The Catholic Voyage: African Journal of Consecrated Life

09/11/2023

A PRESS CONFERENCE

By

CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS (CSOs) OF NIGERIA

HELD ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 10 AT 10 AM at 24 BISHOP CROWTHER STREET , LAGOS,


ON the signing on November 15 2023 of the offensive EU-ACP Agreement Between European Union and 48 African Countries (Nigeria inclusive), 16 Caribbean, and 15 Pacific Countries in order to compel the ACP to legalize LESBIANISM, TRANSGENDER RIGHTS, Q***R BEHAVIOUR, LGTBQ1+, GAY MARRIAGE, ABORTION, POPULATION REDUCTION and teaching African and Nigerian children how to indulge SAFE-SEX, SAFE-ABORTION; how to do ma********on, kissing, hugging, MA********ON, p***s touching, va**na touching, how to avoid getting pregnant through sterilization etc.

We, members of the CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS(CSOs) OF NIGERIA- Foundation for African Cultural Heritage (FACH), Project for Human Development (PHD), Global Pro-life Alliance (GPA), Doctors Health Initiative, Happy Home Foundation, Association of Concerned Mothers, Nigerian Life League, Islamic Education Trust, Association of Catholic Medical Practitioners of Nigeria, Islamic Medical Association of Nigeria, Knights of St. Mulumba, Blissful Life for Youth Empowerment, Nigerian Association for Women, Parents Watch Initiatives, Advancement, Catholic Lawyers Association, Sympathy Worldwide Organization, Life Choice International Initiative, Good Parenting and Youth Empowerment Initiative, Foundation for Marriage and Family, Centre for Corrections and Human Development, Islamic Platform of Nigeria, are shocked to learn that European Union is coercing 48 African Countries (Nigeria inclusive), 16 Caribbean, and 15 Pacific Countries to SIGN on November 15 2023 the EU-ACP Agreement Between European Union and 48 African Countries (Nigeria inclusive), 16 Caribbean, and 15 Pacific Countries in order to compel the ACP to legalize LESBIANISM, TRANSGENDER RIGHTS, Q***R BEHAVIOUR, LGTBQ1+, GAY MARRIAGE, ABORTION, POPULATION REDUCTION and teaching African and Nigerian children how to indulge SAFE-SEX, SAFE-ABORTION; how to do ma********on, kissing, hugging, MA********ON, p***s touching, va**na touching, how to avoid getting pregnant through sterilization, etc.

CONSEQUENTLY, we DECLARE as follows:

1. Nigeria is a sovereign nation. We have a right as a sovereign nation to decide for ourselves the kind of laws we can enact for ourselves and for our own good. We should reject anything which compromises our territorial sovereignty. EU DOES NOT have a right to interfere in the way we run our country or enact our laws. LGTBQ1+, Gay marriage, Transgender rights, corruption of school pupils with immoral s*x are against our culture and tradition and against our religious beliefs. Only marriage contracted between a man and a woman either under Islamic law, Customary law and Marriage Act is recognized as valid in Nigeria.

2. Only our National Assembly is empowered by virtue of section 4(1) (2) of the 1999 Constitution to make laws that conform to the aspiration of the Nigerian people. The EU lacks the locus standi to make laws for Nigeria or dictate to us the way and manner we should make our laws.

3. A people without identity are a people without existence. Europe and America are now defined by LGTBQ1+ and marriage and between a woman and a woman (lesbianism) and marriage between a man and a man (homos*xuality), or, marriage between a man and animal (be******ty). Are these what we want to import into Nigeria? Certainly No. We are a different people. We cannot be copying hook line and sinker abrasive foreign lifestyles and imposing them on our people. Gay practices and gay marriage are illegal in Nigeria by virtue of the Same S*x (Marriage) Prohibition Act 2014. Therefore an importation of LGTBQ1+ into Nigeria is illegal. The EU should respect our culture, tradition and laws.

4. The consensus reached at the various United Nations Conferences, is that the law passed in every developing county including Nigeria must reflect the diverse social, economic and environmental conditions of that country, with full respect for their religious, cultural backgrounds and philosophical convictions. LGTBQ1+ has no respect for the religious and philosophical convictions of the Nigerian people and therefore cannot be imported into Nigeria.

