOSTON, USA, 28TH JULY 2019

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Today is a very important day in the life of Rev. Fr. Maurice Agbaw Ebai, Priest of the Diocese of Mamfe, Cameroon and Pastor of St. Anne’s Parish in the Archdiocese of Boston, United States of America. On this day, we have all joined to render thanks to Almighty God, who ten years ago, called Fr. Maurice to make a complete and irreversible donation of his entire life to the service of and to pour out his life as a libation for the redemption of souls. On this day, ten years ago, Fr. Maurice died with Christ on his altar of sacrifice, and after his ordination, he could say with St. Paul, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Jesus Christ his Son, and to the Church that is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. On this day, ten years ago, Fr. Maurice prostrated himself before God and the Entire Church gathered in prayer, to empty himself of himself

My dear people of God gathered here with Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai to celebrate his tenth anniversary, I welcome you all to this great day in the life of this priest and I want to apologize that I could not stay in America long enough to be present at this occasion which I had agreed to preside over and preach. But since urgent duties recalled me home to the Diocese of Mamfe and the Church in Cameroon, I decided to ask Fr. Dieudonne Akawung, the Diocesan Finance Administrator to come to Boston and to preach this homily on my behalf which I had written to preach myself. I know that Fr. Dieudonne will deliver the homily well on my behalf, but the only difference is that he will be delivering the homily without a miter on his head. Some people in Mamfe had asked me if I was going all the way to the United States to celebrate only a tenth anniversary, what would I do if it were a silver Jubilee? My answer to them was a quotation from the Psalmist who said, “One day in his house is better than a thousand elsewhere” and again, the same Psalmist who said in another instance that “a thousand years for God is like a day just come and gone” (Ps.90:4). To be a priest even for one day only, brings a lot of glory and honour to name of Jesus Christ who is the Supreme High Priest of the New Covenant. If after nine years of seminary formation, a priest had the chance to celebrate only one Mass and died, he would have fulfilled the reason for his ordination, because his first Mass and the Mass of his golden Jubilee in the priesthood is one continuous sacrifice, during which he re-enacts in an un-bloody way, the bloody sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Cross for the salvation of the world. Therefore, this celebration is not about Fr. Maurice, it is about glory and honour to the Name of Jesus Christ whom he has been so blessed to serve with devotion and loyalty all these ten years.

However, while we give honour and glory to God, we must remember the quote from St. Augustine who said “Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not”. It is in this light I wish to join you all and say to Fr. Maurice, a big Congratulations on your tenth anniversary. Within these ten years, God has used your hands to dispense his blessings to thousands of people, God has used your mouth and your voice to bring his Good News and consolation to thousands of Christ’s Faithful. Within these ten years, God has used you to bring absolution and forgive the sins of thousands of people everywhere in the confessionals. Within these ten years, many have been born through you in the waters of baptism, and above all every day, you have stood in the place of Christ to celebrate the Eucharist and raise the cup of salvation on behalf of the people of God entrusted to your care. Fr. Maurice and many of us will now understand better what St. Augustine meant when he said, “without us, God will not”. Thank you, Father Maurice, for making yourself an instrument in the hands of God for all these years so that God’s graces may come down from heaven and rest on his people on earth. Through you, heaven is wedded to earth and man is reconciled with God. For this, we can only say “Glory be to God on high, and congratulations to you, man of goodwill.”

In the Letter to the Hebrews, it is stated that every high priest has been taken out of mankind, and is appointed to act for men in their relations with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins… No one takes this honour on himself, but each one is called by God as Aaron was (Heb. 5:1-4).

The priesthood thus is a gift and at the same time, it is a mystery. It is a gift in the sense that it is freely given by God. That is why Christ says in John 15:16 that you did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last.

It is a mystery because it is something that can never be understood. How can a human being command God to come into bread? How can human being touch water and it becomes holy? How can a human being throw a bit of water on your head and original sin is taken away? How can a human being wave his hands in the air and impart the blessing of God? How can a human being say, “I absolve you” and sin is taken away? This remains a mystery, more or less like the Trinity, the most ancient of all mysteries. Even the priest who carries the priesthood in him does not fully understand it. He simply exercises this ministry in faith, knowing that the Lord who called him and whom he is serving, will not let him down.

The priest is a man of God and he never acts in his name but in the name of the one who sent him. That is why every time the priest carries out liturgical function, he does so in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He never does this in his own personal name.

There are two things I would like you people to understand today about priests on this day on the tenth anniversary celebration of Fr. Maurice.

The first is that Priests called by God are human and sinners like all other people. That is why St. Paul Says in 2Cor. 4:7; that we are only earthenware jars that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us. Priests fall down in different ways from time to time. The twelve Apostles called on Holy Thursday to be priests were men, with faults and failings. Fr. Columba, an Irish Priest said in one of his homilies that The first Pope, St. Peter was rash and bad tempered. He also denied Christ in His hour of need. St. Mathew was a swindler who co-operated with his country’s enemies. And poor St. Thomas wasn’t too sure about what he believed or where he stood. If God only relied on the virtuous and the perfect, he would have very few (or no) priests. I for one standing here would not even come anywhere near the altar.

