Date:
Location:
"Building Peace Across and Within Nigeria's Religious Divides"
Speaker:
Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
Contact:
Darren Kew
Darren.kew@umb.edu
Co-sponsored by UMass Boston's Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development (CPDD).
This event is online only. Please click the "Read More" link for full instructions on how to attend this seminar.
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Abstract:
Nigeria is one of the few nations in the world that is evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, and recent decades have seen inter-religious conflicts and religious mobilization increase dramatically. His Eminence, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, has been a global leader in reaching across both the Muslim-Christian divide and the many Christian denominations as well. The Boko Haram insurgency, farmer-herder conflicts, and the banditry crisis all feature strong religious dimensions, as does the growing elite conflict over the 2023 elections. What roles can religious leaders play inbridging these difficult divides, and what specific roles might the Catholic Church play?
Speaker Bio:
Cardinal John Onaiyekan is former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), and a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. During his CAN presidency, he made interfaith peace work a central focus of his tenure, including reviving the government-supported Nigerian Inter-Religious Council. He was Archbishop of Abuja from 1994 to 2019 and was made a Cardinal in 2012. He has also served as the President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria, and President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. He currently serves as a Member of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and as a Member of the Presidential Committee of the Pontificial Council for the Family. Cardinal Onaiyekan was named Pax Christi International’s 2012 Peace Laureate. His published worksinclude “Church – State Relationship,” “Interfaith Dialogue in Africa,” and “Inter-Religious Dialogue in Africa.”