Laws are made in consonance with the values of a people. Every country is interested in protecting what it holds dear or its cherished values. LGTBQ1+ is a complete break with African civilization. We must stick to our own values and traditions. It is suicidal to import practices and lifestyles which are alien to Nigeria and seek to impose them as laws all in the name of observing international obligations.

6. In its Report, the Nigerian Law Reform Commission (Reform of the Nigerian Family Law) stated that same-s*x pseudo-marriage should be prohibited in Nigeria through EXPRESS LEGISLATIVE PROHIBITIONS. Furthermore, same-s*x pseudo-marriages contracted in other jurisdictions where they are legal should not be recognized as marriages while either or both of the parties are resident in Nigeria. According to the Commission: “the very notion of same-s*x cohabitation or marriages, as the case may be is abhorrent to African sensibilities, and quite contrary to the norms of the Nigerian society…it is our view that it would be a great disservice to our society, which is currently bedeviled by so many societal ills, to accord more than a passing mention to such unions in the course of a family reform exercise. Despite our awareness of the assurance to the contrary by authorities in some of the developed countries, our view is that homos*xuality is an acquired habit that ought to be eradicated and not be transformed into an acceptable human conduct by law…OUR RECOMMENDATION with regard to same-s*x marriage is absolute prohibition…”

7. Proponents of LGTBQ1+ argue that they have a right of privacy, freedom of thought and expression and freedom to be gay and q***r. But no freedom is absolute otherwise freedom of expression becomes a license for indulging in all forms of illegality which harms the public good. For this reason, Sections 37 (right to privacy), 38 (right to freedom of thought and conscience) and 39 (right to freedom of expression) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution are curtailed by Section 45(1) of the same Constitution; to the effect that nothing in those sections:

“shall invalidate any laws that are reasonably justifiable in a democratic society in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health”.

Therefore the outlawing of LGTBQ1+ in Nigeria is constitutional

8. Outlawing of LGTBQ1+ in Nigeria is not derogation from Nigeria’s international legal obligations because there is no known domestic or international law which obliges Nigeria to refrain from enacting laws against LGTBQ1+. Even though some countries have legalized LGTBQ1+, Nigeria is not obliged to join in their madness. The binding nature of international law is a matter of consent of sovereign States. There is no international Supreme Court that can force a sovereign State to legalize LGTBQ1+. The binding nature of international law is a matter of consent of sovereign States. In other words, international law binds upon consent not by imposition.

9. We urge the Nigerian government to refrain from signing the EU-ACP Agreement that would have the effect of mortgaging the values, custom and ways of life in Nigeria. The EU has become another imperialist lever for influencing legislation and manipulation of socio-cultural, economic and political events in Nigeria.

Signed

Sonnie Ekwowusi
Chairman, Human & Constitutional Rights Committee, African Bar Association

25/08/2022

You can now see TCV-AFRICA on its website - www.tcvafrica.org, on its youtube Channel, and on the AJOL page at:
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/tcv.

The Catholic Voyage  seeks to educate, inform and form. It  strives to propagate “the good, the true and the beautiful” in communicating  message (John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, n.124) on Consecrated Life in its various forms.   In particular, its purposes are to: 

20/06/2021

CATHOLIC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTORS CHALLENGED TO SHOW MORE COMMITMENT AND PASSION

The Catholic Directors of Social Communications in Nigeria have been charged by the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) Chairman for Communications, Most Rev. Denis Chidi Isizoh, to show more commitment and passion in their task as Church communicators and to ensure that they seek every means available to develop themselves in order to be more efficient in their duty.
“We need Directors with passion to communicate effectively and correctly engage the media tools. While you must project the message of your bishops and of the Church, it is also imperative that you go to the villages and report the struggles and heroic activities of the poor people; they too must be given a space on the front pages of your Newspapers.

11/06/2021

SACRED HEART OF JESUS, THY KINGDOM COME!

Happy Feast Of The Sacred Heart.

06/06/2021

Christ brings a ‘New Covenant’, mediated by his blood. And this covenant is reenacted - at his command - on the Eucharistic Altar.
In partaking of the Eucharistic meal, therefore, we ritually express our fellowship with Christ and with one another. But all the more, receiving the body and blood of Christ, commit ourselves anew to the ‘New Covenant’ founded on the ‘new commandment’ of love.
Celebrating this feast today, we pray that the Body and Blood of Christ may nourish and strengthen us to live as God’s covenant children.