In this regard, I want to say that most often Christians see the man in the priest and not the priest in the man. Many people only look at the man in the priest, and some people may not even believe in the miraculous work of God through the priest. But when we look at the priest in the man, we transcend his own petty weaknesses and see the grace of God at work in us through the instrumentality of human beings. It is in this connection that the church teaches us about the principle of ex opereoperato to mean that the efficacy of the sacrament does not depend on the worthiness of the priest. He is a simple instrument that has to struggle for his own salvation in fear and trembling.

The second thing I want you to understand about priests is that their life is not their own. They have offered it to the church, and they do everything according to the mind of the Church. They must conform therefore not to the standards set by men but to the standards set by God and the Church. These standards come out in the way they minister to their people. Before you think of the one wrong of a priest, remember the thousand good things he does for his flock daily. Satan exists in the community to ruin it. The priest is a good and struggling man. His goodness is and should not only be seen when de dies. Always be ready to appreciate what a priest does for you, never take it for granted.

From the day Fr. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Mamfe, he has done his work to the best of his ability, and like his Bishop, I want to use this chance to thank him for the priest that he has been. The real seminary for the priest is the Ministry, and thus we rise and fall in our attempt to give our all to God. The one thing I know for certain about this priest, all his human weaknesses notwithstanding, is that he loves the church with his whole heart. He is not just a Catholic priest, but he is a true son of the Church and he is ready to defend the doctrine of the Church with such passion that could be seen only in the likes of St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius and his mentor in the faith, Pope Benedict XVI. I encourage him on this day that his faith may never fail, so that he may always remain a source of strength to his brothers and sisters in Christ. I invite all of you in this Church today to pray in a very special way for our celebrant, that he may remain faithful to Christ, loyal to the Church, fervent in prayer and constant in love for the Christians he serves in the Archdiocese of Boston.

I wish each and every one of you a very happy celebration, and once again to Fr. Maurice, Happy tenth Anniversary and God bless you all.

+Andrew NKEA, Bishop of Mamfe.”

14. Conclusion

Finally, Fr Paul Ajong of the BVM wrote on April 17, 2022 from Salem, Massachusetts: “Today, permit me shine the light and say Congratulations to Rev. Fr. Dr. Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai who hands over as the Parish Priest of Sainte Anne Salem to take up his new appointment as a Permanent Formator at St John’s Seminary, Boston. Fr Maurice is a Priest of the Diocese of Mamfe Cameroon currently serving in the Archdiocese of Boston, USA. Giving his vast and deep knowledge in Theology and Philosophy and having obtained a Doctoral Degree in both fields; bearing in mind his love for the Church and the people of God placed in his charge and giving the number of years he has faithfully served as a Priest; it was no surprise to me when Fr Maurice told me he has been appointed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston to join the permanent formation team that trains young men to the Ministerial Priesthood. Many of us having been seminarians under his watchful and fatherly care, I have no doubt that he will make one of the best Formators for our young people discerning the call to the Sacred Priesthood. We pray that God continues to strengthen him. In addition to this new responsibility, Fr Maurice is also a lecturer in Boston College and other Universities around Boston area. He also sacrifices to give lectures in CATUC, the Catholic University of our Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province. His love and admiration for the Pope Emeritus Bénédicte XVI has led him into a deep probing and understanding of Ratzinger’s Intellectual Richness. He therefore also heads the Branch of the Ratzinger Institute in the Central African States under development. We thank him for the work he has been doing not only for the Archdiocese of Boston but also for the great source of blessing he has been for his home Diocese of Mamfe Cameroon. Join me Congratulate Fr. Maurice on this great day that the Lord has made and bid us rejoice. We pray that God strengthens him in this new responsibility with all the graces needed. God bless you all.”

I wish to end this encomium by wishing Rev. Fr. Dr. Prof. Maurice Agbaw-Ebai the very best as he begins this new ministry. Thank you for making the diocese of Mamfe proud. May the good Lord protect him and guide him with the necessary graces to accomplish this significant mission in the Church. Amen.

This encomium was respectfully, devotedly, affectionately, and prayerfully submitted today for publication.

Written by Nchumbonga George Lekelefac, B. Phil. (Mexico), STB. (Roma), JCL/MCL. (Ottawa); Diploma in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, and Dutch; [Degrees earned in order to serve mankind better and not otherwise]; Doctorate Candidate at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Katholisch Theologische Fakultät, Ökumenisches Institut, Münster, Deutschland, Europe.

26, April 2022

The Holy Father cancels events again due to knee pain ⁰

Pope Francis was forced to clear his diary for the second time in less than a week on Tuesday due to recurring knee pain, the Vatican said.

“Due to knee pain, and following medical advice, Pope Francis has suspended today’s activities,” which included his participation in a meeting of his advisory Council of Cardinals, the press office said.

The 85-year-old pontiff, who in the past few days has been seen grimacing from pain on several occasions, had on Friday also cleared his schedule to undergo medical checks.

