Scottish Catholic Observer

Cardinal Keith O’Brien had a very special reason to feel proud at the Episcopal Ordination of Bishop Malachy John Goltok of Bauchi, Nigeria.

Cardinal O’Brien traveled to Nigeria to be the principal concelebrating bishop at the Episcopal Ordination last Thursday, to represent both the Holy Father and St Andrews and Edinburgh Archdiocese, which ‘adopted’ Bauchi in the 1950s and sent priests to work there.

“It gives me great joy being at this wonderful ordination of the first African bishop of Bauchi to realise I am in a long line of wonderful people forging and strengthening those links which have been of so much benefit both to Africa and to Scotland,” the cardinal said.

New bishop

Bishop Goltok is the second eldest of a family of ten and his father John was the mission cook in St John’s, Bauchi for more than 20 years, until his death last year. The newly appointed bishop was parish priest of St Finbarr’s and treasurer of Jos Archdiocese from 2004 before Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as the first Nigerian bishop of Bauchi this February.

During the Episcopal ordination, held at the grounds of the Immaculate Conception Secondary School on the outskirts of town, Cardinal O’Brien read the appointment letter from the Vatican and installed the new bishop with a charge for him to lead the Church well and to ensure that justice is done for all. He said the choice of Mgr Goltok as the new bishop of Bauchi Diocese would help ensure that the work started by the late Bishop John Moore continued.

In his homily, Archbishop Matthew M Ndagoso of Kaduna, called on Catholic priests to make evangelisation their driving force because  there are many people who are yet to hear the good news of salvation.

Bishop John Goltok thanked the Pope for the assignment with a pledge to preach the Gospel no matter the difficulties that may arise.

Apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Augustine Kasujja, a native of Uganda, was among the honoured guests at the Mass, as was Bishop Goltok’s mother Margaret.

Cardinal’s message

During his visit to Nigeria Cardinal O’Brien spoke fondly of the strong ties between Scotland and Bauchi, and of the Scottish priests and religious who volunteered as missionaries.

“For almost 50 years now there has been a bond of love and friendship between our two dioceses—forged by two great bishops, both now dead, Cardinal Gordon Joseph Gray of St Andrews and Edinburgh and Bishop John Reddington of Jos,” the cardinal said at the installation. “Those links so strongly forged have continued down to our own time.”

The cardinal, who himself volunteered for missionary work in Bauchi shortly after his ordination as a priest in 1965, made his first visit to the region after his appointment as a bishop in 1985. He returned with one of the Scottish priests who had served in Bauchi, Canon Leo Glancy to install the new bishop last week.

Bauchi and Edinburgh

While initial evangelisation of the Bauchi area was by SMA missionaries in the 1950s, in 1957 Gordon Joseph Gray, then Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, invited the young priests of the archdiocese to volunteer for temporary service on the Missions as a response to the earlier plea of Pope Pius XII for churches to help in missionary work. Several did so and served in Nigeria.

Funding for the Bauchi project and the support of the mission there was undertaken by one of the Edinburgh priests, who had worked in Calabar, namely Mgr Daniel Foley.

“He really made the name ‘Bauchi’ a name that was on the lips of everyone in the archdiocese—particularly concentrating in parishes and schools on the necessity of Friday pence/penance for Bauchi,” Cardinal O’Brien said.

Mgr Foley was later appointed national director of Missio Scotland.

In October 1983 Bishop Ganaka came to Edinburgh to celebrate a great Mass of Thanksgiving in Ingliston to mark 25 years of archdiocesan missionary service since 1957. He thanked Cardinal Gray for adopting Bauchi in its infancy and took over responsibility for the financing and staffing of the Church in Bauchi. Scottish priests continued to minister in Bauchi until 1986.

Bishop John Moore was appointed to the Apostolic Vicariate of Bauchi in 1996. Bauchi Diocese was established on December 31 2003 and formally inaugurated on March 11 2004 in a ceremony that included the installation of Bishop John Moore as bishop of the new diocese.

Bishop Moore died in Dublin, Ireland on January 20, 2010, aged 68 years.

Remembering Scottish priests

Upon returning home this week, Cardinal O’Brien told the SCO that he hoped that the new bishop would one day visit Scotland ‘to thank in person many of the people responsible for the early missionary endeavours in Bauchi.’

He added that no visit to Bauchi would be complete without a visit to the Cathedral of St John the Evangelist.

“There, with the new bishop we prayed silently before the grave of Fr John Gibbons, one of the first Edinburgh priests in Bauchi, who died after a road accident in Bauchi town; and also prayed before the memorial stones in memory of the late Mgr Danny Simpson and Bishop John Moore, the first bishop of Bauchi, erected nearby in the grounds of the cathedral,” he said.

— To read Cardinal O’Brien’s first-hand account of the visit go to http://sconews.co.uk/opinion/ bauchi-cardinal-obrien/