Bishop: Rosary Will Banish Terrorists…
Rome, Italy, Apr 21, 2015 / 02:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Nigerian bishop says that he has seen Christ in a vision and now knows that the rosary is the key to ridding the country of the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram.
Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme says he is being driven by a God-given mandate to lead others in praying the rosary until the extremist group disappears.
“Towards the end of last year I was in my chapel before the Blessed Sacrament… praying the rosary, and then suddenly the Lord appeared,” Bishop Dashe told CNA April 18.
In the vision, the prelate said, Jesus didn’t say anything at first, but extended a sword toward him, and he in turn reached out for it.
“As soon as I received the sword, it turned into a rosary,” the bishop said, adding that Jesus then told him three times: “Boko Haram is gone.”
“I didn’t need any prophet to give me the explanation,” he said. “It was clear that with the rosary we would be able to expel Boko Haram.”
The bishop said he didn’t want to tell anyone, but “felt that the Holy Spirit was pushing him to do so.”
He started with the priests of his diocese, and then told participants in the April 17-19 #WeAreN2015 congress in Madrid, Spain. The event is being sponsored by the Spanish Catholic sister groups hazteoir.org and CitizenGo to gather ideas on how to preserve the Christian presence in nations where they are most persecuted.
Bishop Dashe leads the Diocese of Maiduguri, in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State. In 2009, there were around 125,000 Catholics under his guidance. After a surge in violence from the Islamist extremist group called Boko Haram, today “there are only 50 to 60 thousand left,” he said.
Most of those who fled sought safer areas in other parts of Nigeria, he said. Some of the same families are now returning home as armed forces from Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon liberate their homes.
In 2014, Boko Haram became known worldwide when members kidnapped nearly 300 girls from a school in Borno State. On March 7, 2015, five suicide bombers killed 54 and wounded nearly three times as many in the capital city of Maidaguri, where the bishop lives and works.
The group has killed 1,000 people across Nigeria in the first three months of 2015, according to Human Rights Watch, which reports that more than 6,000 have died in Boko Haram-led violence since 2009.
Just last month, the group pledged its allegiance to ISIS – also known as the Islamic State – which launched a bloody campaign in Iraq and Syria last summer.
Meanwhile, Bishop Dashe has just completed a “consolation tour” to communities in his diocese, promoting forgiveness and continued faith. He believes he was asked by Jesus to spread devotion to the rosary in order to aid them as they do so.
“Maybe that’s why he did it,” said the bishop, referring to Jesus in his vision.
Bishop Dashe said he has a strong devotion to Christ’s mother, and that “I never joke with ‘Mamma Mary.’ I know she is here with us.”
And he is not the only Nigerian bishop putting the future of the country in the hands of Mary. The nation’s bishops’ conference has consecrated the country to her twice in recent years.
Bishop Dashe believes that one day his diocese will completely recover and grow thanks to her intercession.
“These terrorists… think that by burning our churches, burning our structures, they will destroy Christanity. Never,” Bishop Dashe told several hundred people from the dais of the #WeAreN2015 congress.
“It may take a few months or a few years … but ‘Boko Haram is gone.’”
He later told CNA that “prayer, particularly the prayer of the rosary, is (what) will deliver us from the claws of this demon, the demon of terrorism. And of course, it is working.”
Comments invited
Comments (19)
What can be added to this except to say that the Rosary will indeed rid Nigeria of the scourge of Boko Haram, as it will rid the Middle East of ISIS and the rest of the world from the opposite extreme of liberal socialism. Our Lady has promised us the triumph of her Immaculate Heart and a time of holy peace in the world. I believe that time is close at hand and that’s why the devil is throwing everything he has at the world before his time is up.
I agree completely – the question of the apparition is really secondary to the fact that here we have a bishop telling us what EVERY bishop (and the Pope) should be shouting from the rooftops.
Until apparitions are approved, I’m always sceptical about them, by default. However, the bishop’s account, the context, the content and the bishop’s subsequent reported words, contain nothing that is contrary to the Faith, but, rather, affirming what we already know. So, I’ll not be surprised if his alleged vision is authenticated in some way.
If only Our Lord would appear to Papa Francis to tell him that praying the rosary is the best way to hasten the demise of Catholic Truth! Once the crisis is over, we’re outa here!
Am I a bad girl, or what? Rhetorical question, goes without saying 😀
I would like to know more about that bishop – he sounds very humble and as others have said, has not said anything that is contradicting the faith, so I believe he’s had a vision of Christ. How wonderful to have more evidence of the power of the rosary over evil.