Francis, who was elected pope in 2013, cancelled a trip to Florence in February due to what the Vatican called “acute gonalgia”.

The pain in his right knee has recently prevented him from attending events and presiding over religious celebrations.

He also suffers from hip pain which forces him to limp and last July, spent 10 days in hospital after undergoing colon surgery.

However, the pontiff has a packed schedule including overseas events, visiting Malta earlier this month with further trips planned to the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Canada, Lebanon and Kazakhstan later this year.

Source: AFP

25, April 2022

French nun Sister Andre, 118, claims title of world’s oldest person ⁰

A French nun who recently celebrated her 118th birthday with her traditional port-and-chocolate cocktail is now the world’s oldest known person, following the death announced Monday of a Japanese woman one year her senior.

Lucile Randon, known as Sister Andre, was born in southern France on February 11, 1904, when World War I was still a decade away.

She now lives at a nursing home in Toulon along the Mediterranean coast, beginning every day with breakfast and then a morning mass, though her eyes can no longer see.

“She’s happy, she likes very much this attention,” said the home’s communications director David Tavella, adding that a short press conference would be held Tuesday morning.

“But it’s just another step, because her real goal is to overtake Jeanne Calment,” a French woman who was reportedly 122-years-old when she died in 1997.

This year Sister Andre got a handwritten New Year’s greeting from President Emmanuel Macron, among the many letters and boxes of chocolates sent by well-wishers.

“I was always admired for my wisdom and intelligence, but now people could care less because I’m stubborn,” she jokingly told an AFP in an interview for her 118th tour around the sun.

“I’m thinking of getting out of this business but they won’t let me,” she said.

She worked as a governess in Paris — a period she once called the happiest time of her life — before taking her religious vows with the Daughters of Charity.

Previously the person deemed the world’s oldest by the International Database on Longevity (IDL) and Guinness World Records was Kane Tanaka, whose death in Japan on April 19 was announced Monday.

With her death, “Sister Andre indeed becomes the oldest, and by far, since the next oldest is a Polish woman who is 115,” said Laurent Toussaint, a computer scientist and amateur tracker for the IDL as well as the French institute of demographic studies (INED).

Most centenarians are found in the world’s so-called blue zones, where people live longer than average, such as Okinawa in Japan or on the Italian island of Sardinia.

But France, while not considered a blue zone, nonetheless has 30,000 centenarians, according to statistics institute Insee, with around 40 of them 110 or older.

Source: AFP

17, April 2022

Pope urges call of peace be heard in this ‘Easter of war’ ⁰

Pope Francis, marking an “Easter of war” on Sunday urged leaders to hear the people’s plea for peace in Ukraine and implicitly criticised Russia for dragging the country into a “cruel and senseless” conflict.

The 85-year-old pope made his comments in his twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) address to about 50,000 people in St. Peter’s Square after a long Mass. It was the first Easter since 2019 that the public was allowed to attend following two years of COVID-19 restrictions.

Francis dedicated much of the address, traditionally an overview of world conflicts, to Ukraine, comparing the shock of another war in Europe to the shock of the apostles who the gospel says saw the risen Jesus.

“Our eyes, too, are incredulous on this Easter of war. We have seen all too much blood, all too much violence. Our hearts, too, have been filled with fear and anguish, as so many of our brothers and sisters have had to lock themselves away in order to be safe from bombing,” he said.

Ukraine, he said, was “sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged”.

Moscow describes the action it launched on Feb. 24 a “special military operation”. Francis has already rejected that terminology, calling it a war and previously using terms such as unjustified aggression and invasion.

“Let there be a decision for peace. May there be an end to the flexing of muscles while people are suffering,” Francis said on Sunday, going on to thank those who had taken in refugees from Ukraine, most of whom have gone to Poland.

Earlier this month in Malta, Francis implicitly criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion, saying a “potentate” was fomenting conflict for nationalist interests.

Shout “peace” from the streets

Francis, who suffers from leg pain, held up well during the long Mass and then toured the crowd in the square and a nearby street while sitting in an open white popemobile.

Later, he read most of the “Urbi et Orbi” address from the balcony sitting down, standing only at the start and for the final blessing.

On Saturday night he attended but did not preside at an Easter vigil service, apparently to rest up for Sunday, the most important day in the Christian liturgical calendar.

“Please, let us not get used to war!” Francis said, looking down on the square bedecked by tens of thousands of flowers donated by the Netherlands. “Let us all commit ourselves to imploring peace, from our balconies and in our streets! May the leaders of nations hear people’s plea for peace.”

“I hold in my heart all the many Ukrainian victims, the millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, the divided families, the elderly left to themselves, the lives broken and the cities razed to the ground,” he said.

He called for reconciliation among Israelis and Palestinians ad among the people of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which he is due to visit in July.

