“I come to walk with you, to listen to you”: Catholic Archbishop in Ivory Coast at Installation

“I come to walk with you, to listen to you, to suffer with you, to share with you, to hope with you. Together with Christ, we are going to build, rebuild, and hope,” the Ivorian Catholic Archbishop said during the Eucharistic celebration at St. Anna Cathedral of Gagnoa Archdiocese.

He continued, “Together, with confidence and hope, let us open another page of the life of our Archdiocese. Let us turn our gaze to the future, rooted in faith and carried by hope.”

“I come to you with an open heart, aware of my limits but confident in the mercy of God and in the support of your prayers,” the Local Ordinary of Gagnoa said, and reiterated, “Together, let us walk in the light of Christ so that our Archdiocesan Church of Gagnoa is a house of communion, a sign of hope and a firmness of unity for the world.”

“May Saint Anna, patron of our Archdiocesan Church, accompany us,” he implored.

Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Koffi as Local Ordinary of Gagnoa on April 8.

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Born in 1962, Archbishop Koffi had been serving as Local Ordinary of Ivory Coast’s San Pedro Catholic Diocese.

The Ivorian Catholic Church leader was appointed Apostolic Administrator of Gagnoa following the  4 October 2023 resignation of Archbishop Joseph Yapo Aké at the age of 72. 

While the Vatican announcement of Archbishop Aké’s resignation did not include reasons for the decision, a 4 October 2023 report by La Croix hinted to protests from a section of the Clergy, who accused the Catholic Archbishop of “financial and human resource mismanagement”. 

Archbishop Roger Houngbedji of Benin’s Cotonou Catholic Archdiocese was commissioned for Apostolic Visitation to the Ivorian Metropolitan See, La Croix report further indicated.

Archbishop Koffi started his Episcopal Ministry in December 2003 as Bishop of his native Diocese of Abengourou. He was transferred to the Diocese of San Pedro-en-Côte-d’Ivoire in January 2009.

In his homily during the May 17 installation, Bishop Alexis Touably Youlo of Ivory Coast’s Diocese of Agboville emphasized that the vitality of the Church depends on unity, “a sacred and costly reality rooted in the blood of Christ.”

Bishop Toualby urged the people of God in Gagnoa to see their new Local Ordinary not as a commander-in-chief, but as “a center of communion, a father, a servant.” 

“Unity is a matter of blood. Our unity is sacred because it is a matter of the blood of Jesus—the blood of the new and eternal unity,” Bishop Toualby said.

He warned that “blood, as sacred and serious, should not be treated lightly or toyed with,” and went on to remind the people of God that division within the Church is not just “a social inconvenience but a betrayal of Christ’s own prayer for unity.”

The Local Ordinary of Agboville Diocese, who doubles as President of the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa (RECOWA) called on the Diocesan community to remain “tightly bound to their new Archbishop,” drawing inspiration from Ignatius of Antioch who he recalled likened the Church’s unity around the Bishop to “the strings united to the guitar.”

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“Be one in a real spirit of synodality because you form a single body and are members of each other,” Bishop Toualby said.

He added, “Move forward together, never one without the other, never one against the other. No one can be happy without his brother, no one can be happy against his brother.”

Archbishop Koffi is the sixth Archbishop of the 19,949-square-kilometer Metropolitan See with an estimated population of 2,589,000, of which 515,800 are Catholics, representing 19.9 percent of the total population, according to 2023 statistics. 

Erected as the Diocese of Daloa in June 1956 before being elevated to a Metropolitan See in December 1994, Gagnoa Archdiocese has Daloa, Man, and San Pedro-en-Côte d’Ivoire as Suffragan Dioceses.

Jude Atemanke is a Cameroonian journalist with a passion for Catholic Church communication. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Buea in Cameroon. Currently, Jude serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.