Issues within the Archdiocese of Detroit..A beacon of hope in NE Detroit is dimmer.

**kellyroad** · April-16-12, 08:07 PM

The initiation of this thread serves as a bridge of discussion from the St. Jude Parish/School Nostalgia thread that focuses more directly with the recent decision by the AOD to release Fr. Jovita Okoli from his adminstrative duties at St. Jude .

[[Here is an excerpt from the St. Jude thread)...

It's this type of issue that merits this thread to be in the Detroit Yes "Discuss Detroit" section. The leaving of Fr. Jovita along with the possible consolidation and/or closing of St. Jude will indeed have an impact on the northeast area of Detroit. ..One can only guess what the rationale of the AOD was in the "Together in Faith" action plan given the limited supply of financial resources and priests. One can't help but think that the decision making process of the AOD was more involved with spread sheet analysis, pie charts, and bar graphs that demonstrated projected income and demographics more so than what is stated in the Parish mission statements and beyond into the local neighborhoods. Can someone please explain how a priest like Fr. Jovita, who wanted to remain at St. Jude, will later be assigned by a Bishop in Nigeria? Is there a possibilty that he could remain in the AOD? If not, please explain the reason, especially given the critical shortage of priests in the Detroit area? .....The weekend paper just did a multipage report on the desolation of the 48205 area as seen through the eyes of a Denby High School student. I was thinking a Fr. Jovita/St. Jude story would have offered a nice counter balance...a beacon of hope.

**Eastburn** · April-17-12, 10:55 AM

Last week the Archdiocese of Detroit informed the pastor of St. Jude parish on Detroit's northeast side that his services were no longer needed. He was told to contact his bishop in Nigeria for reassignment.

Fr. Jovita Obiora Okoli has been at St. Jude for about 2 years. He has revitalized this struggling parish in the middle of one of the highest crime areas of the city. He is well-loved by his parishoners.

It seems to me that the archdiocese has some questions to answer.

For more info on St. Jude, check out their Facebook page.

**Bham1982** · April-17-12, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by Eastburn

Last week the Archdiocese of Detroit informed the pastor of St. Jude parish on Detroit's northeast side that his services were no longer needed. He was told to contact his bishop in Nigeria for reassignment.

Maybe he wasn't toeing the Archdiocese line, and was preaching about helping the poor and the like, rather than preaching against civil rights for gays or health care for women.

**jcole** · April-17-12, 11:00 AM

Yes, EB, considering that their announced criteria for the reduction/consolidation of many Detroit area parishes is a lack of priest to carry out the duties, this is a travesty. They first announced that St Jude/St Matthew wouldn't consolidate until one of the two parish priests retired or left, so now they are removing one of them. Seems a bit contrived to me

**DetroiterOnTheWestCoast** · April-17-12, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

Maybe he wasn't toeing the Archdiocese line, and was preaching about helping the poor and the like, rather than preaching against civil rights for gays or health care for women.

Either that, or even a revitalized parish made up of most poor folks would not contribute enough to the princes of the archdiocese.

**SWMAP** · April-17-12, 11:16 AM

Or perhaps his Bishop who paid for his education wants him to come home and minister in Nigeria [[and of course, he wants to stay here in this relative tub of butter [[what is his car like- that's how you can tell); or perhaps he is skimming parish funds or has a lady friend on the side or any number of things that we might not be privy to.

**kellyroad** · April-17-12, 11:30 AM

Originally Posted by Eastburn

Last week the Archdiocese of Detroit informed the pastor of St. Jude parish on Detroit's northeast side that his services were no longer needed. He was told to contact his bishop in Nigeria for reassignment.

Fr. Jovita Obiora Okoli has been at St. Jude for about 2 years. He has revitalized this struggling parish in the middle of one of the highest crime areas of the city. He is well-loved by his parishoners.

It seems to me that the archdiocese has some questions to answer.

For more info on St. Jude, check out their Facebook page.

Issues within the Archdiocese of Detroit..A beacon of hope in NE Detroit is dimmer.

The initiation of this thread serves as a bridge of discussion from the St. Jude Parish/School Nostalgia thread that focuses more directly with the recent decision by the AOD to release Fr. Jovita Okoli from his adminstrative duties at St. Jude .

[[Here is an excerpt from the St. Jude thread)...

It's this type of issue that merits this thread to be in the Detroit Yes "Discuss Detroit" section. The leaving of Fr. Jovita along with the possible consolidation and/or closing of St. Jude will indeed have an impact on the northeast area of Detroit. ..One can only guess what the rationale of the AOD was in the "Together in Faith" action plan given the limited supply of financial resources and priests. One can't help but think that the decision making process of the AOD was more involved with spread sheet analysis, pie charts, and bar graphs that demonstrated projected income and demographics more so than what is stated in the Parish mission statements and beyond into the local neighborhoods. Can someone please explain how a priest like Fr. Jovita, who wanted to remain at St. Jude, will later be assigned by a Bishop in Nigeria? Is there a possibilty that he could remain in the AOD? If not, please explain the reason, especially given the critical shortage of priests in the Detroit area? .....The weekend paper just did a multipage report on the desolation of the 48205 area as seen through the eyes of a Denby High School student. I was thinking a Fr. Jovita/St. Jude story would have offered a nice counter balance...a beacon of hope.

