A Nigerian bishop has withdrawn the ordination certificates of four men he ordained as deacons on July 12 after it was revealed he had been presented with allegedly forged documents claiming the men were qualified for holy orders. Source: CNA.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Lokoja Bishop Martin Dada Olorunmolu revoked the four men’s certificates and suspended their activities as “deacons”.
After the ordinations, it emerged that everything Bishop Olorunmolu was presented with – including the existence of the congregation the men supposedly belonged to called the “Paraclete Missionaries”, as well as the congregation’s superior general – was fraudulent.
“I was deceived,” the bishop said.
“On account of so much falsehood about the said diaconate ordination, I hereby decree that … the diaconate ordination certificates’ issued by me to the four men named above are hereby withdrawn with immediate effect,” the bishop’s statement said. “They are not to be recognised by any ecclesiastical authority or any other authorities, including civil ones.”
Bishop Olorunmolu said that all faculties inherent in being ordained deacons “are hereby suspended with immediate effect” and for “an indeterminate length of time”.
The bishop explained that he ordained the men at the request of a “Rev. Father Stephen Obioma Nwaigwe,” who presented himself to the bishop as the superior general of a religious institute called the Paraclete Missionaries.
“He [Nwaigwe] gave me falsified documents to make some claims which turned out to be false,” he said. “For instance, he showed me a forged document to claim that the Paraclete Missionaries were properly [established] as a religious institute.’”
The bishop said that soon after the diaconate ordination ceremony it was discovered that, before the ordination took place, one of the candidates had been “parading himself” at the military barracks in Lokoja as a priest and had even been “celebrating” Masses.
FULL STORY
‘I was deceived’: Bishop in Nigeria revokes ordination of deacons due to fraud (By Agnes Aineah, CNA)