Source: REUTERS

17, April 2022

Benedict XVI at 95: Searching for the Face of the Lord ⁰

Towards the end of the Book of Signs in the Gospel of John, the Evangelist narrates an intriguing request from a somewhat unexpected source: “Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. These approached Philip, who came from Bethsaida in Galilee, and put this request to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip together went to tell Jesus.” (John 12:20 – 22). Much has been said about this request by the Greeks, for, in the grand scheme of things, Athens embodies an unmatchable talent of what unaided reason could have achieved. The land of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, bequeathed to the Kingdom of Thought (to use a Hegelian phrase), an enduring intellectual legacy to questions that remain pressing today, at least for some: What is the meaning of human life? Why am Ihere? Do I have a purpose and a destiny? How must I live with my neighbor? And in a twenty-first century that increasingly finds the postulate of the self-sufficiency and autonomy of the human being in the world attractive, the philosophical tradition dating to the Greeks continue to keep on the radar, other essential questions: What is the source of everything? What is the possibility and meaning of change in my life? (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Parmenides, Zeno, etc.).

Retrospectively, therefore, the desire of the Greeks to see Jesus could very well be a manifestation of the human realization of our insufficiency regarding the ultimate questions, some of which we have just highlighted above. The quest to see Jesus by the Greeks could be indicative of the limits of human autonomy and self-sufficiency. We have exhausted all our human capacities, and as the French philosopher Maurice Blondel points out, the wedge between the willing will and the willed continues to leave us unfulfilled and yearning for more. Human reason and all of human effort can only go so far! We need help from outside. And that explains the desire to see Jesus, for we are hoping that in Jesus, the absence of satiety that characterizes the human quest for meaning would be resolved.

Reflecting on the long and beautiful life of Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger/Benedict XVI who turns 95 today (April 16 1927 – April 16 2022), this quest by the Greeks appears to me a fitting metaphor for this shy and deeply pious Bavarian scholar. The desire to see Jesus, the search for Jesus in order to follow him, and to allow the self to be drawn into an intimate friendship with the living Christ – what Ignatius of Loyola variously characterizes in the Spiritual Exercises as sequela Christi, imitatio Christi, conformatio Christi and transformatio in Christum – is the defining leitmotif of the life and legacy of Ratzinger. To the gentle theologian from Bavaria, his date and day of birth is very providential, especially from a Christological perspective. In his Memoirs, Ratzinger writes:

I was born on Holy Saturday, April 16 1927, in Marktl am Inn. The fact that my day of birth was the last day of Holy Week and the eve of Easter has always been noted in our family history. This was connected with the fact that I was baptized immediately on the morning of the day I was born with the water that had just been blessed. (At that time the solemn Easter Vigil was celebrated on the morning of Holy Saturday). To be the first person baptized with the new water was seen as a significant act of Providence. I have always been filled with thanksgiving for having had my life immersed in this way in the Easter mystery, since this could only be a sign of blessing. To be sure, it was not Easter Sunday but Holy Saturday, but, the more I reflect on it, the more this seems to be fitting for the nature of our human life: we are still awaiting Easter; we are not yet standing in the full light but walking toward it full of trust. (Ratzinger, Milestones: Memoirs 1972 – 1977, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998, 8).

What is this “nature of our human life” that Ratzinger is alluding to? In a word, it is the sense or experience of the aid to fulfillment that comes from the outside, from the Lord, a fulfillment that left to ourselves we cannot completely bring about. It implies a learning to live with the reality of little daily hopes and contentment that point to the bigger hope that is ushered by the Risen Christ, a new beginning of a different kind of life. Conscious of our inability to attain the purpose and destiny of our lives unaided, we seek help from outside, while living in the here and now. Rooted in the earth, our gaze transcends the mere empirical and looks beyond the One that lies buried in the silence of a tomb. We await the help that is much needed to liberate us from exhaustion, diversion and indifference (Blaise Pascal). Holy Saturday, therefore, becomes a program for Ratzinger’s life, and hopefully, ours as well (Last Testament, New York: Bloomsbury, 2016, 43). “In a sense, the silence of Holy Saturday is filled with the mystery of hope. But this light is not without challenges, not without forces that are bent on blowing it out. Life is thus a drama between these two poles, these two forces seeking dominance over the human soul” (Agbaw-Ebai, Light of Reason, South Bend, IN: Ignatius Press, 2021, 28).

From a Ratzingerian perspective, these two forces that are present in the reality of Holy Saturday, what Augustine of Hippo characterizes as self-love (the absence of love) versus the love for God (the presence of love), can help us reflect on some pertinent questions today (Agbaw-Ebai, Light of Reason, 29 – 34):

Firstly, Ratzinger sees Holy Saturday, the day of his birth, as relevant to the question about the absence or “death” of God (especially in the context of the increasingly secularized Western world). God increasingly has less and less significance and signification. God appears powerless in the face of human concerns and other practical and urgent needs.

Secondly, Ratzinger sees Holy Saturday, the day of his birth, as relevant to the question about the hiddenness of God, God’s obscurity: “It is the day of that frightful paradox that we express in the Creed with the words ‘descended into hell,’ descended into the mystery of death. On Good Friday we could at least look at the Pierced One. But Holy Saturday is empty, the heavy stone of the new tomb covers the deceased, everything is over, faith seems definitively unmasked as fanaticism. No God has saved this Jesus who called himself his son. One can rest assured. Those sober ones, who may at times have secretly vacillated in their conviction that there is nothing else, they were right all along.” (Ratzinger, Sabbath of History, New Haven, CT, 2012, 147). Hence, Holy Saturday brings into sharper focus the question of spiritual darkness in our world.

