Interviewed by Emmanuel F. Sanosi
Archbishop Cornelius Esua has just celebrated the Silver Jubilee of his Episcopal ordination. Shortly before the anniversary celebrations began in earnest, L’Effort Camerounais, elbowed its way through the teeming crowd of Christians and well wishers, who wanted to personally wish His Grace a happy anniversary, and managed to squeeze through a few questions to the prelate. Excerpts
You must be feeling exceptionally happy today. Please tell us what it is like.
I feel very grateful, first to God, who has given me the grace to become a bishop and who has stood by me through all these years of challenges and service to His people.
How do you fine Bamenda after those long years in Kumbo?
Bamenda is great but Kumbo, where I began the Episcopal Ministry will always be my first love. However, as the Holy Father sent me to Kumbo without my asking, so he has sent me to Bamenda without my asking and I must continue to serve with the same zeal here as I did in Kumbo.
How are you managing those nostalgic feelings?
Actually, it is like leaving one’s first wife for a new one. The feeling of nostalgia can, sometimes, be very difficult to handle. But God has accompanied me all this time and He understands our human weaknesses and makes room for such things. As you can see, I am quite well now – far better than when I just came from Kumbo and was not in very good health. If I had a choice I would have loved to stay on in Kumbo but as a servant of the Church that choice is not always ours to make.
After being Bishop of Kumbo for over two decades, it must be hard managing a bigger pastoral entity?
On the pastoral aspect, Kumbo is a smaller diocese, which was gradually built up to what it is today, unlike Bamenda which is bigger and was already well established and flourishing before I came. It is therefore natural that the challenges I am facing here are quite different in context and character especially as the archdiocese is a metropolis, which means the complexities are quite extensive and more delicate to handle.
In Kumbo there were difficulties but they were mainly difficulties arising from initiatives we were taking as we conceived things from scratch and we could afford to improvise or change strategies – here in Bamenda, the difficulties arise from already existing initiatives and it can be quite difficult to handle because we must consider every aspect very carefully before making any changes. Basically, it is a question of adapting to the new situation and I can say that I am doing quite nicely.
After the many challenges in Kumbo you have come to Bamenda with 24 years of experience and Christians in Bamenda are expecting to benefit from it. How expectant should they be?
They should keep their hope alive. With their collaboration, we shall continue the work that they began with my predecessor, Archbishop Emeritus Paul Verdzekov, who did an excellent job here. I am confident that with the spirit that reigns here, especially among the clergy and the inestimable support of the Lay Faithful, we shall strive to make our own valuable contributions to the immense work that Father Paul had already done.
Is there anything that you brought from Kumbo to Bamenda or that you find here which you like your former diocese to emulate?
I brought myself to Bamenda. You know that every diocese is different from the other but one good thing is that all the dioceses of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda have one pastoral plan, which means that we have a common plan of evangelisation and I will simply continue what I was doing in Kumbo. On a larger scale, and in view of the difference in size between Kumbo and Bamenda, there are slight variations since every diocese has its own peculiarities.
Talking about peculiarities, Bamenda in recent months has been in the spotlight as a result of its alarming crime wave, especially banditry. What can the Church do about this distressing situation?
What the Church does fundamentally is to give Christians a solid moral background through Christian education, so that they can learn to respect one another, their property and to avoid corruption and other social ills. I think on the whole, the rampant banditry in Bamenda is because of the very high level of poverty in the community and the lack of basic moral formation among the youths, many of whom have not gone to Christian schools.
How would you react to the allegation that the breakdown in moral values among the youths is due to the insufficient efforts of the Church in Christian formation?
The Church is doing its job as best it can but it is not receiving enough collaboration from other sectors to make this very important task more effective. I think if all the churches, not only the Catholic Church, could collaborate as far as moral education and constructing good families are concerned, there is going to be love and peace. There can be a great change for the better because most of the perpetrators of these crimes are children from broken homes, or homes where parents do not have time to properly bring up their children. They unfortunately abandon them to their own devices. Some of these criminals are children who do not even have homes and they engage in crime in order to survive. If the government could collaborate with the Church in the formation of youths, I think the situation will change for the better. Crime will gradually diminish and eventually disappear.
At the level of the pastoral plan, Kumbo had 25 parishes by the time you were leaving for Bamenda. Despite the extensive territory in your archdiocese, there are only 29 parishes, which is small when compared to Kumbo. Are you going to create more parishes?
We are working on that but you should know that parishes are not just created for the sake of creating them or to keep pace with other dioceses. Before creating a parish there are a number of conditions to be fulfilled. The area and the people there must conform to certain logistical and catechumenical exigencies for the parish to be sustainable. This means having the available finances for the infrastructural requirements, the personnel, a reasonable Christian population in the given area and other aspects. There is no doubt however, that there is still a lot to be done in Bamenda in this regard and I think in the coming years we shall be creating many more parishes.
What message do you have for Christians of Bamenda on this very special anniversary?
First, I thank them for having welcomed me with joy and I wish to tell them that I have come to Bamenda with joy. I also want to thank them for their prayers, especially for my recovery from the illness that had been plaguing me. I want to exhort them to keep up their good effort in the work they have been doing and to tell them that there is still quite a lot to be done, but that they should not be discouraged especially in the face of insufficient personnel. With the grace of God we shall find ourselves capable of doing all the work we need to do, especially if we collaborate with one another, as we have been doing these past months since my arrival here.
Emmanuel F. Sanosi
Source: http://www.leffortcamerounais.com, December 20, 2007