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Father Zuribo is spreading the word in Balbriggan

Last update - Thursday, September 17, 2009, 02:50 By Catherine Reilly

GIVEN HIS background as a Nigerian and a musical enthusiast, you might think that Fr Aloysius Zuribo, Balbriggan’s newly installed priest, is masterminding a plan to ‘Africanise’ mass at the local St Peter and Paul’s Church, to jig things up with some wondrous worship of hand-claps and hallelujahs – and hope that the native locals catch-on, cheer-led by the significant African Catholic population in the north Dublin town.

But if you did, you don’t know Fr Aloysius Zuribo at all.
“I don’t believe in Irish electricity, neither do I believe in Irish air. Air is air,” begins Fr Zuribo somewhat cryptically “There are things that are universal. In the same manner, worshiping God is worshiping God. There are different expressions of it. But you have to know people’s history and appreciate it.
“Yes, back in Africa, worship is a bit different, too expressional. But what really is the essence of Christianity, of religiosity? Does it lie in the prayer singing all alone?... There are different sides of the same coin, different angles to the same reality. If any one way is better, then the world would have been influenced by that.”
In June, Fr Zuribo got a text message from a friend which starkly but accurately read: “THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.” The Nigerian had just been ordained at St Mary’s Pro Cathedral in Dublin, a moment when life indeed folded in two.
Originally from Imo State in southeast Nigeria, a Catholic heartland, Fr Zuribo had studied philosophy and theatre in his native land, and even worked as a journalist for a time with Nigeria’s Indepen-dent newspaper.
But his musical background was the springboard to Ireland, when he gained a scholarship to University of Limerick six years ago to undertake a Master’s in Chant and Ritual.
“Part of my specialisation was composition, so I do write music and sing,” he explains.
Yet Catholicism, too, was always writ large in Fr Zuribo’s life. From childhood, the Nigerian loved praying – although he is careful to point out that “it’s not as if I’m the only prayerful person in the world”.
In Ireland, a clear pathway towards priesthood took shape after he discovered the Galilee Programme of discernment, where would-be priests can find out if the priesthood is really for them.
He stayed with the Augustinians in Limerick, and remembers a Latin inscription at their abbey bookstore: its meaning was ‘everything yearns for happiness’, which Fr Zuribo outwardly repeated.
A priest overheard him, caught the meaning, and urged him on to follow where his heart was leading him. Yet as the Nigerian explains, there was no ‘eureka’ moment when it came to following a religious life. It was a culmination of so many things.
“People lay claim to various incidents in their life,” remarks Fr Zuribo on the path he’s taken, “but I can’t put it down to any single incident. I believe vocation, if we understand it to be a call from God, arises from the circumstances of our lives. I can’t say the exact moment, it just happened gradually. It’s like when you can’t explain how you picked up your language.”
After completing the discernment programme, he applied and was accepted for training at the Maynooth seminary, resulting in his ordination in summer this year.
The ceremony in Dublin was both happy and sad. Happy because it was “beautiful, celebratory, joyful”, the underpinning of his firm choice to serve God. But sad because Aloysius ceased to be just Aloysius – he was “reverend”, “father”, a man that some acquaintances and friends were afraid to address informally.
“The very moment you don the religious garbs, you tend to lose your friends,” he remarks. “You’re not literally losing them, but they tend to distance themselves as you are now a ‘different person’.”
But his new parishioners will likely benefit from this reasonable, common sense priest, who cautions against blaming God for troubles such as our recessionary climate.
“Sometimes I hear people say it’s God’s plan to bring people back to Him. People should go to God every time, as our lives are sustained by God. There is no particular ‘time’ that’s best to pray and worship God. He didn’t create us to suffer... The economic downturn was ignited by inconsistencies in the financial system, by greed, not God.”
Fr Zuribo finds himself in one of Dublin’s most diverse towns – a suburb whose dimensions, both physical and lyrical, have changed so utterly.
But the Nigerian is categorical: he isn’t interested in demographics. The day after our meeting, he’ll do seven baptisms, the surnames being Irish, African and eastern European in origin, perfectly reflecting the town’s reality.
His job is to spread the word, explains Fr Zuribo, irrespective of the audiences’ nationalities. “If anyone needs salvation, so be it, ” he says. “My training didn’t involve any expertise in dealing with immigrants [only].”
And as far as his own reception goes? “So far, so good.”


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