Thirdly, Ratzinger sees Holy Saturday, the day of his birth, as pertinent from the perspective of the burial of God: “Holy Saturday, day of the burial of God – is that not in an uncanny way our day? Is our century not beginning to become one large Holy Saturday, a day of God’s absence, a day when an icy emptiness grows even in the hearts of the disciples so that they prepare for the way home with shame and fear and on their Emmaus journey, gloomy and disturbed, sink into hopelessness, failing to notice that the one thought to be dead is in their midst (…) God is dead and we have killed him (Nietzsche). We have killed him through the ambiguity of our lives that obscured him.” (Ratzinger, Sabbath of History, 147 – 148). Holy Saturday, therefore, is emblematical of a world that increasingly makes choices without God, a world that, presuming God is dead and buried, excludes God in decision-making. Holy Saturday captures those who see God as sleeping, a deistic conception of divinity, while the world moves on.

Finally, Ratzinger sees Holy Saturday, the day of his birth, as expressive of God’s solidarity with the human race in the experience of the crushing reality of death. The darkness of this day has something consoling about it, for God’s dying in Jesus Christ is a simultaneous expression of God’s radical solidarity with the human race” “The darkest mystery of faith is simultaneously the brightest sign of hope that is without limits.” (Ratzinger, Sabbath of History, 148). From a Ratzingerian perspective, therefore, Holy Saturday embodies the twin realities of pain and hope. In Christ, God has entered fully into the reality of human pain and suffering, descending into Hades. We can no longer make the case that God is ignorant of the human condition. God is able to save us precisely because God has a first-hand experience of what is means to be human, of what it means to suffer, to be betrayed, abandoned, defamed and crucified. A God ignorant of the human lot cannot save humans, cannot help us. Holy Saturday is a testimony that God knows what it means to be human, even to the experience of the tomb.

In all, from the Ratzingerian perspective, Holy Saturday captures the death of God, the burial of God, the absence of God, which, taken together, embody, in the final analysis, God’s solidarity with the human race. But this picture is not bleak and nihilistic, precisely because of the light that comes from the empty tomb. With Christ, there appears a significance difference and newness that offers a new lease of life, saving human beings from the temptation to despair, from the feeling of alienation and brokenness. To Ratzinger, the kinetic energy needed to effect the change emanates from friendship with Jesus Christ. This explains why seeking the face of the Lord, why wishing to see Jesus, is the overarching guiding thread for Ratzinger’s life, which he seeks to communicate to all.

From the experience of his life that has largely matched the drama of the twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first, Ratzinger is convinced that only in this friendship with the Living Christ can human beings find the energy, motivation and hope to live in joy in the present, a joy that prepares the present and opens it to a future, for with God, there is a future. In the Foreword to Volume I of his trilogy Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict writes that “this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search for the face of the Lord” (cf. Ps 27:8) (Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. I, New York, Doubleday, 2007, xxiii). With Ratzinger, a master of theology (as Pope St. Paul VI described him in the papal bull appointing him Archbishop of Munich und Freising in 1977), the world continues to find a sure and steady guide and teacher in the school of friendship with the living Christ, the way, the truth and the life (Jn 14:6). With Ratzinger as teacher, the quest of the Greeks to see Jesus is made contemporary, as reason and all of the human lot recognizes its limits and potentials in the encounter with the Risen Christ, that Ratzinger continuous to point at.

As we celebrate Ratzinger’s 95th Birthday today, Holy Saturday, April 16 2022 – while reflecting on the significance of this day that the living Doctor of the Church from Bavaria calls our attention to as underscored above – today gives us the opportunity of the expression of double-gratitude: firstly, to God, for the inestimablegift of Ratzinger; and secondly, to Ratzinger, for cooperating so uniquely and dazzlingly with the grace of God, placing his fine intellect and profound faith, hidden behind a shy and unassuming demeanor, in the service of Christ and Christ’s Church, as a co-worker of the Truth. AllesGutezumGeburtstag, GeliebterHeiligerVater, und Vergelt’s Gott.

By Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai

2, April 2022

The Holy Father arrives in Malta ⁰

Pope Francis began his first trip to Malta Saturday, where he is expected to ask the heavily Catholic country to do more to help migrants who have risked their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe.

The pontiff’s plane touched down around 9:50 local time (0750 GMT) at Malta’s airport south of the capital, ahead of a welcome ceremony with Prime Minister Robert Abela and dignitaries at the Grandmaster’s Palace, the former seat of the Knights Hospitaller who ruled for centuries over the Mediterranean archipelago.

Aboard the papal plane, Francis — who had boarded using a lift for reduced mobility passengers instead of stairs — told journalists accompanying him the visit to the tiny island nation would be “quick, but will be beautiful”.

The visit to Malta was scheduled two years ago but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, and now comes as war in Ukraine has unleashed Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II, with more than four million fleeing the country.

