Welcome to the John Paul II Institute of Theology

SPEECH OF THE BISHOP OF BUEA AT THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE JOHN PAUL II INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY BUEA ON THE FEAST OF THE ARCHANGELS, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2007 AT 10 A.M.
 

My Brother and Sisters,
 
          Christ Crucified (1Cor. 1:23). This is what we preach. Christ is the power and wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:25). About Jesus Crucified, Pope Paul IV said in his homily in Manila on November 29, 1970: It is a long hymn of praise to the name of Jesus Christ.
          Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God. He reveals the invisible God, he the first born of all creation, the foundation of everything created. He is the teacher of Mankind, and its redeemer. He was born; he died and rose again for us.
          He is the center of History and of the world; he is the one who knows us and loves us; he is the companion and friend of our life. He is the man of sorrows and hope. It is he who will come and who one day will be our judge and we hope for the everlasting fullness of our existence, our happiness.
          I could never finish speaking about him: he is the light and the truth; indeed, he is the way the truth and the life. He is the bread and the spring of living water to satisfy our hunger and thirst. He is our shepherd, our guide, our model, our comfort, our brother. Like us, and more than us, he has been made little, poor, humiliated; he has been a worker, he has known misfortune and has been patient. For our sake he spoke, worked miracles and founded a new Kingdom where the poor are happy, where peace is the principle for living together, where the pure of heart and those  who mourn are raised up and comforted, where those who hunger and thirst after justice have their fill, where sinners can be forgiven, where all are brothers.
          Jesus Christ; you have heard him spoken of; indeed the greater part of you are already his: you are Christians. So to you Christians I repeat his name, to everyone I proclaim him: Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega; he is the King of the new world; he is the Secret of history; he is the Key to our destiny. He is the Mediator, the bridge between heaven and earth. He is more perfectly than anyone else the Son of Man because he is the Son of God, eternal and infinite. He is the Son of Mary, blessed among all women, his mother according to the flesh, and our mother through the sharing in the Spirit of his mystical body.
          Jesus Christ is our constant preaching; it is his name that we proclaim to the ends of the earth and through out the ages.”
          This is the main task of the Institute; to truly know Jesus and help others to know him also and live to like him.

PATRON. 

          The Venerable John Paul II is chosen as Patron of the Institute because he was one of the greatest bearers and preachers and witnesses of the Good News of Hope to everyone: individuals, small and great, rich and poor, children and adults, peoples and nations. He wrote well of Jesus Christ and that will remain until the end of time. The Institute intends to know and make known what he wrote for our edification. He is the model for the Institute. 

THE ORIGIN. 

The origin of the John Paul II Institute of Theology, Buea which we are inaugurating today goes back to the hearts of many of Christ Lay Faithful in the Diocese of Buea who had desired and kept, pondered and mused in their hearts the thoughts of a place where the could know more about their faith in order to better live it. Then on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 during the meal after the mass of the installation of the new Bishop of Buea, members of one table spent most of their time discussing the point about a school of Theology for the lay faithful. One person mentioned in the course of the conversation that some Christians were already descending every weekend to the Archdiocesan School of Theology for the Laity which was then in its second year of existence. The new Bishop responded saying: “In the near future it will not be necessary to go to Douala. We will study the possibilities of having a Theological School in Buea.
          Meetings about a Theological School for the Laity in Buea started in Buea in February 2007 but the one for the effective take off of the Institute was that of Advisory Board of the Institute on March 30, 2007 at 9:30A.M at the Bishop’s House in Soppo. The eight members of the Board were all present at the meeting.
          The Board based it s arguments on the Church’s life and teaching. Since all the baptized must grow in knowledge and love of God they must learn in Order to acquire this knowledge.
          Vatican Council II in No 10 #1 of its document on Christians Education says:
          The Church likewise devotes considerable care to higher level education, especially in Universities and faculties. Indeed in the institutions under its control the Church endeavours systematically to ensure that the treatment of the individual disciplines is consonant with their own principles, their own methods and with a true liberty of scientific enquiry. Its object is that a progressively deeper understanding of them may be achieved and by a careful attention to the current problems of these changing times and to the research being undertaken, the convergence of the faith and reason in the one truth may be seen more clearly.
          This method follows the tradition of the doctors of the Church and especially Saint Thomas Aquinas’. Thus the Christians out look should acquire, as it were, a public stable and universal influence in the whole process of the promotion of higher culture. The graduates of these institutes should be outstanding in learning, ready to undertake the more responsible duties of society and to be witnesses in the world to the true faith”
Canon 217 treats of the right to Catholic formation. Each member of the faithful has the responsibility to acquire and improve his Christian formation with the aim of realizing his or her vocation in the most efficacious way. For this reason he or she has the right to have access to schools of the Church and obtain there the appropriate academic degrees.

MISSION.

           The John Paul II Institute of Theology, Buea is a Catholic institution of higher learning for the growth in the Catholic faith and teaching.
          The institute offers courses in Sacred Scripture, Catechetics, Worship, Family, Spiritual Theology, Dogmatic Theology, Moral Theology, Canon Law, Church History and Patristics.

          The Institute requires as non- theological courses Introduction to Philosophy and Latin. Theology has not a language of its own that uses human expression as found in Philosophy. For centuries the Church did Philosophy in Latin and one of the root expressions in Latin. So for the purposes of clear language and expression these materials are added to the curriculum. To help and promote understanding field work concerning the human person in his present circumstances. To foster the community and spirit of sharing knowledge and other gifts in life with persons and institutions of the same bent.
          To help build up a stock of materials necessary for managing our different crisis. To know well the internal and external forces that weaken the faith so as to better withstand and overcome them.
          The Institute has as its main aim true knowledge and love and service of Jesus Christ. 

