The Pope Made Him A Bishop, But Local Catholics Have Rejected Him
A new church leader in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing opposition from local clergy and churchgoers who insist that a new bishop should be a native of the region — and now, the Vatican is getting involved.
Even though Emmanuel Ngona Ngotsi was appointed by Pope Francis as the bishop of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Wamba Diocese in January 2024 and consecrated eight months later by Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, he has yet to fully assume his role.
Ngotsi was born in the Province of Ituri. Ituri borders Haut-Uélé province, where the diocese of Wamba is headquartered, to the northwest. Both provinces have seen violent attacks by armed groups such as the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which have displaced millions.
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Amid this backdrop of uncertainty, Bishop Ngotsi was appointed. His appointment came after Bishop Janvier Kataka Luvete, who was born in Zambia, retired in 2024 at the age of 76 after leading the diocese for nearly 30 years.
Although Ngotsi is Congolese, Wamba clergy and laity still see him as an “outsider” because he is not a native of the area. This rejection based on ethnic sentiment is at the center of the crisis in the Wamba diocese, and critics argue that the crisis, if unresolved, has the potential of dividing the Catholic community in the area.
The Wamba diocese was erected on March 10, 1949. The last available statistics, as of 2023, showed that the diocese has 58 priests and nearly 365,000 Catholics in 25 parishes. Due to the tension triggered by the unresolved crisis, however, the Vatican Dicastery for Evangelization suspended the formation of seminarians in the Wamba diocese “until further notice”. The Vatican specifically noted that the “formation of future priests in such a difficult ecclesial environment would be entirely inappropriate.”
The Vatican has also intervened. In mid-October, for example, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo visited the Wamba diocese at the request of the Holy See to defuse the tension. There, he appealed to the Catholics in the diocese to allow Bishop Ngotsi to assume his role as the local ordinary of the diocese.
The crisis in the diocese of Wamba is not the first time such controversy has been seen in Africa. After Pope Benedict XVI appointed Peter Ebere Okpaleke as the bishop of Nigeria’s Ahiara diocese in 2012, local priests and catholic faithful in the diocese rejected the bishop. Like the Wamba diocese, Catholics in Ahiara insisted that their bishop must be chosen from among the local priests or a member of the Mbaise ethnic group that dominates the diocese.
The crisis festered, however, forcing Pope Francis, in 2017, to give the local priests 30 days to write a letter to the Vatican promising obedience to him and accepting Okpaleke or face suspension.
Although the priests wrote the letter, they still rejected Okpaleke. The unresolved crisis eventually led Okpaleke to resign as bishop of the diocese on Feb. 14, 2018. Five days later, Pope Francis accepted Okpaleke’s resignation as Bishop of Ahiara diocese and appointed him bishop of another Nigerian diocese in 2020. Two years later, Pope Francis elevated Okpaleke to the rank of cardinal.
The recent development in the Wamba diocese raises concerns as to the cultural perspective to the opposition of the bishop. Although culture is deeply sensitive and respected in Africa, Father Zachariah Fufeyin, a catholic priest in Nigeria’s Bomadi diocese, said Christians, particularly Catholics, should be careful not to “turn culture into a religion,” otherwise they risk losing the truth about Christianity.
Fufeyin said the rejection of a bishop by priests and lay faithful has “dangerous” implications with the potential to promote discrimination and disunity in the church.
“We believe the catholic church is a universal church and there is no discrimination or segregation. Scripture tells us that there is no longer a Jew or Gentile; we do things together,” he told Religion Unplugged.
“We are going to restrict development and the sincere spirituality of Catholicism if we [limit] it to ‘this person is not from my place,’” he added. “It’s a dangerous way of life [and] it goes against the core values of Christianity.”
Fufeyin said the clergy and lay faithful who rejected the bishop are “selfish”. Such an attitude, he said, does not align with the teachings and practices of the church.
“Togetherness cannot work in segregation,” he said. “They [those opposing the bishop] should learn from Rome; the pope is picked from any part of the world.”
In the face of this crisis, however, Fufeyin urged the church “to continually be firm” and “we must be sincere with our selection process [and] not allow people to influence the selection process in a negative way.”
But to prevent situations like this from occurring in other dioceses in Africa, Fufeyin said the church “must” invest more in catechesis to help Catholic faithful on the continent have a deeper understanding of the tenets and core values of the church.
Ekpali Saint is a freelance journalist based in Nigeria and regular contributor to Religion Unplugged.