Nigeria’s newest cardinal shares secret behind the highest Mass attendance in the world
After Nigeria was recognized as having the highest Mass attendance in the world, the African nation’s youngest cardinal has shared some of the secrets behind his country’s vibrant sacramental life.
A recent study found that 94% of Nigeria’s 30 million Catholics say they attend Mass at least weekly or more, while only 17% of American Catholics attend Mass weekly.
Cardinal Peter Ebere Okpaleke, 59, who leads the southern Nigerian diocese of Ekwulobia, sees three key factors behind the active participation of Catholics in Nigeria.
In an interview with CNA when the cardinal was in Rome this month, Okpaleke said that he believes Nigeria’s traditional worldview, the role of the family, and a sense of community within parishes have kept Nigerians close to the sacraments generation after generation.
Awareness of God’s presence
Nigerian society as a whole has “a traditional worldview” that recognizes the presence of God in life and society, according to Okpaleke. Nigerians have not lost sight of how the spiritual world imbues everyday life.
“There is a general awareness of the role of the divine in human life. It is this awareness that translates into Mass attendance for Catholics, who come to Mass to encounter Christ in the Eucharist,” the cardinal said.
He noted that high Mass attendance “cuts across income brackets” with the poor and the rich, the uneducated and the educated all drawn to the sacraments by a shared desire for God.
In other parts of the world where secularization has atrophied a culture’s sense of the divine, the Church can benefit by emphasizing how it is a “gateway” that fulfills the “inner hunger in the human being to relate to the divine,” he said.