Francis said on Twitter Friday that his “journey in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul” would be an “opportunity to know at first hand a Christian community with a millennia-old history”.

Francis, who will visit a migrant centre during his two-day trip, is likely to renew calls for an end to the war while reminding the world not to overlook those who continue to risk their lives at sea trying to reach Europe from North Africa.

“The pope comes to our island as a herald and messenger of reconciliation and mercy not only in the Mediterranean basin, but throughout the world,” the Archbishop of Malta Charles Scicluna said in Italy’s Christian Family magazine published Friday.

– Steeped in Catholicism –

Francis’s visit to Malta follows those of his predecessors Benedict XVI in 2010 and two visits by John Paul II, in 1990 and 2001.

The country’s history is steeped in Catholicism going back to St. Paul, who is believed to have been shipwrecked on Malta en route to his execution in Rome.

About 85 percent of Malta’s 516,000 inhabitants say they are Catholic believers. Catholicism is part of the constitution and Malta is the only European Union country that completely bans abortion.

The pontiff will conduct mass Sunday before an estimated crowd of 10,000 people in Floriana, next to the capital Valletta, following a visit to the Grotto of St. Paul, where the apostle is believed to have sought shelter.

Also on Sunday, he will visit migrants living at the Hal Far peace lab, a migrant centre founded by a Franciscan friar in 1971 in honour of former pope John XXIII.

The centre currently houses 55 young male migrants from across Africa but is preparing for the arrival of refugees from Ukraine.

– Seeking refuge –

During his weekly audience Wednesday at the Vatican, Francis praised Malta for welcoming “so many brothers and sisters seeking refuge”.

But non-governmental rescue groups who patrol the Mediterranean repeatedly accuse Malta of ignoring calls for help from migrants in its waters, refusing to let them land, or alerting Libyan authorities to intercept them and bring them to overcrowded, unsanitary detention camps in Libya where they risk torture and abuse.

Maltese authorities argue the country takes a disproportionate share of migrants to Europe given its small size.

Ahead of Francis’ visit, German charity organisation Sea-Eye called on him to ask Maltese authorities to allow over 100 people pulled to safety by one of its migrant rescue ships to dock.

Following the pope’s visit with Abela, whose Labour Party won a third term in government following general elections last weekend, he will take a catamaran from Valletta’s Grand Harbour to the island of Gozo, where he will preside over a prayer meeting at the national shrine of Ta’ Pinu.

Francis, who suffers from a painful sciatica that has occasionally caused him to cancel official events, did not take the stairs in boarding the plane from Rome’s Fiumicino Airport Saturday morning, instead using a lift for reduced mobility passengers.

Source: AFP

17, February 2022

Cardinal slams abuse cover-ups at Vatican priest forum ⁰

An influential cardinal opened a Vatican symposium on the priesthood Thursday apologising for “unworthy ministers” and the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, before an audience that included Pope Francis.

Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet acknowledged that “we are all torn and humbled by these crucial questions that every day question us as members of the Church”, with Francis at his side in the Vatican’s vast Paul VI Hall.

“Should we not rather refrain from talking about the priesthood when the sins and crimes of unworthy ministers are on the front pages of the international press for betraying their commitment or for shamefully covering up?”

A string of recent investigations exposing paedophile priests have been front page news in recent months, exposing the scale of the problem and the decades-long Church cover-up.

Ouellet is a prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, one of the most important functions within the Curia, the government of the Vatican.

He said the symposium was an opportunity to express regret and ask victims for forgiveness after their lives were “destroyed by abusive and criminal behaviour” hidden or treated lightly to protect the institution and perpetrators.

The symposium would be a “painful and yet necessary exercise” of conscience to analyse the historical, cultural and theological causes of what Francis has referred to as “clericalism”, he added.

Ouellet, the main organiser of the three-day symposium, defined it as “abuses of power, spiritual abuses, abuses of conscience, of which sexual abuses are but the tip of the iceberg”.

“This symposium takes note of the clamour and anger of the people of God, so we are here to unite our voices with those who are calling for truth and justice,” he added.

Francis did not mention the subject of abuse, instead sharing what he considered four “pillars” of the priesthood, drawn from his personal experience.

The symposium — which is expected to attract 500 people — comes two days after victims groups in Italy launched an unprecedented campaign to demand an independent investigation into priest abuse, in the wake of similar inquiries in Germany and France.

A report published last month criticised former pope Benedict XVI for turning a blind eye to abusive priests while he was the Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has striven to tackle the decades-long sexual abuse scandals, although many activists against paedophilia insist much more needs to be done.

The Argentine pontiff convened an unprecedented summit on clerical sex abuse in 2019, lifted secrecy rules that hindered investigations of abusing priests, and hardened the punishment of abusers under Vatican law, among other measures.

Source: AFP

8, February 2022

Ex-pope Benedict asks for forgiveness for clerical child sex abuse ⁰

Ex-pope Benedict XVI asked for forgiveness Tuesday for clerical child sex abuse committed on his watch, but aides rejected allegations of a cover-up while he was archbishop of Munich.

