From the Conference of Abuja and Bishops Badejo, Kukah and Okeke, defending life through education and the social media
A loud and clear appeal has been made to defend man and the family. It has been voiced by the Conference on the theme "Witnessing to the Dignity of Every Human Life," promoted by the Bishops‘ Conference in Abuja, Nigeria, in recent days. For Msgr. Valerian Okeke, Archbishop of Onitsha, the family is "the bedrock for the formation a better society and promotion of values that are sacrosanct to the dignity of the human person. In Africa,—said the Archbishop—the family is the community in which the child is given the opportunity to learn moral values, behavioral patterns. It is the bedrock, the foundation of the development of a better society, because it has the primary role of education of the children. Good families breed good leaders," he added.
The need to give attention to the issues related to social justice, poverty and corruption was highlighted by Msgr. Mathew Hassan Kukah, Bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto. "The greatest threat to Nigeria’s stability—he continued—still remains the incredible gap between the rich and the poor, the increasing levels of unacceptable inequalities", also as far as the right to health care is concerned. Among other things, Bishop Kukah stressed the need to take more seriously the issue of the kind of education that is available to the country’s young people, families and students. The prelate also noted the need to focus on the family as a social unit and the need for women to collaborate against traditions and cultures that tend to diminish them. Emmanuel Badejo, Bishop of Oyo, focused on the social media as a tool for prolife promotion. He has invited the Catholics to take advantage of communications technology and to combat the culture of death propagated in the country by the Western world. According to Bishop Badejo, "the culture of death is being disseminated in Nigeria by massive media campaign for artificial family planning presented as the most natural and harmless thing ever." The Church, however, "can effectively counter this culture of death campaign through awareness, information dissemination, formation, engagement, networking, transformation and effective mobilization of human and financial resources to promote the Gospel of truth according to the teachings of the Church." Therefore, media professionals, artists, pastoral workers, storytellers, parents, teachers and young people on social media have been called to disseminate of the social doctrine of the Church.
Read the article in the original language: mons. Badejo mons. Kukah mons. Okeke