Perpetrators plan to break up country, says Okogie

POPE Benedict XVI yesterday said peace and reconciliation in Africa remained a “distant” goal, pointing to anti-Christian attacks in Northern Nigeria that have killed dozens of people in recent days.

Also, according to Agence France Presse (AFP),  the Pope warned that liberal family values were threatening the future of humanity, in a veiled reference to homosexual marriage and adoptions by gay couples.

In the same vein, Archbishop of Lagos, Cardinal Anthony Olobunmi Okogie, said yesterday that the violent attacks on Nigeria’s Christians are not part of a “religious war” but an attempt to break up the country in a bid for power and economic gain.”

“Policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself,” the pontiff said in a speech at the Vatican.

“On the continent of Africa … it is essential that co-operation between Christian communities and governments favour progress along the path of justice, peace and reconciliation, where respect is shown for members of all ethnic groups and all religions.

“It is painful to realise that in different countries of the continent this goal remains distant,” the 84-year-old pontiff told ambassadors to the Holy See.

“There is no religious war in Nigeria, but fierce persecution driven by ambitions for power and economic causes,” Cardinal Anthony Olobunmi Okogie said in an interview published on the Vatican Insider website.

“They want to break up the federation but they won’t manage,” he said, referring to Nigeria’s federation of 36 states.

Cardinal Okogie said “enormous economic interests (were) destabilising a country made attractive by its petroleum resources.”

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer, is roughly divided between a predominantly Christian south and mainly Muslim north, and the recent violence has sparked fears of a wider conflict.

While the cardinal said he “has no proof” that the Islamist sect, Boko Haram’s targeting of Christians “is receiving support from abroad,” it was clear that “their threat is bigger compared to the past.”

Boko Haram’s makeup is unknown, but there has been intense speculation over whether elements of the group have links to foreign extremists such as Al-Qaeda’s North African branch.

“They will not be successful. The Nigerian Church is solid and alive, does not allow itself to be intimidated and, like Jesus on the cross, is ready to make the supreme sacrifice to testify to its faith,” Okogie said.

“The family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman … is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society,” added the 84-year-old pontiff.

Humanity is also compromised by laws that “not only permit but at times even promote abortion for reasons of convenience or for questionable medical motives,” Benedict said.

The pope said he was pleased that recent EU rulings banned patenting processes on human embryonic stem cells and condemned prenatal selection on the basis of sex.

Benedict XVI is a firm champion of the family, which he says must play a bigger part in the education of young people in respecting Christian values.

-Guardian

Posted by admin on Jan 10 2012. Filed under Africa & World Politics, Latest Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry