by Christiana Gokyo, Jos
The Catholic Archdiocese of Jos prepares to celebrate 90 years of the ‘birthday’ of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church Jos, which was consecrated on October, 1933. It was the first Catholic Church in the present-day Plateau State (North East).
While fielding questions from our correspondent recently in Jos, on the celebration of the 90 years of its existence as a Church, the Parish Priest, Very Rev Fr. Anthony Fom, asserted that, “It is an important Church in the real sense of the word, because that was where the missionaries first started and settled in order to go and open different other parishes.”
“If you look at that time, Jos was not the Jos of today; it was just beginning to become a town with mining activities from the history as of 1933 when the Parish was started. We had only eleven (11) indigenous Catholics,” he explained.
According to him, “Then, if you look at the Church now, you cannot build that Church for 11 people, because it is so huge. The Priest, who actually built it then, said it was going to be the Church of the future.
“If you look at it 90 years after, within the Jos area, St. Theresa is one of the smallest Churches in terms of size. So, St Theresa’s that was the ‘Church of the future’ has now given birth to a very big child that is now a small grandfather,” he stressed.
It is a Church that has a lot of history behind it and, if you see the structure of the St. Theresa, it’s still as it was when they build it – it’s still looking strong and solid, and the architectural design is better than most Churches in the Archdiocese of Jos and beyond,” he noted.
“So, St. Theresa one can say is a Church whose importance cannot be overemphasized because the people, who started it, are White’s, and then the Nigerians, who followed to become part of it with time to those, who are members of St. Theresa’s today, have done immaculately well.
“I am talking about the pay people; they contributed remarkable towards the development of the Church. Fr. Cylinger – a white Irishman – was the first Parish Priest at that time.
But as for Fr. Cylinger, he said to me, “I do not know the number of Priests that have served in St. Theresa’s Parish, and it would be very difficult to know because of one reason.”
The Parish Priest further explained that, “We Nigerians are not very good historians, we are not very good in keeping records, but me to find that out, if we had a book that all the records of Priests were written, it would have been very easy for me to calculate.
“From Jos Diocese, for sure we had Yola, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Shendam, Pankshin, Jalingo, recently Wukari, Kafanchan, Lafia and Makurdi. It may be more than that, depending on how.
Very Rev Fr Anthony Fom noted thus: “I don’t know to what extent the missionaries went to the Southwest. I am aware of the Northeast and North Central and I know the whole of the Northeast was organized by the Missionaries.”
Furthermore, he said, “About 67 Parishes are on the Plateau for now, and I do not know the number of Parishes in Pankshin and Shendam because they left Jos Archdiocese. Pankshin was created about 7 or 8 years ago after the creation of Shendam Diocese out of Jos Archdiocese.
“If you look at St Theresa’s itself, within the compound of the Church, that was where OLA Hospital of today started. So, if you look at healthcare foremost centers, these were started by the Catholic Church and in the compound of St. Theresa’s Parish.
“And, if you talk about education, St. Theresa’s boys and St. Theresa’s girls are two schools with the same name. It was started in those days by those in the early years in the Parish, like Tapgun was a pupil of St. Theresa’s boys and many other prominent sons and daughters of Plateau State,” he stated.
Very Rev Fr. Fom reiterated that, “So, you cannot talk of education in Plateau without mentioning the Catholic Church, because by the time they spread from St Theresa’s to go and build a Church in Shendam, Pankshin Zawan, Bukuru Cathedral, every of this Churches had a school attached – Shendam, Pankshin, Fatima and Bukuru, among others.
“In fact, in those days, education and evangelization went hand-in-hand because mostly it’s within the school setting that children were taught the doctrines like Catechism.”
The Parish Priest further explained that, “Before other Churches would come, in fact the Catholic Church already had the roots of Christianity through its educational system and, likewise, Our Lady of Apostles (OLA) Hospital – the one in Shendam is now a Government Hospital; it was started by the Church so that you did not come to Jos for treatment.
“The Shendam was before the Zawan OLA Hospital; so, both education and healthcare were actually the foundation-laying in Plateau State. So, the significance of St. Theresa’s cannot be overemphasized.
“The Church has played a really great role, and we should be grateful to God to have given us the opportunity as a Church to contribute to human development and, while we prepare for eternal life, we should pray and thank God for those, who have gone before us and sacrificed so much.
“We should thank God for people today, who are still sacrificing and doing a lot for the well-being of humanity in this part of the world. And I feel very happy that I have this opportunity to celebrate the Birthday of St. Theresa, while being the Parish Priest.
“This is not my first time of been in St. Theresa; I was an Assistant Parish Priest here, in 1995, the Assistant of Monsgnr Prof. Cletus Gotan, and that was my first time working in St. Theresa’s.
“We thank God, with the reduced number, following the crisis witnessed within the township so many years back. The Catholic Church is doing well and thanks to the effort of those, who went before us and those, who are there now. Regardless of how few, we are still the Mother Church,” he stressed.
Very Rev Fr. Fom then advised Christians generally, that, they should all continue to do their best because, as he put it, “The Church is not a theatre for politics; the Church is a place where we prepare ourselves for eternal life. So, whatever we do is part of the preparation; so, whatever we do, let us be sincere.”