Nigeria,
known as the “African giant”, with its more than 160 million inhabitants, is
set to play a primary role, not only in Africa but in the world at large. In
recent years, it has experienced robust growth in the economic sphere and has
again reasserted itself on the world stage as an attractive market, on account
of its natural resources as well as its commercial potential. It is now considered
officially the single largest African economy. It has also distinguished itself
as a political player widely committed to the resolution of crisis situations
in the continent.
At the same time, your nation has had to
confront considerable problems, among them new and violent forms of extremism
and fundamentalism on ethnic, social and religious grounds. Many Nigerians have
been killed, wounded or mutilated, kidnapped and deprived of everything: their
loved ones, their land, their means of subsistence, their dignity and their
rights. Many have not been able to return to their homes. Believers, both
Christian and Muslim, have experienced a common tragic outcome, at the hands of
people who claim to be religious, but who instead abuse religion, to make of it
an ideology for their own distorted interests of exploitation and murder.
Peace
– as you know so well – is not only the absence of conflict or the result of
political compromise or fatalistic resignation. Peace is for us a gift
which comes from on high; it is Jesus Christ himself, the Prince of Peace, who
has made of two peoples one (cf. Eph 2:14). And only the man or woman who
treasures the peace of Christ as a guiding light and way of life can become a
peacemaker (cf. Mt 5:9).
At the same time, peace is a daily
endeavour, a courageous and authentic effort to favour reconciliation, to
promote experiences of sharing, to extend bridges of dialogue, to serve the
weakest and the excluded. In a word, peace consists in building up a “culture of
encounter”.
And so I wish here to express my heartfelt
thanks to you, because in the midst of so many trials and sufferings the Church
in Nigeria does not cease to witness to
hospitality, mercy and forgiveness. How can we fail to remember the priests,
religious men and women, missionaries and catechists who, despite untold
sacrifices, never abandoned their flock, but remained at their service as good
and faithful heralds of the Gospel? To them, most particularly, I would like to
express my solidarity, and to say: do not grow tired of doing what is right!
We give thanks to the Lord for them, as for
so many men and women of every social, cultural and religious background, who
with great willingness stand up in concrete ways to every form of violence, and
whose efforts are directed at favouring a more secure and just future for all.
They offer us moving testimonies, which, as Pope Benedict XVI recalled at the
end of the Synod for Africa, show “the power of the Spirit to transform the
hearts of victims and their persecutors and thus to re-establish fraternity”
(Africae Munus, 20).
Excerpts
from Letter
of his Holiness Pope Francis
to the Bishops of Nigeria March 2, 2015
