24 Aprile 2008

DON BOSCO'S PREVENTIVE SYSTEM AND ...

Each day of the seminar began with the singing of a hymn, a moment of reflection (Power Point presentation) and the reading of some “Letters of Don Bosco”. The demands made by the programme were alleviated by the “Don Bosco Youth Centre” youngsters’ high spirits, which were displayed in the performance of traditional Nigerian dances Finally, those who particiapted in the seminar had, especially in the intervals, the opportuniy of visiting a display of pictures illustrating the life of Don Bosco and that of Dominic Savio, as well as consulting a rich bibliography of the figure of Don Bosco and of literature concerning the Preventuive System.

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6 Aprile 2008

The Most Holy Trinity in Onitsha

On Saturday, 8 March, 2008, the solemn erection of the first minor basilica in Nigeria, the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity in Onitsha (Anambra State) was celebrated.  Cardinal Anthony Okogie, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Lagos, presided over the ceremony for the solemn erection as a Minor Basilica, by force of the Decree dated 28 May, 2007.

The Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity is situated in the southern part of the city and is the first Catholic cathedral to the east of the River Niger.  It is built on a raised area of the 20 hectares granted to the first Catholic missionaries on 6 January, 1886, by the local chiefs.

The relics of Blessed Cyprian Iwene Tansi are preserved in the Basilica, in which are also the tombs of Bishop Joseph Shanahan and of the Archbishops Charles Heerey and Stephen Ezeanya.  Bishop Shanahan began the construction of the present building, which was completed in 1935 by his successor, Archbishop Charles Heerey.  The cathedral was consecrated on 5 December, 1960, and erected as a Minor Basilica on 28 May, 2007. The canonical title of “Basilica” is granted to some churches that meet certain requirements and grants some liturgical privileges and the possibility of becoming pilgrimage centres.

The elevation of the Onitsha Cathedral brings to 15 the number of churches in Africa that can boast of the title of Minor Basilica. These are:
1. the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa in Algiers (since 1875);
2. the Basiica of St Augustine in the diocese of Hippo (from 1914); 
3. The Church of Sts Cyprian and Louis in the diocese of Carthage, which has been changed into a National Museum; 
4. the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lodonga, Uganda, (from 26 May 1961); 
5. the Basilica of St Therese of the Child Jesus in the Latin Rite diocese of Cairo, Egypt (from 8 February 1972); 
6. the Cathedral of the Holy Family in Nairobi, Kenya (from15 February 1982); 
7. the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Ouidah in the Archdiocese of Cotonou, Benin (from 9 November 1989); 
8. the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace at Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast (from 30 October 1990),  and the world’s biggest Christain churhc, built to the model of St Peter’s, Rome;
9. the Basilica of Notre Dame at Poponguine in the Archdiocese of Dakar, Senegal (from 23 November 1991); 
10. the Cathedral of Kabagayi in Rwanda (from 22 October 1992); 
11. “Our Lady of Fatima” at Heliopolis in the Chaldean Rite diocese of Cairo, Egypt (from 8 April 1993); 
12. the Church of the Holy Martyrs of Uganda at Namugongo in the Archdiocese of Kampala (from 28 April 1993);
13. the Cathedral of St Peter in the Archdiocese of Kumasi, Ghana (from 2 June 2004);
14. the Cathdral of the Diocese of Navrongo-Bolgatanga, Ghana (from 17 May 2006); 
15. the Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity in Onitsha, Nigeria (from 28 May 2007).

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22 Marzo 2008

EASTER 2008

Alleluja! Alleluja!

La promessa della vita senza fine ci riempie di Speranza! Cristo Risorto... donaci il coraggio di proclamare le tue promesse con la passione delle nostre vite e la tenerezza del nostro amore.