**SWMAP** · April-17-12, 11:39 AM

And again - usually a Nigerian priest comes here to finish his education and his own diocese back home awaits his return very eagerly - because there are even fewer priests in Nigeria than here.
And usually, those priests have to be nudged along to go home because they have a lot of patrons here and maybe someone offers a car and then there are dinners at family homes and a trip once in awhile and it gets tough to go home.
The important thing to remember is that Fr. Jovita is not a priest of this Archdiocese. He is only a guest in this region and in our country. There are any number of reasons why he has to go home and to denigrate the decision is to be pretty ignorant.

**kellyroad** · April-17-12, 12:00 PM

I'm not sure if some of the posts on this thread are veiled cynicism of a broader point regarding the lack of priests and the politiics of the AOD or not. I did copy and paste a previous thread to address the specific point of Fr. Jovita's release from St. Jude and how that will affect not only St. Jude but the surrounding community. Fr. Jovita Okoli is indeed a good person. His motives are to serve God, his church, and the surrounding community for which he was assigned all without the rhetoric of politics or an underlining self-interest.

**SWMAP** · April-17-12, 12:25 PM

He is not a priest of this Archdiocese. His Bishop is calling him home.

**kellyroad** · April-17-12, 12:32 PM

As I understand, Fr. Jovita could stay at St. Jude if the AOD would assign him as pastor.

**SWMAP** · April-17-12, 12:42 PM

And that they don't likely means that his Bishop wants him in Nigeria. And, by the way - so does the U.S. State Department. They look very askance at foreign nationals over-staying and they follow those priests from Africa around pretty good, demanding all kinds of documentation.

**SWMAP** · April-17-12, 01:06 PM

Some food for thought on this topic from an article in the National Catholic Reporter:

"At least from a strictly arithmetic point of view, one could argue that the bumper crop of new priests being turned out by Catholic seminaries in the global South is far more urgently needed at home.That reality has not escaped the attention of the Vatican. In 2001, a document titled “Instruction on the Sending Abroad and Sojourn of Diocesan Priests from Mission Territories” was issued by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Slovenian Cardinal Jozef Tomko, at the time the prefect of the congregation, said such transfers were damaging to the church in the global South. India, for example, doesn’t have enough priests to take care of its 17 million Catholics, yet at that time there were 39 priests from India working in one Italian diocese alone. Overall, Tomko claimed, there were 1,800 foreign priests in Italy, with more than 800 working in direct pastoral care.
“Many new dioceses could be created in mission territories with such a number of diocesan priests!” Tomko complained.
Further, there’s no use denying that at last some priests from the global South want to serve in Europe and the States for the same reason that immigrants from other walks of life come here: Because the standard of living is higher. Bishops are often willing to let them go for the same reason that families across the global South encourage breadwinners to emigrate: because their remittances help keep the extended family afloat.
At least some Southern bishops wonder if the Catholic church is simply replicating the immigration patterns of the broader world, with all the potential for injustice and exploitation those patterns carry. Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, put it this way a few years back:
“What we don’t want is to get into a Gastarbeiter situation,” Onaiyekan said, “where a European priest feels overwhelmed having to say three Masses on Sunday, and so he wants a black man to say them. Surely this is not where the church wants to go, getting poor people to do jobs that the rich don’t want to do, as today happens in other walks of life.”

**Gistok** · April-17-12, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by SWMAP

Or perhaps his Bishop who paid for his education wants him to come home and minister in Nigeria [[and of course, he wants to stay here in this relative tub of butter [[what is his car like- that's how you can tell); or perhaps he is skimming parish funds or has a lady friend on the side or any number of things that we might not be privy to.

You call others ignorant... and in the same breath come up with excuses like these...

**SWMAP** · April-17-12, 01:40 PM

I said the denigraters were sounding pretty ignorant, as in replies like this:
"Maybe he wasn't toeing the Archdiocese line, and was preaching about helping the poor and the like, rather than preaching against civil rights for gays or health care for women."

Writing retorts like that sounds ignorant when the real reasons are entirely unknown to the writer and much less malignant than he implies.
I am, on this topic of AoD decisions and their background, by the way, very well informed.

**Eastburn** · April-17-12, 02:02 PM

Originally Posted by SWMAP

I said the denigraters were sounding pretty ignorant, as in replies like this:
"Maybe he wasn't toeing the Archdiocese line, and was preaching about helping the poor and the like, rather than preaching against civil rights for gays or health care for women."

