Why is Archbishop Esua Visiting Chicago?

By Innocent Chia The first right answer to the title question would be that Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua of Bamenda comes to pray for, and bless, Cameroonians and their friends in the Chicago land area. In a mass that will be holding at the St. Henry Catholic Church on the North Side of Chicago, the prelate will be lifting up Cameroonians in prayer. This is an important but small part of the prelate’s mission to the United States, even as he will be meeting with Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the current President of the US Catholic Conference of Bishops. Archbishop Esua will be visiting also a number of other cities and States where Cameroonian communities are equally finalizing hosting arrangements.

In a one-on-one chat with the Coordinator of the Archdiocese’s North American headquarters, Michael Neba (PhD) gave a sneak-preview to The Chiareport of some revolutionary paradigm changes that the Bamenda Archdiocese is feverishly working on. According to Michael Neba, who also has pastoral power as an ordained Deacon of the Catholic Church at St Henry in Chicago, the impetus is to have a Church that, in serving God, serves God’s Creation even more effectively, efficiently, and in a manner that is self-sustaining. 

Core areas highlighted in a draft working document by officials of the Archdiocese indicate that Education, Evangelization, Health Care and Human Resource Development remain the focus of the Church. However, the Archdiocese desires to streamline operations such that needs are not only met effectively, but that projections into the future are defined. It is within this framework that the draft document defines key areas of interest, challenges, lays out a vision, a plan of action, outlines existing initiatives that can benefit the challenge, and fleshes out opportunities for future use. 

In the area of evangelization, for instance, top challenges include the lack of transportation for the implementation of the Provincial Pastoral Plan in the Archdiocese, as well as the absence of resources and adequate skill sets to develop implementation material. The drafted proposed vision is to have laity participating in the work of evangelization according to their different charismas. A plan of action includes setting up offices and training required personnel. 

An area where the church has generally led, long before the government and private practices have followed, is in health care. The legions of challenges include making basic health care accessible; insufficient doctors to man healthcare centers or clinics; high costs of healthcare; lack of specialized medical staff; problems of malnutrition; and growing incidence of epilepsy, sickle cell and mental health care. Part of the vision, going forward includes a reduction of the doctor to patient ratio; better training of qualified personnel; construction of specialized hospitals / clinics and purchasing of specialized ambulances; and establishment of mental health clinics. 

There is also a determination by the Church to compliment the healthcare services with much needed social services in order to lighten the burden on the less privileged. 

Finally, the Church is unwavering in its commitment to educate the populace. To this effect it notes several challenges including illiteracy levels among adults; disproportionately low numbers of girls attending school in the rural communities; the need for more technical and vocational training at secondary school level; and lack of financial resources to source qualified staff. The vision heretofore is to build appropriate schools at all levels, from nursery through University. 

The Archbishop’s US visit therefore features a full plate and, as much as he will be praying for Cameroonians, their families and respective communities, he will need the prayers of one and all. Before Chicago on the 18th, the Archbishop will be in Detroit from July 11-13 and in the Maryland / DC area from 14-17. Thereafter, he will grace Houston from the 24-26, Los Angeles from the 27-30 and Minnesota from July 31 through August 2. Immediaely following mass in Chicago, there will be a combo reception and fundraiser.

Comments

[Asafor Valentine]

Yes my dear writer, and brother, this an opportunity to ask the millenium question,Why has the Catholic Church in cameroon taken a profitable dimension? The Catholic Primary,Secondary,High school and UNiversitis are for the rich.

[Sunday J.]

Look at the facts before you write. Long before these services became expensive, the government of Cameroon use to pay some subsidies to the Catholic church. The present administration stopped doing so and the church could not continue to bear the burden alone.For example,when Sacred Heart first opened, it was 36,000 francs cfa per year. 12,000 francs per term. Now, registration fee is 300,000 francs. The school houses the students and feeds them 3 square meals and provides a top quality education. Is that expensive? Can you do all that with 600,000 francs and no government assistance?

