Mbaise Catholic Crisis: Over 3,000 Imo diocese members protest against Pope’s choice, Okorocha intervenes

Over 3, 000 faithful of Ahiara Diocese of the Catholic Church on Saturday converged on the Mater Ecclesiae cathedral, Mbaise in Imo State for a rally to restate their total rejection of the embattled Bishop Peter Ebele Okpaleke.

Okpaleke was anointed and consecrated bishop of the diocese by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 but both the Laity Council and the priests in the diocese rejected his appointed on the grounds that he is not an indigene of the area, among other reasons.

The diocesan youths, who put on black attire, chanted solidarity songs to reaffirm their support for the position taken by the Ahiara Diocese clerics and the laity council’s to rejection of  Okpaleke.

Other Catholic men and women who dressed in different church uniforms, also participated in the rally, which started with a rosary procession round the cathedral.

Addressing the congregation inside the cathedral, the President of the Diocesan Laity Council, Mr. Gerald Anyanwu maintained that the people of Mbaise were not against the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Francis I, but that they were against the irregularities and injustices allegedly perfected against the people of the diocese in the selection of the bishop.

Anyanwu insisted that Okpaleke was forced on them, and that he was not a priest “incardinated in the Ahiara Presbyterian.”

He said, “There was no time we insisted that the bishop of the diocese must be an Mbaise son, but the prelate must be a priest incardinated in the diocese. We shall accept any bishop whether an Hausa man or a Yoruba man as far as he is incardinated in Ahiara Diocese.”

He frowned against the activities of the Nigeria representatives of the church in Rome and urged them (cardinals) in the Vatican city to urgently look into the case of the Ahiara Diocese.

Meanwhile, the Governor of the state, Owelle Rochas Okorocha who later visited the scene stated that he was there to douse the tension which was caused by an alleged plan to smuggle Okpaleke into the Diocese by security operatives in the state.

He said, “I am the chief security officer of the state and I can confirm to you that there was no time that security operatives planned to smuggle in Okpaleke into the diocese”

Source: ThePunch