Writing retorts like that sounds ignorant when the real reasons are entirely unknown to the writer and much less malignant than he implies.
I am, on this topic of AoD decisions and their background, by the way, very well informed.

Do you have information on this case in particular? My concern is the effect of the dismissal of Fr. Jovita on St. Jude parish and on the community as a whole. It's my understanding that Fr. Jovita's bishop would allow him to stay. It was AoD's decision to have him leave.

If you've spent any time in 48205 [[the highest-crime area of Detroit) you might understand that Nigeria may be a better place to live. Not that I'm claiming any knowledge of living conditions in Nigeria.

**Gistok** · April-17-12, 02:08 PM

Swmap, I wasn't disparaging the AOD, but your words were somewhat harsh. I do believe you when you said you keep up on things.

Eastburn makes a sad commentary [[but good point) that conditions in Nigeria could be better than in 48205. But that certainly doesn't hold true for Muslim north of Nigeria, where the Sharia law has been unilaterally imposed.

Also it is interesting to note that 1/4 of our planets blacks live in Nigeria, with a huge burgeoning population of 160 million.

**MikeyinBrooklyn** · April-17-12, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by SWMAP

And again - usually a Nigerian priest comes here to finish his education and his own diocese back home awaits his return very eagerly - because there are even fewer priests in Nigeria than here.
And usually, those priests have to be nudged along to go home because they have a lot of patrons here and maybe someone offers a car and then there are dinners at family homes and a trip once in awhile and it gets tough to go home.
The important thing to remember is that Fr. Jovita is not a priest of this Archdiocese. He is only a guest in this region and in our country. There are any number of reasons why he has to go home and to denigrate the decision is to be pretty ignorant.

Could not agree more. I would be very surprised to find out if the sentiments above, especially by BHAM1982 [[whom I usually find to be very rational), came from people who actually attend Catholic services. I am proudly gay and Catholic, and find no contradiction there. And I find no hate at church. In fact, we talk quite a bit about helping the community, and many of us volunteer. Even more give money. And church affiliated hospitals and clinics provide lots of low-cost and free health services, including for women. The church is only asking that there be a conscience exemption from being forced to pay for contraceptive and abortive services, which obviously are against church teaching.

**SWMAP** · April-17-12, 02:50 PM

Eastburn - If his Bishop is okay with him staying -then I don't know.I will ask around about the situation. I know there is someone in the AoD who seems charged with making sure the foreign-born visiting priests don't overstay.

I take it from you that he is a very good pastor - and those are certainly a shame to lose, especially since it means that the Church will pretty much be gone from that neighborhood. Its so amazing how much things have changed since in a little more than one generation, isn't it? From vibrancy to desolation.

**kellyroad** · April-17-12, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by SWMAP

Eastburn - If his Bishop is okay with him staying -then I don't know.I will ask around about the situation. I know there is someone in the AoD who seems charged with making sure the foreign-born visiting priests don't overstay.

I take it from you that he is a very good pastor - and those are certainly a shame to lose, especially since it means that the Church will pretty much be gone from that neighborhood. Its so amazing how much things have changed since in a little more than one generation, isn't it? From vibrancy to desolation.

SWMAP: Your comments and citations regarding global distribution [[especially from Nigeria) of priests are not to be disregarded or minimized in this discourse. However, the focal point of this thread emphasizes one particular case where the AOD had the choice or retaining a priest for pastoral duties but instead allowed a reassignment not to another Parish within the AOD but overseas. Considering all the issues of Parish consolidations, shortage of priests, changing demographics of Detroit Catholics etc. etc, this particular situation remains a mystery. Many Detroit Catholics can appreciate the eventuality of Parish closings and/or consolidation but in this case the details of the question "Why" should be brought foward.

**Campfire Girl** · April-17-12, 05:05 PM

Well said, KR.

**Eastburn** · April-17-12, 05:29 PM

SWMAP, I'd appreciate your letting us know what you learn about this situation.

St. Jude parish is very dear to me, having grown up there in the 50s.

I attended the parish's 70th anniversary celebration in the fall and was certainly impressed by what Fr. Jovita and his parishioners are doing there. St. Jude is one of the most beautiful churches in the area. It provides needed services to the community.

**SWMAP** · April-17-12, 06:19 PM

I wonder if there is some misunderstanding about Fr. Jovita's standing. He is not a priest of or for the archdiocese of Detroit. There is no assignment overseas unless his Nigerian Bishop makes one. As I understand it he was employed here on a sort of contract basis for two years & now he has been relieved of that position. All here are correct that there is a shortage of priests to take parishes - so I doubt this was done lightly. There is a reason and it is not that a greedy AoD wants to dump a poor parish. At least when it is a matter of a priest from another country that is not usually the reason.
To stay here forever, a priest has to " incardinated" into the Diocese. It does not appear that Fr. Jovita is incardinated and that may be because his Bishop opposes, he opposes or the AoD opposes or Immigration opposes.