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Pope Francis and His Lordship, Most Rev. Dr. Matthew Hassan Kukah, Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto at the ongoing synod of Bishops in Rome.
POPE FRANCIS, CATHOLIC CHURCH SUPREME PONTIFF, DECLARES 7 OCTOBER, WORLD DAY OF FASTING AND PRAYER
Pope Francis, Catholic Church Supreme Pontiff, declares 7th October as World Day of Fasting and Prayer. It is a day set aside to pray for peace in the Middle East, the first anniversary of the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas.
The declaration came on Wednesday, October 2, marking the official opening of Pope Francis’ Synod of Bishops on Synodality. Reporting in Vatican News, Pope Francis said, “In this dramatic hour of our history, while the winds of war and the fires of violence continue to devastate entire peoples and nations, let’s put ourselves at the service of humanity”.
The synod becomes the healing scene and bastion of this prayer, it’s a two-day spiritual retreat for Catholic Bishops all over the world, coming in the second and final of the Roman assembly that began with the first session of the synod last year.
According to cruxnow.com, there are 368 participants including 272 Bishops, and the rest are a mix of priests, deacons, male and female religious, and the laity.
Indeed, Pope Francis moves on and seems to be dedicating his papacy to world peace through characterized invocation and consecration to God. He is an embodied proponent of the interventions of our mother Mary.
In 2013, at the infancy of his papacy, six months into his election as Pope, on 7th September 2013, Pope Francis gathered people in thousands in St. Peter’s Square in Rome to pray for peace in Syria. From 2017 to 2021, he had called for prayers and fasting at times and moments of troubles of wars and conflicts in many countries; in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan in 2017; in Beirut in 2020; in Lebanon and Afghanistan in 2021. Pope Francis is an evangelizer, consecrating Ukraine and Russia to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Her Immaculate Heart.
Truly, the world is troubled; hate, injustice, and escalations of conflicts and wars, vices of social and moral impunity are setting the agenda of collapsed understanding all over the world. In the mix of all that Pope Francis continues to encourage citizens of the world; he is saying, “Let us walk together, let us listen to the Lord. And let us be led by the breeze of the Spirit.”
Peace, justice, and social order are the cooperating manuals Pope Francis seems to be sharing with His Lordship, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto, who is the convenor of the national peace initiative in Nigeria, and like Pope Francis, he is a social crusader.
In 2012, Bishop Kukah established in Nigeria the Kukah Centre for Faith and Leadership Research which promotes the participation of citizens in governance, interfaith cooperation, and national development. It is a growing establishment helping to bring into focus the values of common nationhood. This contribution will continue to strengthen our faith and commitment to our common good.
By Julius O. Dike
