68. Francis Cardinal Arinze - 2024 Pro Fidelitate et Virtute Award Recipient

Started in 1986, the Pro Fidelitate et Virtue Award is conferred each year at the Institute on Religious Life’s National Meeting to someone who has been outstanding in the support and promotion of authentic religious life.

Today's episode is honoring our 2024 award recipient, Francis Cardinal Arinze.

Francis Cardinal Arinze was born on November 1, 1932 in Eziowelle, Onitsha, Nigeria. His vocation was greatly influenced by Blessed Michael Iwene Tansi, then a parish priest, later a Cistercian monk, who baptized Cardinal Arinze in 1941, heard his first confession and from his hands gave him his first communion. At the age of fifteen, Cardinal Arinze began his secondary studies at the junior seminary and was ordained in 1958 at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome where he eventually earned a Bachelors Degree in Theology, a masters degree and a doctorate degree, Summa Cum Laude.

In 1965, he was consecrated a bishop and later named Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Onitsha. He was the youngest bishop to attend the second Vatican Council. During the Nigeria/Biafra War (1967-1970), he administered, with the clergy and religious missionaries, the efficient distribution of relief materials.

He was elected president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria in 1979, a post which he held until 1984, when John Paul II appointed him as pro-president of the Secretariat for Non-Christians. He was proclaimed Cardinal by St. John Paul II in 1985 and was President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue from 1985 to 2002. Through it all, he remained himself— simple, hardworking, prayerful, humorous, methodical and precise.

For the Year of Consecrated Life in 2005, he wrote a book on the consecrated life called Radical Discipleship: Consecrated Life and the Call to Holiness., in which he said: “People in the consecrated state are called to be like leaven in society, to fulfill the prophetic role in radically calling the attention of society to the importance of following Christ…The consecrated life announces without words that nothing is too precious to offer to God.”

Today, we will be listening to a talk from Francis Cardinal Arinze for the 2024 National Meeting. He is introduced by Fr. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B. Thank you for listening! May God bless you and enjoy!