Nigerian Catholic priests rejecting their bishop in the Ahiara Diocese have been asked to obey or lose their job.
According to Associated Press, Pope Francis met June 8 at the Vatican with a delegation from the southeastern part kicking against the 2012 appointment of Bishop Peter Okpaleke by the former Pontiff Benedict XVI.
The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, reporting the pope’s order, said on Sunday that Francis was acting “for the good of the people of God” by threatening to suspend the priests if they didn’t pledge in a letter, by July 9, “total obedience” .
The pope told the visiting delegation he was “very sad” about the priests’ disobedience.
He ruled out tribal loyalties as explaining the refusal.
Those priests opposing Okpaleke’s taking up of his office “want to destroy the church, which is not permitted,” the pope said in his address to the delegation.
He demanded that each priest in the diocese write to him asking forgiveness and “clearly manifest total obedience to the pope.”
They must also accept the bishop chosen by Rome. If, within a month, each priest doesn’t do so, he will be “ispo facto suspended,” such as from the celebration of the sacraments, and “will lose his current office,” Francis warned.
He said he thought the rebellious priests might have been manipulated from outside the diocese or even abroad, but named no culprits.
In 2015, the diocese served around 520,000 Catholics, out of a local population of about 675,000, and had 128 diocesan priests and seven other priests.