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Full text of Pope’s declaration

 

Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last…

The writer V.S. Naipaul recently published a book, The Masque of Africa that is supposedly based on his recent visits to African countries like Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Gabon and South Africa. These travels were allegedly to discover the “nature of African belief” according to this review of the book by Sameer Rahim in the UK Telegraph. Rahim gives the clear impression that this book does not improve upon the silence. It is the same tired, stereotypical garbage about Africa and civilizations of color. You wonder if at 80 years of age, Naipaul is finally losing it.

The drama Naipaul records in the book is cringe-worthy: In Gabon, his legs give way and someone attempts to transport him in a broken wheelbarrow. Give us a break! The sad truth is that ever since Naipaul was born among the wretched of the earth, as he would probably put it…

Do you chase that other Eden,
ruled by nine sisters, that dreaming place
that swims just past wave-kissed vision,
where women pose as mermaids
and stretch their arms over the Atlantic?

This is the heart of legend, spawning the ore
used to forge the sword in the stone:
the land of mist and promises,
where kings are made,
where all journeys end.

There are no more golden apples.
We know earth is earth, stone hard
and bone-breaking beautiful
if we take our eyes from the grail,
from the ideas that swallow us deeper
than any big fish and do not release us,
spat up on the shore
where we are called to be prophets,
gasping, wet, stinking of the sea;
but instead break us down,
acid eating even our bones.

The magic of all quests is the quest,
the things learned along the way,
not the won object winking and whispering
eternal salvation, immortal…

it stared them in the face As if daring them to be rid of it it made a mockery of them every step of the way One garment day in and out in the midst of flashy Colors and spring like pastels It haunted them in the dark when power was out for lack of payment it taunted them as if daring them to do something about it and laughed in their faces when they sat motionless Unable to speak or refute its presence Unable to move or break from its crippling effect breaking them in pieces night after night when empty refrigerators stared them in the dark It called out to them in the night when stomachs rumbled and tiny tummies ached from hungry days and starved nights that had Lost count and begun to feel "normal" It made a mockery of them as a whole And individually from…

Note: Reproduced here for archival purposes only. First published in 2006.

I write this for James Meredith, the distinguished first black student of OLEMISS, and for John Hawkins, the distinguished first black Cheerleader of OLEMISS. Courage counts for something. Yes!

My time is no longer mine and I miss my Muse running alongside my railroad tracks urging me to say something, anything. In between stealing sideways glances at my Muse and struggling mightily to satisfy demons born of my life’s choices, I have managed to hold on to just one passion – reading. I just finished reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new book, Half of a Yellow Sun and if I don’t read another book for a long time, memories of this epic tome will keep me warm in the hibernation of the coming winter. But first, before I slink off into the trenches of my own doing, I must rise…

For our father, Corporal Ohanugo, you who never came back to the children of the barracks…

[In which I compile my  various thoughts on Professor Chinua Achebe’s book, There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra culled from my numerous postings on Twitter, Facebook and listserves. This is intended to serve primarily as a historical archive of my views. So I (we) may not forget.]

I enjoyed reading Chinua Achebe’s memoir, There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra. Many devotees of Achebe will recognize several chapters from previous essays; however he does a good job of putting them together to tell a majestic story. It is an important book, one that should adorn every thinker’s book shelf or e-reader. What I am going to say here  is not a review or critique of the book; I don’t think that the world could stand yet another review of…

Guest Post by Robert Nathan

To be 419′ed is to be fooled. Duped. Swindled. At least that’s the meaning as far as Nigerian slang is concerned — of which this book has plenty on offer. The question is: does Will Ferguson’s Giller-winning novel deliver on the award hype, or does it 419 us? The answer is… yes. “419” begins when a hapless Calgarian falls for a Nigerian email scam (for more info, see your spam folder from ten years ago). He subsequently ruins his finances and offs himself, setting in motion a quest that will see his surviving daughter, Laura, attempt to find out who is responsible.

there are no easy answers
but who is asking–
when no one is blamed
but the shooter
we can arm or disarm
we can reify
& never rectify
the flaw in the machine

it’s not the absence of God
in our schools–
our schools are full of gods.
It’s conscience we’re lacking,
all of us jaded & bloated in
humanity so big we can’t see the other
as a we, as an I in different skin;

until we say us
instead of society, instead of them,
instead of the other
until we say me
& own this thing

that makes saints or monsters
giving some too much

& others too little
of what makes us us

we are in no way through this

God is easy
when we use Him
to explain what’s wrong here

we love putting words
in His mouth
to suit our politics
and explain prejudice

but if He  spoke, just spoke to us
about how we are the problem
like He did once, in common language
and incarnate
how we own it in our nature
chained to us tighter than breath

we would miss the point again
and, worse than pharisees
we would kill Him again

without the propriety of a trial,
we would lynch Him
or put Him in front of a firing squad

if He spoke

good thing then
that when He comes back
next time, he will be unkillable
and He says
He’s bringing friends