Mr. James Ogbonna!

President of the Diocese of Sacramento's Nigerian Igbo Catholic Community.

"He told CWR that the Nigerian Civil War (1967 - 1970)..."

Impacted mainly the Igbo tribe of the country...

"We lost over a 1,000,000 people."



Adapted from The Catholic World Report, Jeff Ziegler's article "Nuns Worldwide." October 2009.

The wonderfully strange fruits of the chronically violent and bloody African political upheaval that lasts for entire decades consists in an outpouring of religious vocations, for women as well as for men.

As the author comments below:

"Similarly tragic circumstances have also helped account for the surge in women's religious vocations in Nigeria, according to James Ogbonna, president of the Diocese of Sacramento's Nigeria[n ] Igbo Catholic Community.

"He told CWR that the Nigerian Civil War (1967 - 70) impacted mainly the Igbo tribe of the country very badly in terms of loss of life and property. We lost over a million people. The surviving members of the Igbo tribe embraced the Christian religion in appreciation to God for saving them from the horrors of war. This high religious expression at that period jump - started a boom in vocations to the priesthood and [to] the religious life..."