RELIGIOUS LIFE: A CALL TO TAKE A PROPHETIC STANCE

Abstract

In Nigeria, we are blessed with religious vocation: Men and women who accepted the invitation of Christ to come follow him and they have lived the evangelical counsels of poverty, obedience and chastity with commitment and grace. However, in the new dispensation, Nigeria is being confronted with an old but growing new situation of injustice and exclusion: The massive poverty of more than 50% of our population, the threat to expression of need through violence, insecurity and instability of those men and women that the religious are called to minister to. In this article therefore, I will discuss the renewed call on religious to take a prophetic stance in the contemporary context of Nigeria. This propounds the need for initial and on-going formation to be tailored to the understanding and critical analysis of an option for the poor and a courageous look at what it means to be a prophetic witness in contemporary Nigerian society.