Nigerian priest returns home to heal broken lives

BY MICHAEL WOJCIK
News Editor

CLIFTON - By high school Father Donsteve Nnagha was already considering a calling to Catholic priesthood in his native Nigeria but also was mulling over two other respected career paths - the military and becoming a doctor. The smart young man soon discovered that priests and doctors may have different and distinct skills and talents, but they both strive to achieve a common goal - to help heal people.

"I thought it would be better for me to serve God and his people by becoming a priest, who is a preacher and a doctor," said the 37-year-old Father Nnagha, a published author, who over this past year, was a parochial vicar St. Andrew Parish here, where he established a Bible study group. "Prescriptions for spiritual and physical healing include prayer and the Mass."

On Tuesday, Father Nnagha hopped a flight back to his beloved Nigeria to start a new chapter of his ministry, taking on the position of judicial vicar of his native Orlu Diocese. There, the tall, affable priest will help broken families start the healing process, in part by overseeing Orlu's marriage tribunal. In his new position, he also will attend to any of his diocese's canon law issues.

"People are not happy when they come to the tribunal. They've been traumatized by life's experiences," said Father Nnagha, who first arrived in Paterson in the summer of 2002 to minister as a church attorney in the diocesan tribunal, which mainly handles requests for marriage annulments. "I make sure I sit with them and listen to them with a box of tissues next to them. We relive the past so we can excavate it to get to what we're really looking at. Then the healing can begin."

Armed with a doctorate in canon law with first-class honors from the Pontifical Lateran University, Vatican City, the well-educated Father Nnagha returns to Orlu understanding that "there are elements of mercy and charity at the tribunal."

"We are compassionate. We are not judging people," said Father Nnagha, who also earned a licentiate in canon law and a post-graduate diploma in Rota jurisprudence from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome. "We are helping people to get out of their problems and get a new lease on life."

In turn, Father Nnagha's friends around the diocese have helped the new judicial vicar by making contributions to his ministry back in Nigeria. A few St. Andrew's parishioners also have expressed interest in contributing, he said.

"Here in the Paterson Diocese, I was preparing for a great task," said Father Nnagha, who served the diocese in the summers from 2002 to 2004 and then for a year at St. Andrew's, all to help defray the costs of his extensive education. "I feel overwhelmed by the scope of my responsibilities in my new position. In Orlu, we have very little staff, resources and equipment to enable us to carry out our ministry."

"St. Andrew's and other parishes have been happy to help Father Donsteve and his diocese prepare for his important job," said Msgr. Richard Rusconi, St. Andrew's pastor. "St. Andrew's has been happy to have him here and we wish him well."

While serving Paterson during the summers, Father Nnagha had learned more intimately about different facets of physical and spiritual healing as a chaplain at both Morristown Memorial Hospital and St. Clare's Hospital, Denville.

"I learned to be near the sick and help them," said Father Nnagha, who in years past stayed at Assumption Parish, Morristown. "I learned to tolerate the attitude of sick people. Sometimes they 'lash out' and don't appreciate what you are doing. I also learned to deliver a prompt response to patients' needs soon after they request it."

Also the author of "Communion and Service in the Church," an 86-page book published last year, Father Nnagha added, "When I would go home at the end of the day (from his hospital ministry), I would think about the people I helped - being there for people before they died or comforting grieving families. I felt good about contributing to their happiness."

At an early age, Father Nnahga began to feel the happiness of God's call to priesthood. At 12 years old, he entered St. Mary's Minor Seminary in his hometown of Orlu Imo. Faith permeated the young boy's home led by his late parents, Sir Don, a Catholic mission school principal, and his mother, Eunice, who was "a pious and a charitable woman." Both parents, "committed Catholics," belonged to the Knights of St. John, much like the Knights of Columbus in the U.S.

"I was influenced by the diocesan priests who taught my father. My father had a close relationship with the priests. It also was the way my father received those priests," said Father Nnagha, who has eight siblings, one of whom is a sister who followed the Lord's calling to consecrated life as a religious sister of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, Nigeria's first indigenous religious order. Nigeria, home to about 150 million people, is evenly split between two religious groups - Muslims and Christians, about 30 percent of whom are Catholics.

After briefly considering careers in medicine and the military, Father Nnagha finished his priestly studies at Seat of Wisdom Major Seminary in Owerri Imo. In 1995 he was ordained in his hometown by Orlu Bishop Gregory Ochiagha, who later allowed the young priest to pursue his further studies and to serve in the Paterson Diocese.

After ordination, Father Nnahga was parochial vicar of a local parish in the Orlu Diocese, before earning a master's degree in theology at the Catholic Institute of West Africa, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He returned to the diocese as pastor of a Holy Trinity Parish, in the town of Ogboko, while also serving as diocesan financial administrator. As pastor there, he established Loyola Academy, completed a convent and invited an order of religious sisters to staff the parish's elementary school. He also promoted the lay apostolate.

That Eucharist-centered sense of Christian mission, specifically for the clergy, is the cornerstone of Father Nnagha's book, "Communion and Service in the Church," which he had published last year to mark his 10th ordination anniversary. Three years in the making, the book gives priests the "pastoral and canonical underpinnings of their bond with their dioceses and with the people of God," said the priest, who now is writing another book for the clergy about the sacraments and the sacramentals of the Church.

Last week at St. Andrew's, Father Nnagha reflected on his service to the Paterson Diocese over the years as he was packing up his personal effects and the donated materials for his new judicial vicar ministry.

"The people of St. Andrew's and the diocese have been wonderful and have made me feel welcome," Father Nnagha said. "I feel at home at St. Andrew's and in this diocese."