Kirjahaku

A key figure in that country and in that growth, up to his death in 1995, was Cardinal Ekandem, the first Anglophone West-African bishop - the first of many - and an outstanding churchman of the 20th Century.Fr Michael Edem's scholarly biography of the Cardinal is a fascinating account of a journey from life in a traditional African village to the consistory of cardinals of the Catholic Church in Rome.It will be of enormous interest to a wider public for the author's personal knowledge of the cardinal and of the Efiok/Ibibio culture in which they both grew up.

The above named book is on the First Nigerian Cardinal who grew up in Ibibio Traditional Religion and cultural context where his father, a Paramount Ruler had 33 wives and drove them away to create chance for his son Dominic to proceed to the priesthood. Dominic had gone home because of the situation of the family. His priestly journey erupted an untold eroism and unimaginable resilience that influenced the entire nation after his priestly ordination on December 7th 1947. He became the First Anglophone West African Bishop and later the First Nigerian Cardinal. He used all the resources at his disposal to sow the seeds of evangelization that exploded and engulfged the whole country leading to Vocation Boom after the Nigerian-Biafran Civil War. He established the first Indigenous Missionary Priests, MISSIONARIES OF ST. PAUL. This Congregation has encircled virtually the whole globe. The vision of Cardinal Ekandem is bearing fruits uperabundantly. Father Murray SPS taught me how to accept failure and not to be carried off by success. He left this as a dictum.