Happy Solemnity

31/05/2021

ANNOUNCEMENT

SUBSCRIBE TO THE CATHOLIC VOYAGE-AFRICA

Dear Friend,
Greetings to you.

This is to inform you that the new website of the The Catholic Voyage Journal, a Joint project of the Conference of Major Superiors of Nigeria (CMSN,Men) and the Nigerian Conference of Women Religious (NCWR), has been completed and launched. The website address is
www.tcvafrica.org

Kindly access the website http://www.tcvafrica.org/welcome-message.php.
and subscribe to our YouTube channel The Catholic Voyage-Africa https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtVtzj4ybhTv7XkK4pWhMKA

Please recommend these media to the members of your family, Congregations and all people of Goodwill, to help promote our internet presence. Subscription is free.

Fr. Kingsley Nonso Ogbu,SMMM
Executive Secretary, CMSN(Men)
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.cmsn.com.ng

Joao Cardinal Braz de Aviz CONSECRATED LIFE IN AFRICA TODAY: A JOURNEY TOGETHER AS WITNESSES OF THE GOSPEL View Full Article

30/05/2021

GLORY BE TO THE FATHER & TO THE SON & TO THE HOLY SPIRIT, AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING IS NOW & EVER SHALL BE, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.

HAPPY TRINITY SUNDAY.

23/05/2021

HAPPY FEAST OF PENTECOST.
“You send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:30).
It is Pentecost (from the Greek pentēkostē - "fiftieth"), the fiftieth day from Easter Sunday. On such day - the fiftieth day from Passover - the Jews celebrated the feast of Weeks (Shavuot), one of the three major feasts instructed in the OT for which they gathered in Jerusalem. It was as they were gathered to celebrate the Shavuot that the event of the coming of the Holy Spirit happened.
We all need the continuous outpouring of the Holy Spirit who empowers us.

16/05/2021

THE POPE'S MESSAGE FOR THE 55TH WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY FOLLOWS THE THEME “COME AND SEE” (JN 1:46) – COMMUNICATING BY ENCOUNTERING PEOPLE AS THEY ARE.

The Pope's message for the 55th World Communications Day follows the theme “Come and See” (Jn 1:46) – Communicating by encountering people as they are.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The invitation to “come and see”, which was part of those first moving encounters of Jesus with the disciples, is also the method for all authentic human communication. In order to tell the truth of life that becomes history (cf. Message for the 54th World Communications Day, 24 January 2020), it is necessary to move beyond the complacent attitude that we “already know” certain things. Instead, we need to go and see them for ourselves, to spend time with people, to listen to their stories and to confront reality, which always in some way surprises us. “Open your eyes with wonder to what you see, let your hands touch the freshness and vitality of things, so that when others read what you write, they too can touch first-hand the vibrant miracle of life”. This was the advice that Blessed Manuel Lozano Garrido[1] offered to his fellow journalists.

This year, then, I would like to devote this Message to the invitation to “come and see”, which can serve as an inspiration for all communication that strives to be clear and honest, in the press, on the internet, in the Church’s daily preaching and in political or social communication. “Come and see!” This has always been the way that the Christian faith has been communicated, from the time of those first encounters on the banks of the River Jordan and on the Sea of Galilee.

“HITTING THE STREETS”, meeting people face to face to research stories or to verify certain situations first hand. Unless we open ourselves to this kind of encounter, we remain mere spectators, for all the technical innovations that enable us to feel immersed in a larger and more immediate reality. Any instrument proves useful and valuable only to the extent that it motivates us to go out and see things that otherwise we would not know about, to post on the internet news that would not be available elsewhere, to allow for encounters that otherwise would never happen.

~Pope Francis

13/05/2021

13/05/2021

ASCENSION

“The Lord Jesus, the King of glory, conqueror of sin and death, ascended today to the highest heavens, as the Angels gazed in wonder.
Mediator between God and man, judge of the world and Lord of hosts, he ascended, not to distance himself from our lowly state but that we, his members, might be confident of following where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before us” (Preface).

Solemn Blessingsss of the Ascension of the Lord.

