Abuja, 05 May, 2022 / 7:00 pm (ACI Africa).
The Apostolic Nuncio in Nigeria has called on Catholic Church leaders in the 16 West African countries that make up the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa (RECOWA) to make every effort to end “tribalism and all other forms of division” that seem to be on the rise in Catholic communities.
In his remarks at the fourth RECOWA Plenary Assembly that started on May 3, Archbishop Antonio Guido Filipazzi said Catholic Bishops need to collaborate in creating fraternity among the people of God in West Africa.
“We need to make every effort to achieve a true conversion of mentality, which overcomes tribalism and all other forms of division and opposition based on ethnicity or other affiliations or factors,” the Apostolic Nuncio in Nigeria said in his address to delegates of the RECOWA Plenary in Abuja.
RECOWA comprises 154 Catholic Dioceses spread across 11 Catholic Bishops’ Conferences in 16 countries of Anglophone and Francophone Africa. The 16 countries include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.
In his address at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, Archbishop Filipazzi regretted the fact that “tribalism and exasperated particularism are increasingly spreading within Parish communities, Catholic groups and associations, Religious institutes, and Dioceses.”
