1. Exactly 40 years ago today, Archbishop Francis Anizoba Arinze was created a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II, thus becoming the second Nigerian prelate to be elevated to the Sacred College, after Dominic Ekandem who became a Cardinal on May 24, 1976.
2. Arinze’s creation as a Cardinal on May 25, 1985, came barely a year after Pope John Paul II invited him from Onitsha to Rome to head the Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians (which later became the Pontifical Council and now Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue).
3. In an interview some years ago, Arinze indicated that Pope John Paul II had apparently wanted him to come to Rome since after the pope’s 1982 visit to Nigeria. Arinze headed the office for Interreligious Dialogue for 17 years before going to serve as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 2002-2008.
4. Of the 28 Cardinals created in the 1985 Consistory, Arinze is one of only three who are still alive. The others are French Cardinal Paul Poupard (94 years old) and German Cardinal Friedrich Wetter (97 years old). Of these, only Arinze is a Cardinal Bishop.
5. The distribution of the 28 Cardinals created in the 1985 Consistory are: 5 from Italy, 2 from USA, 2 from Germany, 2 from France, 2 from Poland, 2 from Canada, and 1 each from India, Nigeria, Chile, Nicaragua, Spain, Belgium, Philippines, Ethiopia, Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union, Venezuela, Netherlands, and Austria.
6. In the second frame below, hanging on the wall of his Vatican residence, Cardinal Arinze is pictured showing me the 6 Nigerian bishops that attended his creation as a Cardinal, including Cardinal Ekandem, Bishop Anthony Gbuji, and Arinze’s successor in Onitsha, Archbishop Stephen Ezeanya.
7. May God bless His Servant the Cardinal @ 40.
© Omokugbo Ojeifo
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