13/05/2021

*BEHOLD THE NEW EXECUTIVES OF THE CONFERENCE OF MAJOR SUPERIORS OF NIGERIA, MEN*

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:

1. Rev. Fr. Greg Olikenyi,CSSp (Councilor 1)

2. Br. Vincent Abadom, Marist Brothers (Treasurer)

(3) Rev. Fr. Obinna Nwabor, CSSp Southwest (PRO)

4. Very Rev. Fr. Chuks Afiawari,SJ (President)

5. Rev. Fr. Anthony Ikechukwu Kanu, OSA (Vice President)

6. Rev. Fr. Kingsley Nonso Ogbu,SMMM
(Executive Secretary)

7. Rev. Fr. Paul Ubebe, OMV
(Councilor 2)

09/05/2021

God loves each person personally. He does not wish any of us to be lost; rather he continues to tend each person with the hope that all of us will find our way into the Father’s house. God is indeed Father - father of all.
It is our Christian duty to love in the way God loves us. We are all imbued with the innate power of love. But, many times, problems arise from the inequitable distribution of our love. And one thing to which every human person negatively reacts is the perception of being discriminated against.

Happy Sunday everyone

02/05/2021

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe

~St. Augustine

25/04/2021

GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY

I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His [own] life for the sheep.

~John 10:11

18/04/2021

BENEDICT XVI: ANGELUS, CONFESSING SINS TO FIND "TRUE PEACE AND JOY"

19 marzo 2012 @ 8:55
Lenten time "is a walk with Jesus through the ‘desert’, in other words, it is a time in which one should more often listen to God’s voice and even expose the temptations that speak within us". This was said yesterday morning by Benedict XVI, during the Angelus from Saint Peter’s Square (click qui). On the horizon of such desert "one can see the Cross. Jesus knows that is the peak of His mission: actually, Christ’s Cross is the peak of love that gives us salvation". According to the Pope, "if boundless is the merciful love of God who went so far as to give His only Son to redeem our life, then great is our responsibility too: each one must actually admit he is sick so that he can be healed; *each one must confess his sin, so that God’s forgiveness, already given from the Cross, may take effect in his heart and in his life". "Sometimes � the Pontiff explained � man loves darkness more than light because he is fond of his own sins. But it is only by embracing light, it is only by sincerely confessing one’s sins to God that one finds true peace and true joy.* Then, it is important to regularly go through the Sacrament of penance, especially during Lent, to be forgiven by the Lord and expand our journey to conversion".” “

19 marzo 2012
© Riproduzione Riservata

11/04/2021

HAPPY DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY

“Pass on the fire of Jesus’ merciful love. Be for everyone a sign of His presence among you.”

~Pope Francis

04/04/2021

HAPPY EASTER! The passion and resurrection of Christ is victory over pain, sickness, suffering, fear and death. Today, as people of faith and hope we are celebrating the joy of Easter. May God heal our world and bless us with peace, good health and joy.

28/03/2021

HAPPY PALM SUNDAY
Dear brothers and sisters, what can we do in comparison with God, who served us even to the point of being betrayed and abandoned? We can refuse to betray him for whom we were created, and not abandon what really matters in our lives. We were put in this world to love him and our neighbours. Everything else passes away, only this remains. The tragedy we are experiencing summons us to take seriously the things that are serious, and not to be caught up in those that matter less; to rediscover that life is of no use if not used to serve others. For life is measured by love. So, in these holy days, in our homes, let us stand before the Crucified One, the fullest measure of God’s love for us, and before the God who serves us to the point of giving his life, and let us ask for the grace to live in order to serve. May we reach out to those who are suffering and those most in need. May we not be concerned about what we lack, but what good we can do for others.

25/03/2021

“THE FAVOURED ONE”

Today, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord. Indeed it is a great feast for all Christiansas God taking human flesh to fulfill, all that God had promised in the redemption of humankind, prophesied in books of the Old Testaments especially in Genesis 3:15– “And I will put enmity between you and the woman; and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel” and in Isaiah 7:14– “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” The evangelist Luke tells us that in the sixth month after the conception of St. John the Baptist by Elizabeth, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to announce the birth of Jesus to a virgin at Nazareth, a town in Galilee. And the virgin’s name was Mary. Therefore, we will be celebrating the birth of Jesus on Christmas day exactly after nine months of today’s feast. This feast also invites all pregnant women and mothers to take part in today’s Holy Eucharist and offer petitions for their unborn and new born children in their families.

