Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides News Agency) - The Holy Father has erected the new diocese of Katsina, Nigeria, by dismembering the diocese of Sokoto, making it a suffragan of the metropolitan See of Kaduna.
At the same time, the Holy Father appointed the Reverend Gerald Mamman Musa, of the clergy of the diocese of Sokoto, lecturer and director of the Center for Study of African Cultures and Communication (CESACC) of the “Catholic Institute of West Africa” (CIWA), Port Harcourt, Nigeria, as first bishop of the newly-erected diocese.
Msgr. Gerald Mamman Musa was born on 16 January 1971 in Gusau, in the State of Zamfara. After attending Saint Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary in Makurdi and Saint Augustine’s Major Seminary in Jos, he was ordained a priest on 1 June 1996 for the clergy of the diocese of Sokoto. He was awarded a master’s degree in dogmatic theology from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas “Angelicum”, a licentiate in social sciences, specializing in communication, from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and a doctorate in communications studies from the School of Journalism and Communication of the University of Queensland in Santa Lucia, Brisbane, Australia.
He has held the following offices: vicar of the administrator of the Holy Family Cathedral, Sokoto, and diocesan secretary at the diocesan chancery of Sokoto (1996-2000); secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) at the level of the State of Sokoto (1998-2000); member Exco of the Nigeria Interreligious Council and parish priest of Saint Patrick’s in Illela, in the State of Sokoto (2001-2003); parish priest of Saint Vincent Ferrer in Malumfashi, in the State of Katsina (2007-2008); resident priest at Saint Bernard, in Upper Mount Gravatt, archdiocese of Brisbane (2008-2011); resident priest in the Jubilee Catholic parish, and assistant chaplain at Mater Misericordiae Hospital, archdiocese of Brisbane (2011-2012); and administrator of the parish of Upper Mount Gravatt-Wishart, archdiocese of Brisbane (2012-2013). From 2013 to the present he has served as lecturer and director of the Center for Study of African Cultures and Communication (CESACC) of the “Catholic Institute of West Africa” (CIWA), Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
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The newly-erected diocese of Katsina [Latin name Katsinensis] was dismembered from the diocese of Sokoto and made a suffragan of the metropolitan See of Kaduna. The see of the diocese is in the city of Katsina. The Cathedral Church of the new ecclesiastical circumscription will be the current Saint Martin de Porres, in Katsina. (EG) (Fides News Agency 16/10/2023)