“I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness,” the 94-year-old said in a letter published by the Vatican.

The letter from the former pontiff — who stepped down in 2013 — was released in response to a German inquiry last month that criticised his handling of cases involving paedophile priests in the 1980s.

“I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate,” he wrote, without addressing specific cases.

The German investigation accused Benedict of knowingly failing to stop four priests accused of child sex abuse when he was archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982.

Benedict, who is in frail health, asked a team of aides to help him respond to the lengthy findings by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW), charged by the archdiocese of Munich and Freising to examine abuse cases between 1945 and 2019.

The aides insisted in a statement published alongside the letter Tuesday that “as an archbishop, Cardinal Ratzinger was not involved in any cover-up of acts of abuse”, referring to the pope’s birth name, Joseph Ratzinger.

Not aware

In one case, a now notorious paedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy.

Benedict’s team has already admitted to unintentionally giving incorrect information to the report authors when they denied his attendance at a meeting about Hullermann in 1980.

But they denied any decision had been taken at that meeting about reassigning the priest to pastoral duties, and on Tuesday said the abuse had not been discussed.

“In none of the cases analysed by the expert report was Joseph Ratzinger aware of sexual abuse committed or suspicion of sexual abuse committed by priests. The expert report provides no evidence to the contrary,” the statement said.

In his letter dated February 6, the former pope expressed hurt that the “oversight” over his attendance at the 1980 meeting “was used to cast doubt on my truthfulness, and even to label me a liar”.

Benedict, who lives in a former monastery within the Vatican walls, said he was “particularly grateful for the confidence, support and prayer that Pope Francis personally expressed to me”.

The Vatican defended Benedict last month, saying he had battled sexual abuse while pontiff, but Francis has said nothing in public.

Fear and trembling

In his letter, Benedict said that after thanking his supporters, there should follow “a confession” — the Catholic practice of admitting sins and seeking absolution.

He said that every day, he asked himself whether he was guilty of “a most grievous fault”, using the phrase said during confession at Mass.

“In all my meetings… with victims of sexual abuse by priests, I have seen at first hand the effects of a most grievous fault,” he wrote.

“And I have come to understand that we ourselves are drawn into this grievous fault whenever we neglect it or fail to confront it with the necessary decisiveness and responsibility, as too often happened and continues to happen.”

Before becoming pope, Benedict led the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation — once known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition — giving him ultimate responsibility to investigate abuse cases.

In the letter, he made a clear reference to his failing health, saying that “quite soon, I shall find myself before the final judge of my life”.

“As I look back on my long life, I can have great reason for fear and trembling,” he wrote.

But he added that he was nevertheless “of good cheer” as he prepared to “pass confidently through the dark door of death”.

Source: AFP

20, January 2022

Former pope Benedict under scrutiny in German child sex abuse investigation ⁰

A potentially explosive report into the handling of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church will on Thursday be published in Germany, with former pope Benedict XVI among those in the spotlight.

The report by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) will analyse how abuse cases were dealt with in the archdiocese of Munich and Freising between 1945 and 2019.

The Munich archdiocese, which commissioned the report, said it will examine “whether those responsible complied with legal requirements… and acted appropriately in dealing with suspected cases and possible perpetrators”.

Ex-pope Benedict — whose civilian name is Josef Ratzinger — was the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

During this time, a now notorious paedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy.

Hullermann was reassigned to pastoral duties despite his history.

In 1986, by which time Ratzinger had been transferred to the Vatican, he was convicted of molesting more children and given a suspended prison sentence.

Even after the conviction, he continued to work with children for many years and his case is regarded as a pertinent example of the mishandling of abuse by the Church.

Benedict has denied knowing about the priest’s history.

82-page statement

The ex-pope has provided an 82-page statement in response to questions from WSW, according to German media reports.

The pope emeritus “takes the fates of the abuse victims very much to heart” and is fully “in favour of the publication of the Munich report”, his spokesman Georg Gaenswein told the Bild daily.

Benedict, 94, in 2013 became the first pope ever to step down from the role in 600 years and now lives a secluded life in a former convent inside the grounds of the Vatican.

The reformist Catholic group “Wir sind Kirche” (We are Church) called on the ex-pontiff to take responsibility for what happened while he was in charge of the Munich diocese.

“An admission by Ratzinger that through his actions or inactions, knowledge or ignorance, he was personally and professionally complicit in the suffering of many young people would be… an example for many other bishops and responsible persons,” it said in a statement.

Germany’s Catholic Church has been rocked by a string of reports in recent years that have exposed widespread abuse of children by clergymen.

A study commissioned by the German Bishops’ Conference in 2018 concluded that 1,670 clergymen in the country had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014.

‘Systemic failure’

However, the real number of victims is thought to be much higher.

Another report published last year exposed the scope of abuse committed by priests in Germany’s top diocese of Cologne.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the current archbishop of Munich and Freising, last year offered Pope Francis his resignation over the church’s “institutional and systemic failure” in its handling of child sex abuse scandals.

