Ayo FASORO

In a few days, the year 2025 will disappear, going the way of other years before it. It has been a year of sad losses.

Ibadan Province entered 2025 with Bishops Emeritus of five of its six Dioceses. Only Osogbo did not have one. Of the five retired Bishops, three passed on during the year. Bishop Ayo-Maria Atoyebi, Emeritus of Ilorin was the first to go on 8 March. Bishop Michael Fagun, Emeritus of Ekiti followed on 13 October. Bishop Julius Adelakun, Emeritus of Oyo left us on 24 October.

In losing the three Bishops, we have lost a combined 139 years of episcopal experience. Outside the Province, we also lost Bishop Francis Okobo, Emeritus of Nsukka Diocese, and another 34 years of bishopric experience. May their souls rest in peace.

Europe witnessed two notable deaths during the year. In Rome, Pope Francis went to the House of the Father on 21 April, he was eighty-eight. Not long after, Ex-President Muhammadu Buhari died on 13 July in London. He was eighty-two. The two leaders separated in death by 33 days, shared the same birthday, 17 December.

Pope Francis came into the papacy at an advanced age, even in papal years. In 1730, Lorenzo Corsini, Cardinal Bishop of Frascati, was elected Pope at the age of 78 years. He became Pope Clement XII. In almost three hundred years since then, Cardinals participating in the conclave have since elected one whose age was below seventy years, except twice. In 1958 they elected Angelo Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice who was 76 years old. Also in 2005, Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Dean of College of Cardinals was elected Pope at the age of 78 years.

It was in this state that Cardinal Electors picked Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires who became Pope Francis. Not only was he old, but his health condition would also have been suspect, having lost one of his lungs a long time before the conclave. Like Pope John XXIII, he was expected to be a stop gap; and like John XXIII, his was a consequential papacy.

 

Pope Francis gave relevance to the often neglected parts of the world, appointing Cardinals in Les Cayes, Haiti, and in Alger, Algeria; in Teheran, Iraq, and in Alger, Algeria; in Juba, South Sudan and in Ekwulobia, Nigeria. The disaster in Gaza occurred during the last years of his life, Pope Francis paid daily attention to the human tragedy, calling every night to the only Catholic Church in Gaza.

 

He tackled upfront, the issues of the time; migration, climate change, sex abuse scandal, same sex marriage, among others. Pope Francis lived on to the age of 88 years, becoming the oldest Pope in the centuries of the twenties, and the twenty-first.

 

In 2025, President Trump, having solved all the problems in America and the Americas, cast a furtive glance at Nigeria, and what he saw was not pleasing to him. He was disturbed by carnage attending genocide against Christians by Islamic terrorists. The man who claims to have stopped hundreds of wars, decided it was time to stop the genocide going on in Nigeria, the country in which his son-in-law, Michael Boulus was raised. He requested that the government of Nigeria stop genocide against Nigerian Christians, or he would do it for Nigeria “guns a blazing”. We are still working and working hard, to avoid Mr. Trump’s kind intervention.

 

Pope Leo, since taking the reins, has continued the bold approach of his predecessor especially in areas of migrants, and the poor. In the dying days of 2025, the Holy Father made appointments to key sees. On 18 December, he appointed a new Archbishop for New York. The next day, he appointed an Archbishop for Westminster Abbey, England the same day he appointed a pro-immigrant priest, Manuel de Jesus Rodriguez as Bishop of  Palm Beach, Florida, the home diocese of anti-immigrant President of the United States. Please do not stop praying for the Bishop - elect.