[Bob Bristol]

Sunday, what the hell are you talking about? The Catholic and Presbyterian churches in Cameroon are sucking the finances of parent who have been brainwashed to think that they offer the best quality education in Cameroon. There are a lot of private colleges requiring less than half of what these "mission colleges" demand. The situation couldn't have been lamentable if a reasonable amount of the income is used to pay the staff and provide other amenities. When we see Fathers and Sisters driving flashy cars while the teachers can afford bicycles, then we can say whether these organisations are exploitative or not.

[Asafor Valentine]

Bob you have said it all,let the wheel turn.no comments

[Sunday J.]

Bob,
Look at what you get from those private schools. Quality my friend is all we are talking about. I am not blind to the poor pay that mission schools pay their teachers. This could have been forestalled had your government stepped forward to assist financially. Secondly, mission schools don't run commercials asking parents to bring their kids to their schools. They allow the performance of the schools to be the selling point.Without these schools, many a Cameroonian will still be undereducated. Its that simple.

[Bob Bristol]

Sunday,
What quality are you talking about? Is it the question/answer approach that is highly speculative or is it the fact that these students have all their prescribed texts? Try this approach with other students and provide the necessary texts and enough time and some discipline and the result will be the same. I don't want to suspect that you're using this forum to lobby for gov't subvention but the enormous fees which they strategically extort from parent can improve the pay package of their teachers significantly.

An average Cameroonian child whose parent cannot afford to enroll
him/her in these mission colleges may find themselves having to deal with some house chores and other distractions back at home. Some go as far as doing some income generating activities but this doesn't make them less intelligent. It makes them smarter and more conversant with societal realities. That is why they easily sail through their university education than your "intelligent mission school students". You may not believe this but do your research and the answer will be obvious.

[Samm]

We can dispute the means of quality education provided by Catholic schools but we can dispute that students who graduate from these schools do better in many academic institutions they get in. I think you claim is unfounded that they dont saileasily through university education. compare in terms of ratio or percentage and gather statistics before you make your claim through If it was just a matter of specualtive questions and answers then it would have certainly ended with the schools when they leave. Compare the success ratio of students who graduated from schools like Scared Heart, Lourdes, Sasse and Bishop to name a few to other institutions they are unequal. At least that tells us they were not just drummed with some speculative memorable questions and answers as u purport to claim. I would agree with about the fees and teachers benefit that there is room for improvements. God bless you brothers. Sammy

[Sunday J.]

Bob,
Just to add to what Sam has written above. We are making reference here on quality, not intelligence. The latter is a theoretical undefined concept. When these parochial schools, be they Sacred Heart, CPC, St. Bedes or Lourdes set guidelines such as, we will only admit x number of students because we only have resources for that number, that means quality. When Long La opens its doors for a 1000 in coming students, but only have room or seats for say 600 students, that leaves room for question. Lets play the devil's advocate here. What if the government sets salary levels for all categories of teachers and these schools are unable to meet those pay scales and opted to close. Will we be better off? Isn't it better to have some of these kids whose parents are making heavy sacrifices receive a good education and hopefully will be able to market themselves globally and assist in the education of others, than not have a chance at all? We are never going to disagree on the pay issue. Its not as if the custodians of these schools are driving around Jaguars and Benzs. They need better means of mobility as their work load is often overwhelming. Lets not shot down the remaining glimmer of hope of what used to be a very good country.

[Asafor Valentine]

Good education without morals makes no sense, my dear brothers, Sunday it is instructive for us to note that the Catholic,Protestant,Baptist education has created a class society in cameroon.
Secondly,i do not see the goodness in it as mention by sunday, Most of our corrupt ministers, directors,doctors, talkless of paul biya whom i learn the father was a cathechist in a catholic mission, sponsored by a catholic Scholarship to france to read political corruption,they all went through mission schools, today we are experiencing corruption of its highest magnitude,in cameroon. Evil of sexuality,bad governnance,killing, occultism,incompetent is the theme of the day in cameroon.Where then is the morals we learn from the mission institutions? Tell me sunday? Fai yengo has been appointed the chairman of board of directors port authority, he turns around appoint his wife a director at the port of authority.Take note they all went through mission colleges,let alone the children all school in pss mankon. Acidi achu school in cpc bali, please don't tell me this shit.however i agree with sunday that the government has refuse to subsidise the mission colleges. The general impression is that the church is out there to help the poor and not for the rich.