The promise of everlasting life fills us with hope. Newly Risen God,
make us unafraid to proclaim your promises with the passion of our lives and the gentleness of our love

Comunità Salesiana Onitsha - Salesians of Don Bosco Onitsha

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24 Febbraio 2008

Interview with the Rector of the Don Bosco Youth Centre in Onitsha

Fr Nicola, by now you have spent 19 years of your Salesian life as a missionary in West Africa!  What is the most important lesson you have learnt?
Two, I think... first, that one never ceases to learn from others; second, that you never cease to marvel at what God does in you and around you.

Fr Nicola, how much and in what way has your ‘typical’ day changed from being a priest in Italy (L’Aquila, Sulmona...) to being a missionary in Africa?
Has it changed?  It has changed through the timetable.  The day begins early in Onitsha.  At 5 in the morning most people are already up (daybreak is at about 6 o’clock)!  Food is different; for example, the only fruit we have in common with Europe is the orange! Temperatures are different; the annual minimumis 24 degrees with humiditiy from 70 to 90%! Diverse sono le temperature, la minima annuale è 24 gradi con una umidità di 70 %-90 %! For communication, languages are different as to sounds and also as to ways of self-expression: proverbs/examples.  The culture is different and the way in which men and women, young and old, the individual and the extended family relate to one another. Death and life are regarded in a different way... also different is the average age of the Community; in Italy I was always the youngest but here among the seven confreres only Fr Mario is older than I am!  What hasn’t changed is that I am still in a Salesian Family.

Onitsha is a very special Nigerian city.  The first-time visitor finds it very striking.  Can you describe briefly some characteristic aspects of this great “market-city”?  In general what is life like in Onitsha and how much has it changed since 1989?  Every time I become more aware of my inability and also the impossibility to convey what life is like here and how we live it.
When I speak and tell of it I find myself being like someone who risks betraying the rality.  How is it possible to convey by words and adjectives alone the colours, the smells, the flavours, the noises, the heat, the smiles and the suffering, the sensations...? Even less so in Onitsha, where the traditonal Africa of the village has moved and concentrated in high buildings of which the foundations are insufficient and dangerous, where civil inadequacy and lack of organisation are made up for by the strength and creativity of the individual in order to survive.  For a nation with 130 million inhabitants and independent for just 47 years the economic resources provided by oil are not enough, burdened as it is with a civil war (the Biafran War), with a political class that is unprepared after 25 years of uninterrupted military rule until 1999, with continual misunderstandings and tribal conflicts, with developed areas that want to import a democracy that finds both the populace and the traditional system of social organisation, run by village kings and religious leaders, unprepared for it

In Onitsha the local community is prevalently Igbo.  Can you point out for us the ‘virtues and vices’ of that tribe?
Fr Shanahan, one of the first great missionaries and later their first bishop, said that he admires them for their characteristic ability to relate to one another, for their innate gift of understanding others and for their ability to envisage projects, even if sometimes they exceed their real  possibility.  Even in adulthood their open character retains the simplicity, brightness and spontaneity of a child.  Bishop Shanahan adds that if a missionary fails to have success with them, it is certainly the missionary’s fault.  He was convinced that in heaven he would meet again with most of the Igbo.  In my opinion, his words are still valid to describe these people, of whom organisational and business sense is so characteristic.   It is not by chance that the first Blessed from West Africa, Fr Michael Cyprian Iwene Tanzi, came from this tribe.

In Onitsha the Salesian Family is becoming bigger and bigger: (the Vocational Centre, the Junior High School, the Oratory, the Boarding School, the Salesian Cooperators, the Past Pupils of Don Bosco, the Association of Mary, Help of Christians, the Aspirants, the Pastoral Centre...).  What is the key to Don Bosco’s success in Igboland? 
First: the great number of youngsters with so many unfulfilled needs. Second: the riches and beauty of Don Bosco’s educational style, which make it so attractive.  Thirdly: the generosity and self-giving of these young people.