I am delighted to hear this Bishop exhorting Catholics to pray the rosary, especially as an antitode to evil. More of his episcopal colleagues should follow his good example.
In several decades of association with the mainstream novus ordo church, I never heard a single priest or Bishop recommend the rosary to people. I was not taught of the importance of the rosary or even how to pray it. As a child, I encountered it a grand total of once, when a group of lay people (SVDP I think) said the rosary at my Grans bedside when she died. I used to see piles of rosary beads in parish shops etc, and regarded them as small gift items or something Catholics gave to one another like greeting cards. I didn’t realise we were supposed to use them to pray – daily!
I have now been going to an SSPX Church since late 2012 – (time flies when you are having fun!) – and, my, what a pleasant difference I have found there. The lay people there are routinely encouraged to pray the rosary by the SSPX clergy. Talk about a breath of fresh air. The priests go on about it so much that I eventually thought “I had better look into this”!
The embarrassing fact that I actually had to research / read online to learn how to pray such a fundamental, staple part of the Catholic faith was an early indicator of how lacking my formation had been at the hands of the hapless and complacent novus ordo Church.
I recently acquired a book “How to raise good Catholic children”. I have not read it yet, but when flicking through the chapter titles to gauge the content, there it was – “Teach your child to love the rosary”. Indeed.
Just realised I made a typo above – I typed “antitode” instead of “antidote” sorry!
Could I ask for prayers from all here at Catholic Truth for a very special and important intention for a member of my family.
They would be very much appreciated.
Thanks and God Bless.
Frankier,
I will pray for that very special intention in my prayers tonight. God bless.
Frankier,
Be assured of a remembrance in my prayers, for what they are worth.
God bless you and the family member for whom you seek prayers.
Editor
Thanks.
Frankier,
Thinking of you and your family and praying that the problem is happily resolved soon.
God bless.
Frankier,
Just saw your post. I will pray for your special intention, too.
I will also pray for your family member’s special intention Frankier.
Margaret Mary and Therese, thanks for your kindness.
It gives me great comfort to know that I don’t pray alone. I truly hope as I have seldom hoped before that God answers our prayers with a yes rather than a no.
Frankier
I will certainly join my prayers to those of Margaret Mary and Therese, and I’m sure many others here.
I might add that it is very reassuring to recall the words that Sister Lucia spoke to Father Fuentes in 1957:
“Look, Father, the Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary. She has given this efficacy to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”
Thank you also Leo for your kind words in this difficult time for my wife and I.
God Bless you too.
The power of the Rosary against the enemies of Christ has been demonstrated time and again throughout history.
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It’s particularly appropriate to recall on this thread, the great victory against the forces of Islam at Lepanto on 7 October 1571, obtained through Our Lady, as a result of Pope Saint Pius V calling on all Catholics to pray the Rosary.
Four centuries earlier, Saint Dominic’s struggle against the Albigensian heretics only began to be successful after Our Lady appeared to him and taught him to pray and promote the Rosary
And what about the Soviet occupation of Austria after World War II? In 1948, tens of thousands of Austrians committed themselves to praying the Rosary every day until the Soviet forces left their country. In 1955, without any warning and without making any demands, the Soviets suddenly departed from eastern Austria. The date was May 13.
Also, in 1948, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, the heroic leader of the Church in Hungary, in his last sermon before being imprisoned by the communists, said, “Give me a million families with Rosaries in their hands, uplifted to Mary. They will be a military power, not against other people, but for all mankind…With the Rosary in our hands, we shall conquer ourselves, convert sinners, do penance for our country, and will certainly move the merciful, mild, and benevolent Heart of Mary.”
Leo,
Thank you for that reminder of Lepanto. It came to my mind as soon as I read about the Nigerian Bishop.
Leo, thank you for that wonderful quote from Cardinal Mindszenty.
I was fortunate enough to visit Budapest in recent years and was able to visit the subterranean cells where the Cardinal was imprisoned (they – and the secret Police HQ – are now part of an museum called “The House of Terror”).
Gabriel Syme
Visiting the prison where Cardinal Mindszenty was held must have been inspiring. What a truly great and courageous exemplar Bishop. He really stood above almost all the Eastern European bishops during the communist tyranny. It isn’t hard to imagine him taking his place amongst the Roman martyrs at the time of Nero and Diocletian.
His treatment by the Modernist Rome of his own time was of course shameful.
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