~HENRY PETER MSFS

21/03/2021

21/03/2021

PO*******HY, SOCIETY AND YOU.

Over the past decade there has been a large increase in the pornographic materials that are available to both adults and children. This increase is tied to a couple of factors: they are accessible, affordable and anonymous. By accessibility, it is meant that anyone can use them on the Internet. It is affordable because they are offered free by many online websites. They are anonymous because they can be viewed privately without visiting an adult book store or a public theatre. This development, in terms of availability of pornographic materials, has often been interpreted as a healthy liberation from the suffocating s*xual mores of older generations. While it is true that society has evolved from its Puritan prudishness, this work thinks that the pendulum has swung too far when it comes to the ubiquity of po*******hy in our contemporary world. This work has studied the impact of po*******hy on individual persons and on the society at large and submits that po*******hy creates a dependency culture that weakens the individual; it also causes a disruption that weakens marriages and results in a distortion in thinking that weakens the ability of individuals to relate and function.

~Prof. KANU, Ikechukwu Anthony, O.S.A.
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Tansian University, Umunya
Anambra State

(Abstract from The Catholic Voyage)

19/03/2021

“Our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people, people often overlooked. People who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines, or on the latest television show, yet in these very days are surely shaping the decisive events of our history. They understood that no one is saved alone. Each of us can discover in Joseph—the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence—an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of trouble. Saint Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation.”

Pope Francis, Apostolic Letter “Patris Corde”

07/03/2021

MINISTRY TO THE HANDICAPPED:
CARE OF THE LESS PRIVILEGED AND ABANDONED PERSONS IN THE SOCIETY

Disability is a state of possessing certain human qualities that limit the effective functioning of persons in their daily lives. Disabilities can be a natural endowment which an individual cannot control although it can also develop through accidents or human carelessness. Notwithstanding its origin, disabilities can present themselves in various and subtle forms that elude ministers with abilities who focus only on physical limitations. The limitations of people with handicapping situations do not constitute them any less a human. Handicapped persons are persons that possess all human qualities and should be given all the human rights conferred to persons with abilities. However, to minister to the less cognitive and physically privileged persons is to extend the saving mission of our Lord Jesus Christ in our time. In the disabled persons, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the saint of our time saw the image of Christ and abandoned everything to minister to them in the slums of India. Generally, man is inherently disabled by sin. Sin is the greatest obstacle that inhibits all created beings from reaching their goal of eternal bliss. Hence, the ministers of Sacraments care for the souls handicapped by sin. Therefore, the caregiver, either a layperson or a cleric is to recognize his or her role as a privileged person who the Lord Jesus has chosen to participate in the saving mission.

~Sr. Maria Regina Osondu, DMMM

(Abstract From The Catholic Voyage)

28/02/2021

“Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured” (Mk 9:2).
The three disciples followed Jesus ‘up a high mountain’. Though they enjoyed the scenario of the transfiguration at last, it was not clear to them initially why they were making this difficult journey. They only went on because they were following Jesus. We have to acknowledge this: It is not always easy to follow Jesus.
Abraham also had such experience. Following God, he took that tortuous journey to Moriah to sacrifice his son of promise (Gen 22). And one can only imagine the pain that swelled up in his heart when Isaac asked him: ‘But where is the lamb of the sacrifice’?
The story has not changed. For us today too, it is not always easy to follow Jesus. But it is in those difficult moments that we demonstrate our faith - following Jesus with unwavering trust, one step at a time.
At the peak of the mountain, they beheld the glory of the Lord. At the end of the tunnel, God is preparing a pleasant surprise for us. Important now is to keep on following Jesus, one step at a time!
May the Lenten graces strengthen our footsteps...
Amen! Amen!!
Sunday & Lenten Blessingsss!!!

21/02/2021

17/02/2021

ASH WEDNESDAY.
"REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE DUST, AND TO DUST YOU SHALL RETURN." ...

Now, now – it is the Lord who speaks –

come back to me with all your heart,

fasting, weeping, mourning.’

Let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn,

turn to the Lord your God again,

for he is all tenderness and compassion,

slow to anger, rich in graciousness,

and ready to relent. ~Joel 2:12ff