From 6 to 9 October, when the 25^th Anniversdary of the Salesian presence in Nigeria was celebrated, the Rector Major (RM), Fr Pascual Chavez, made his first visit to the Salesian Communities in Nigeria.  What can you tell us about these two events that are so important for the Salesians in Nigeria?
25 years in Nigeria are just a generation.  The way ahead is still long and the demands are very many... Basic education-illiteracy, AIDS, dependence of the mass media, physical insecurity, ignorance and religious confusion, economic poverty.  In a letter from my father, Filippo, in which he reflected on his long life from its beginnings, he wrote: There are seeds that in a year germinate, grow, bear fruit and die.  There are seeds like the oak that need years to implant themselves and grow... but then live for centuries.  As regards your mission, he wrote to me, it should be an oak!    Having received Fr  Fr Pascual Chavez among us proved to us that Don Bosco really loves us.  Each of the boys around Don Bosco was convinced that he was his favourite.  We had the same feeling. During his visit, even if short, he wanted to meet all sectors of the Salesian Family in Nigeria.  Fr Pascual Chavez strengthened in us the Salesian charism he re-affirmed God’s Love for us and approved the educational choices made for the young. 

Undoubtedly another important event in 2007 was the opening of the Mission website.  What can you tell us about that?
I regard that as the most important gift, as regards communication, that the Mission could receive.  There are some who envy our having a site like this on account of its beauty and also it practicability.  For the Mission it has multiplied our ability to make ourselves known, to give information, to meet others and to work together.  Unfortunately, distances being as they are, there are real difficulties in movement.  The website is a place, even if virtual, for mutual enrichment and a means that helps us to live as if in ... the mission.  We are nearer to one another and so also more brothers and sisters. 

Before thanking you in the name of all the volunteers who have come to visit the Onitsha Youth Centre, there is a last question: Don Bosco used to dream a lot ...  What is your dream for the Salesian Mission in Onitsha?  I can imagine your reply: “Giving Youth a Future!” 

We are still young here in Onitsha – just 18 years!  Around us in the neighbourhood that has developed during these last years – among the poorest and least well organised in the city – more and more people are coming to live, which means  more and more young people.  I dream of the Mission as a family, able to make these youngsters grow, loving them with the heart, the imagination, the creativity and the embodiment of Don Bosco

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6 Febbraio 2008

How different is Africa!

The first time that I left for Nigeria, inexperienced as I was, I was the victim of many worries and fears.  I knew the Africa of the grassy plains, the Africa of the geography books, the Africa of tales written by foreign authors...  I imagined Africa as the vast, wild Africa that tour operators make you visit on organised trips.  I had heard talk of missionaries who set off very bravely, cross in hand...  On my arrival in Onitsha, the reality of Africa suddenly appeared completely different – no wild nature, no grassy plains, no jungle where one could meet monkeys, crocodile, hippopotamuses and giraffes.  There were only snakes, mice, spiders, cockroaches and lizards.

It was a highly overcrowded, super-chaotic city, submerged in piles of refuse... everywhere along the streets or squares of the various neighbourhoods are dumped piles of rubbish that with the passage of time become really and truly stinking mountains of filth.  This situation becomes a dramatic emergency especially in the rain season, when because of erosion and lack of an adequate drainage system “rivers” of refuse are carried downhill and deposited on the roads and pavements 

For the Salesian Community at St John Bosco Youth Centre and for the families living in the surrounding area, the question connected with the clearance of refuse has been for about a year a serious problem, not only environmental, but also for health, from the time  when just a few metres away there arose a “dump reaching up to the heavens”.   Yet many poor people manage to survive by means of the refuse.  After having recovered everything possible from the rubbish dump, men, women and chuildren burn the remainder to obtain copper or iron embedded in the plastic.  This burning gives rise incessantly to smoke (with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide...) that hangs over our narrow valley.  Consequently, we and all the families that live in the area round this dump breathe day and night air that is polluted by poisonous substances.

One day a month the whole population is asked to cleanse the gutters and streets of the city.  The State Governor and the Minister of the Environment, exactly on the Feast of Don Bosco, promised to solve the problem.  Among the requests made to the Governor was also one asking that the refuse dumped in the valley should cleared away at once, so avoiding its being burnt.  For his part, he spoke of a plan to ... sell the rubbish!  “Give me time!” he told us.

Yours,
Fr Nicola.

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