54
year old Very Reverend Father Peter Zuni of the Queen of Apostles
Catholic Church, Kakuri parish, Kaduna State, was recently disrobed and
sacked by the Archbishop of the Kaduna Archdiocese, Bishop Ndagoso
Manoso (pictured above) after his secret wife stormed the church to
disclose her secret relationship with the Catholic priest.
The
news came as a shock to the church because according to the doctrine of
the Catholic Church, only unmarried men are ordained into the
priesthood as they are obligated to swear to an oath of celibacy and
observe perfect and perpetual service for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven. This, it is believed, would enable the priests to easily remain
close to Christ with an undivided heart, and dedicate themselves more
freely to the service of God and the congregation.
to The Sun, one of the wives is already late while the surviving one
who blew the whistle about three weeks ago over the secret marriage is
said to be nursing a child for the embattled priest.
Father Zuni’s second wife had approached him in his office with a baby
and claimed Zuni was the father of her child. After due investigation by
his office, it was confirmed that the priest was her secret husband.
is very unfortunate that this thing had to happen in my diocese. It is
not an easy thing for me; if I tell you what I have been going through
in the past few weeks over this issue; it has not been easy for me.
Father Zuni was my classmate; we spent seven years in the seminary. At a
time he proceeded to Kaduna Polytechnic and read Accounting.
But
this thing happened and nobody knew. But he has to face the sanction.
We sacked and disrobed him because what he did is no longer compatible
with his vocation as a priest. It was not true that he was transferred
to any village. He was about to be transferred on normal routine, but
when I heard of this story, I had to cancel the transfer and sacked
him. It
is true that he had affairs with two women and they both had children
for him, but one of the women is late already. We are not God, we did
not know on time until now that he was having affairs with two women. The
church said the priest has to go because the church doesn’t allow
priests to marry. So he had to go and look after his children and his
matrimonial home. You
can now imagine what the priest is going through, either spiritually or
psychologically. He must be going through hell on earth. This is my
concern for him now. The woman and the kids will be going through trauma
also. I
have been trying to see how I can help him, but I don’t think I have
the skills to help him. But he needs help to come to terms with
reality. By
December he will be 30 years in the priesthood, and he is now 54 years
old, so at this age what can he do with his life. Nobody can employ him
now. He spent seven years in the seminary and 30 years in the
priesthood, and that is 37 years, so what can he do with his life at 54?
The church too is going through a lot of trauma, so we need everybody’s
prayers for us to put this incident behind us.”he said in tears
denied nor confirmed the allegation. In a telephone interview he said
“I find it difficult myself to believe what people are saying about me. I
will not comment on it now. I will follow due process to invite you for
an interview, but I am afraid, the newspaper of the archdiocese, The
Cross News, may carry this story before you (Sunday Sun)”.
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