However, Pope Francis rejected his offer, urging the cardinal known for his reforms to stay and help shape change in the Catholic Church.

As archbishop in Munich since 2007, Marx could also find himself under scrutiny in the WSW report.

Friedrich Wetter, who held the role from 1982 to 2007, is also still alive.

The abuse scandal has thwarted the Catholic Church’s efforts to spearhead broad reforms in Germany.

It counted 22.2 million members in 2020 and is still the largest religion in the country, but the number is 2.5 million fewer than in 2010 when the first major wave of paedophile abuse cases came to light.

Payouts for victims of abuse were increased in 2020 to up to 50,000 euros ($56,700), from around 5,000 euros previously, but campaigners say the sum is still inadequate.

Ahead of the publication of the Munich report, the Eckiger Tisch victims’ group called for “compensation instead of hollow words”.

“Far too many children and young people have fallen victim” to a system “shaped by abuse of power, intransparency and despotism”, said Matthias Katsch, a spokesman for the group.

Source: AFP

26, December 2021

South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu dies at 90 ⁰

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died Sunday at the age of 90, was the moral compass of his beloved “Rainbow Nation”, never afraid to speak truth to power, whatever its creed or colour.

A tireless activist, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for combatting white minority rule in his country.

“The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement.

Famously outspoken, even after the fall of the racist apartheid regime, Tutu never shied away from confronting South Africa’s shortcomings or injustices.

“It’s a great privilege, it’s a great honour that people think that maybe your name can make a small difference,” he told AFP shortly before his 80th birthday in 2011.

Whether taking on his church over gay rights, lobbying for Palestinian statehood or calling out South Africa’s ruling African National Congress on corruption, his high-profile campaigns were thorny and often unwelcome.

None at the top were spared — not even his close friend, late president Nelson Mandela, with whom Tutu sparred in 1994 over what he called the ANC’s “gravy train mentality”.

Yet “the Arch” brought an exuberant playfulness to all his endeavours.

Quick to crack jokes — often at his own expense — he was always ready to dance and laugh uproariously with an infectious cackle that became his trademark.

It was Tutu who coined and popularised the term “Rainbow Nation” to describe South Africa when Mandela became president.

At the time, Tutu was serving as the first black Anglican archbishop of Cape Town.

Ordained at the age of 30 and appointed archbishop in 1986, he used his position to advocate for international sanctions against apartheid, and later to lobby for rights globally.

‘Moral titan’

Along the way, he won a host of admirers.

“I believe that God is waiting for the archbishop. He is waiting to welcome Desmond Tutu with open arms,” said Mandela, who stayed at Tutu’s home on his first night of freedom in 1990, after 27 years in apartheid jails.

“If Desmond gets to heaven and is denied entry, then none of the rest of us will get in!”

The Dalai Lama called Tutu his “spiritual older brother”.

Irish activist and pop star Bob Geldof praised him as “a complete pain in the arse” for those in power, and US President Barack Obama hailed him as “a moral titan”.

Among Tutu’s critics were Zimbabwe’s veteran former president Robert Mugabe, who described him as an “evil and embittered little bishop”.

Even with his global celebrity, his faith remained an integral part of his life.

His family’s road trips included quiet time for prayers, and his missives blasting the evils of apartheid were signed off with “God bless you”.

“I developed tremendous respect for his fearlessness. It wasn’t fearlessness of a wild kind. It was fearlessness anchored in his deep faith in God,” said apartheid’s last leader, F.W. de Klerk.

Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 and underwent repeated treatment.

He had retired a year earlier to lead a harrowing journey into South Africa’s brutal past, as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

For 30 months, the commission lifted the lid on the horrors of apartheid.

Tutu, with his instinctive humanity, broke down and sobbed at one of its first hearings.

A recipient of numerous awards, his causes ranged from child marriage to Tibet to calls for Western leaders to be tried over the Iraq war, and in later years for the right-to-die.

He also swore he would never worship a homophobic God.

“I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place,” he said.

Post-apartheid frustrations

Born in the small town of Klerksdorp, west of Johannesburg, on October 7, 1931, Tutu was the son of a domestic worker and a school teacher.

Following in his father’s footsteps, he trained as a teacher before anger at the inferior education system set up for black children prompted him to become a priest.

He lived for a while in Britain, where, he recalled, he would needlessly ask for directions just to be called “Sir” by a white policeman.

Tutu believed firmly in the reconciliation of black and white South Africans.

“I am walking on clouds. It is an incredible feeling, like falling in love. We South Africans are going to be the Rainbow People of the world,” he said in 1994.

But post-apartheid South Africa increasingly became a source of his despair, as the high hopes of the early days of democracy gave way to disillusionment over violence, inequality and graft.

Never a member of the ANC, Tutu said in 2013 that he would no longer vote for the party, though President Cyril Ramaphosa — an old friend — re-built bridges after coming to power in 2018.

Tutu made a rare public appearance in May 2021 to receive his vaccine for Covid-19. He appeared outside of hospital in a wheelchair, and waved but did not speak.

He married his wife Leah in 1955. They had four children.

Source: AFP