portfolio

America Magazine

How One Catholic Group Is Fighting For Justice In Nigeria’s Troubled Prison System

America Magazine

Kingsley Agbo knows well how he landed at this prison in Nigeria.Formerly a member of a notorious criminal gang, Mr. Agbo abused cocaine and marijuana. His group regularly fought off rivals, sometimes...

In Eritrea The Cost Of Speaking Up May Be Nation’s Catholic Health Care Network

America Magazine

In a country with a reputation for authoritarianism, silence can be a tool for maintaining civil peace with the political establishment. But in recent months, Catholic bishops in Eritrea have chosen t...

Nigerian Sisters Take On The Fight Against Human Trafficking

America Magazine

When the offer to work as a babysitter in Italy came in 2013, Kpemesi Abu could not ignore the opportunity. Testimonies of young women sending remittances home, building posh apartments and lifting th...

A Peaceful, If Not Controversy-free, Transition In D.R. Congo

America Magazine

Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi was sworn in as the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo on Jan. 24, marking the country’s first peaceful transfer of power since independence from Belgium...

The Uncommon Faith Of A Country Decimated By Boko Haram

America Magazine

Around 8 a.m. on a cold, dusty Sunday morning in mid-January, two heavily armed security guards stood aloof, almost unapproachable, at the gate of St. Hilary’s Catholic Church in the Jiddari Polo neig...

Can The Church In Nigeria Stop The Violence Between Herders And Farmers?

America Magazine

In the bustling capital of Ikeja in Nigeria’s Lagos State, thousands of lay faithful throng into St. Leo’s Catholic Church on May 22 to attend a requiem Mass.Inside the church compound, more than 250...

The Church In Nigeria Champions Voter Registration Drive

America Magazine

Just before the end of Sunday Mass in late February at St. Dominic Catholic Church in central Lagos, a female lector took a breather after reading the main announcements. Looking up from the pulpit, s...

Young Nigerians Are Connecting With Pentecostal Churches. Will They Return To Catholicism?

America Magazine

When Johnbosco Ugwu was growing up in Ede-Oballa, a tiny village in Enugu State in southeastern Nigeria, he enjoyed going to Mass with his parents and siblings. In 2015 he decided he would like to bec...