CONSTITUTION OF THE INSTITUTE.

            The constituent Bodies of the Institute are the Advisory Board made up of eight members of the following order:
            The Director of the Institute
            The Dean of Studies
            The Secretary/ Registrar
            The Financial Secretary
            The Staff Representative
            Two other Representatives.

A WORD OF WELCOME  PRESENTED BY THE DIRECTOR OF JOHN PAUL II
INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY ON THE OCCASION OF THE OFFICIAL INAUGURATION
AND LAUNCHING OF THE INSTITUTE.

Your Excellency, The Most Rt Rev.  Bishop of Buea.
Your Excellency, the representative of the Prime Minister,
Your Excellency the Governor of the South West Province,
Most Reverend Fathers,
Distinguished guests,
Brothers and sisters in Christ,

            In the Book of Proverbs we read, “Where there is no vision the people perish” (Prov. 29:18). Today, we are all gathered here to witness the realization of a dream come true, of a vision realized. When the Bishop of Buea started talking about the creation of an Institute of Theology  as soon as he took over as Chief Shepherd of the diocese of Buea, very few took him seriously. Little did we know that he is a man of vision and a man of action. There is no gainsaying that the opening of this institute marks a turning point in the life of the Church in the Diocese of Buea. As the founder himself has often expressed “Buea Diocese is the Mother Diocese of the province, it has vibrant Christians, the challenges are great but as Mother she has to be the “pace setter”. My Lord, we truly agree with you that Buea Diocese is unique. The Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon, Mgr Eliseo Arioti, had expressed the same sentiments when he visited the Diocese two years ago.  He commented after visiting all the dioceses in the country, that  Buea remained one of the most vibrant. The same Nuncio in his Homily on the day of the inauguration ceremony in which Bishop Pius Awa handed over the Episcopal baton to Bishop Immanuel Bushu as new Bishop of Buea had this to say:

“People of Buea Diocese, you will enjoy your new Bishop; you will never regret having him as your Bishop, he is the man that you need now, spiritual, simple, and understanding”.

 Today, we are living testimony of these words of the Prelate, delivered on the 30^th of January 2007.  There is no doubt that the changes that are going through in the Diocese are living testimony of the words of the Holy Father’s representative. May we use this opportunity to thank the Holy Father and His representative for giving us such a wonderful Bishop. We of the education family are extremely happy for the Bishop who has constantly challenged us to improve on the welfare of our teachers by reviewing their salaries and allowances. Further, to reach out to many by not making our colleges only for the elite and improve on our intake. Today we are proud to say that this has encouraged many principals to open their gates to many young people and some of our colleges like St Francis College Fiango are already counting more a thousand boarding students living happy together. And the teachers are also going on very happily because the Bishop has understood their plea and made positive adjustments to their salaries and administrative allowances. We have also seen the creation of new colleges such as Our Lady of Grace Secondary School Muyuka, St Joseph Evening College Buea, St Philomena Evening College Limbe, Christ the King Evening College Tiko and St Francis Evening College Kumba.  And here we are now with John Paul II Institute of Theology popularly known as JOPASIT.

 Many have been asking why such an Institute? Pope John Paul II, for which this institute is dedicated in his book “Crossing the Threshold of Hope” had expressed the urgent need of the church in the 21^st Century to embark on new forms of evangelization to face the new challenges that the contemporary world creates for the mission of the Church. The supreme Pontiff writes: 

“There exists today the clear need for a new evangelization. There is the need for a proclamation of the Gospel capable of accompanying man on his pilgrim way, capable of walking alongside the younger generation.”(John Paul II, (1994).Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Random House, New York, p. 113)

“The evangelization of the world involves an encounter with such a wide variety and complexity of different situations that very frequently, in concrete circumstances and for most people, only the Laity can be effective witnesses of the Gospel. Therefore, ‘the Laity are called in a special way to make the Church present and operative in those places and circumstances where only through them can she become the salt of the earth”(The Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses of Faith, Rome, 15^th October 1982, nos. 9.)

            Accordingly, the entire programme of the Institute has been worked out based on this vision of the founder to provide opportunities for Christians who desire it, to foster and deepen their faith in order that they may live it with conviction in a complex and technological age. To realize this vision of the founder, the Institute will organize each year a special package. This year, it will begin on the First Saturday of November – 3rd of November. This package which is a 3 year programme comprised into one year will give opportunities for Christians to know and deepen their faith in the shortest possible period. At the end of each year, they will be awarded an Attestation of Study. Remember, the goal is to form mature and informed Christians and people of goodwill who wish to follow the programme. Christians who wish to follow this one year intensive programme will register for 5,000 frs and provide a token tuition of 20,000 frs to be paid installmentally. This is meant to give opportunities to many Catholics as possible to know and deepen their faith so that they can adequately face the challenges of contemporary society particularly Molyko with one of the highest number of sects in the Diocese. 

For those who want a proper and comprehensive understanding of their faith, and have completed “A” Levels or its equivalent, they will enroll for a three year serious academic programme after which they will obtain a Higher Diploma in Education. Registration is 5,000 frs and tuition is 75,000 frs. Classes begin on Monday the 1^st of October 2007.
   I would like to assure everyone that the Institute is set with the facilities of a modern Institute of learning. After this ceremony, members are all invited to take a walk to the Institute campus.