Profile: Cardinal Francis Arinze

[XXPANTHAXX]

By David Loyn
BBC News, Eziowelle, Nigeria

In the history of the Church, there cannot have been many
candidates for the papacy who come from as poor a background
as Francis Arinze - certainly none who have travelled so far,
either in distance or in the journey of their faith.

He was born in 1932 in a hut made of coconut matting in the
tiny village of Eziowelle, not far from the huge Niger river
which marks the border of the Igbo-speaking region of south-
eastern Nigeria.

His parents were peasant farmers, and believed in an
indigenous village religion. But when a Catholic mission
school opened in the village, Francis followed his brother
Christopher into it.

Studious boy

Christopher, older than the Cardinal by six years, is still
fit and healthy. He recently remarried after his first wife
died, and he has young children.

He remembers that his parents did not object when he took on
his Catholic name and faith, and Francis followed suit. There
were seven brothers and sisters in all in the family, and
they all became Catholics.

Christopher Arinze says that as a boy, Francis was obviously
intelligent and always liked to study.

"He could play games, but he was very quiet. He didn't like
people fighting or making noise. He liked to study all the
time at home, he did not want anybody to stop him."

He went to a local seminary and was talent-spotted when he
was 21 years old and taken to Rome to complete his education.
He was ordained as a priest in Rome.

When he returned to Nigeria, he worked as education secretary
for the regional government, and for some time assisted the
Bishop of Onitsha, the nearest city to his birthplace. It was
not long before he was a bishop himself at the age of 35,
then the youngest bishop in the world.

Rome

Since 1985, Cardinal Arinze has been in Rome full-time,
moving quickly through the Vatican hierarchy.

His most recent job was as head of the body responsible for
keeping an eye on Catholic worship. The reforms brought in at
the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s transformed the
Catholic Church, which until then had insisted on the same
Latin Mass being used worldwide.

Now services can be held in any language, and his job in Rome
has been to ensure that regional variations do not deviate
too much from the central message.

Cardinal Arinze's experiences in the Nigerian Catholic
Church, where vibrant noisy services often go on for two
hours or more, have given him a liberal background in this
area at least.

He also shares another thing with the Nigerian Catholic
Church from which he comes: an extreme conservatism on moral
issues, including birth control and abortion - this may make
him unacceptable to Catholics in North America and Europe.

Islam

Friends say that he found his job in charge of worship a
little tedious. His previous post, when he was responsible
for the Vatican's relations with other faiths, was the one
which excited him.

Pope John Paul II made a historic rapprochement with Judaism;
Cardinal Arinze sees opportunities to do the same with Islam.

Again his Nigerian experiences have helped. The 120 million
people in Nigeria - the "most religious country in the world"
according to a BBC poll - are roughly evenly divided between
Muslims and Christians.

Despite occasional outbursts of extreme violence, relations
between the two faiths here are not generally antagonistic.

Cardinal Arinze believes that because of Catholics' adoration
of Mary, the mother of Jesus, they can meet Muslims on common
ground.

He is fond of reminding people that Mary is mentioned in the
Koran, the Muslim holy book, 34 times.

Going home

He returns to Eziowelle once a year, usually in August, and
stays at first in the small shabby concrete house now built
on the place where his parents' hut once stood.

Other relatives live in houses in the compound, and after a
few days talking to members of his family, Cardinal Arinze
goes to stay with his oldest brother in a modest house
nearby, where he tells tales of his travels and his hopes for
better relations with Muslims.

His brother Christopher said: "I wouldn't be thinking that he
would become pope, but if he becomes pope, then it is God's
willing."

He then paused and remembering that John Paul was once shot,
he said that perhaps it would be better if his brother did
not become pope.

The chief of the village, Michael Okonkwo, said: "The world
may not be ready for a black pope. I have my fear as to
whether the world has adjusted itself enough to accept a
black pope."

But given the troubled times at the start of the 21st
Century, a pope who has new ideas on bridging the divide with
Islam may be uniquely qualified to say things to the world
outside the Church.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...ca/4445821.stm
Published: 2005/04/18 17:12:06 GMT

[DJ RBG]

white, Black, Brown, Red or Yellow it doesn't make no difference what color a poop, I mean pope is, For me its still FTP 4Life, meaning Fuck The pope and anyone thats cool with one...