Fides Media Living the Faith
By Abuchi Onwumelu
The Catholic Bishop of Awka Diocese, His Lordship Most Rev. Paulinus Ezeokafor, has warned against a slide back to primitive age with the rise in neo-paganism in most parts of Igbo land, especially among young men and women; even as he urged parents to take closer interest in the growth of their children.
Bishop Ezeokafor, who stated this in his Easter Message, regretted that young men who ran into turbulence in their businesses were busy opening shrines in various communities and blaming their backsliding on their ancestors.
Most painful, the cleric said, were those who had lived in Europe and other parts of the world who one would have thought were enlightened.
Bishop Ezeokafor blamed the development on parents whom he accused of abandoning their parental roles.
He described Easter as the most important Christian feast because it marked the day Christ opened the gate of heaven for humanity.
He said, however, that for humanity to realise this, it had to focus on the life to come, knowing that life on earth was very short.
Bishop Ezeokafor said: ‘We thank God that Christ saved us today. Christ died on the cross to save us and there is no sacrifice more than this.
‘In his own time, to die on the cross was an abomination and that was why he was crucified between two robbers,’ Bishop Ezeokafor said.
The cleric said humanity must take their cross and follow Christ and warned that it was wrong teaching that suffering was not part of life.
According to him, to win anything, one must suffer. ‘The only thing we ask of is that Christ gives us the cross we can carry.’
On the country, Bishop Ezeokafor called for prayers, saying that the number of deaths recorded in Nigeria had made life to lose its meaning.
He lamented that President Muhammadu Buhari had not lived up to his slogan that he was for no nobody but was for everybody, given that he had not come out directly to condemn that activities of Fulani herdsmen, while branding IPOB members terrorists.
His words, ‘There has never been direct condemnation by the President. This is unfortunate. Buhari is for some people, period; because herdsmen carry AK47 and yet he brands IPOB people terrorists.