ROME – A week before Cardinal-designate Peter Obere Okpaleke found out that Pope Francis would be making him a cardinal, a news alert claiming he had died circulated on Facebook. Thus, it wasn’t hard for him to presume that the pontiff’s decision was, like his alleged death, fake news.
When the diocesan chancellor called him with the news, “like St. Thomas in the Gospel, I felt that it was too good to be true and demanded for the source of the information,” Okpaleke told Crux this week.
Yet this Nigerian, from the diocese of Ekwulobia, is in fact one of the 21 prelates Francis will welcome into the College of Cardinals Aug. 26, during his eighth consistory.
Okpeleke spoke with Crux about the concerns of the church in Nigeria.
“Our ‘hot button issues,’ understandably different from [Germany and United States’] concerns, are about the survival of Christianity, the life and safety of our people as well as the stability of the West African…
