Monsignor Immanuel Bushu, Bishop of Yagoua, says how he heard his call

Interviewed by Martin Jumbam

In this column, we focus on the vocational experiences of priests and other religious, as they battled with uncertainties as to whether the Consecrated Life was really what they were meant to do.
We especially hope that through the revelations of these priests and other religious, young men and women, who are meditating the Consecrated Life, will find encouragement and hope should they too experience similar doubts and fears but perhaps have nobody to whom they can express them.
In this interview granted L'Effort camerounais, the Bishop of Yagoua Diocese, Mgr Immanuel Bushu, says that he was already planning to become a priest when he was still a little boy in primary school, each time he watched a priest during Mass. Excerpts:

My Lord, when did you first have the feeling that God might be calling you to serve him as a priest?
It was when I was in Saint Mary’s Primary School in Nkar. There were several things I thought I could do and I would have loved to do but what caught my attention and came way ahead of others at the time was the solemn and dignified way with which the priests celebrated the liturgy, particularly the Eucharist. Despite the desire to do other things, the wish to become a priest remained predominant but hidden.

Did you talk to the parish priest about your feelings?
No, as a small boy at the time I didn’t have the courage to go up to him and talk to him about what I thought. However, in my last year of the primary school, I did choose from among several institutions at the secondary level to go to the Minor Seminary, which at that time was attached to Saint Joseph’s College, Sasse, Buea.
Two priests from the staff came to our school sometime in the middle of the year to select candidates for Sasse College and for the Minor Seminary. Three of us were selected for Seminary and admitted in January 1961.

Did you have to enrol in the secondary school section of Sasse before later moving to the seminary side of the college?
Our situation was an interesting one. The three of us wrote the entrance examination to Sasse College and did the interview and were admitted at the same time as secondary school students and Minor Seminarians, double admissions, in other words.
The Seminarians lived in dormitories at the summit of Sasse College hill. That is how it was for the years we were there.

When you graduated from Sasse there was no major seminary then in Anglophone Cameroon. So what happened next?
You’re right. There was no major seminary in the English-speaking region of Cameroon; so I went to the Bigard Memorial Major Seminary in Enugu in Eastern Nigeria in 1965. In 1967, civil war broke out in that country and we, the Cameroonian seminarians there, came back home.
Bishop Jules Peteers, today of blessed memory, sent those in Theology to Collegio Urbano in Rome, and those in philosophy to Saints Peter and Paul Major Seminary in Ibadan in the then Western Region of Nigeria.

Was there a moment during your formation when you felt like giving up? If yes, how did you overcome that moment of doubt as to whether you were really being called to be God’s priest?
No, there was never a moment during my formation when I doubted my vocation, or felt like giving up. I have always considered my vocation a gift from God; knowing what classmates and others went through in moments of trial.

Where and when were you ordained a priest?
I was ordained priest in Saint Mary’s Parish Nkar in Bamenda Diocese in that part which is today the Diocese of Kumbo, on Sunday 7th of January 1973 by His Lordship Bishop Paul Verdzekov, now Archbishop of Bamenda.

Where did you work after your ordination?
After my ordination, I served in Saint Mathias Parish Widikum for two years and then was sent to teach in the Minor Seminary in Small Soppo, Buea. I was there for three years. From October 1977 to January 1980, I was in Rome studying philosophy.
Between 1980 and 1982, I taught in Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Major Seminary in Bambui. From 1982 to 1984, I was back in Rome. In September 1984, I was sent to Bambui where I remained until March 1993 when I left for Yagoua.

Did your appointment as bishop come as something of a surprise, or was that something you’d been eagerly waiting for?
No, it wasn’t something I was waiting for. I recall that the Apostolic Nuncio sent word for me to meet him at the Nunciature. I went with a fellow priest from the Major Seminary. We arrived in Yaounde on December 17, 1992.
After talking lengthily with the Nuncio about the Seminary and several other matters, he informed me without any warning that the Holy Father Pope John Paul II had appointed me as bishop of the Diocese of Yagoua. He lost contact with me at that announcement. After a long moment of silence, he asked if I was still there. I said I was.
My experience at that moment was the experience recounted in the Gospel according to Mark, Chapter 16, 8b where the women, not imagining what they were hearing to be true, that the Lord had indeed arisen from the dead, were “bewildered and trembling and because of their great fear they said nothing to any one.”
When I came out of the meeting with the Nuncio, I said nothing to anyone and the following day we drove off to Bambui with not a word on the matter the Nuncio had discussed with me. However, Vatican Radio broke the news at midday on December 31, 1992.
At Bambui, we got it at lunch table after the meal of January 1, 1993 from a group of people from Bamenda Town; that is how the news got public. We went straight to pray in the Seminary Chapel and off to Bamenda to see the Archbishop for a word of encouragement.

From Bamenda to Yagoua, that’s quite a world of a difference in every way.
You’re right. With respect to locations, Bamenda is in the great western plateau of Cameroon and Yagoua, on the other hand, lies in the great northern plain. Weather-wise, Bamenda has the mountain climate but Yagoua has the great heat of the Sahel region, particularly from March to June.
The cultures of the people are also very different. Cultures depend on nature. The cold mountain environment calls for a way of life and structures that go with it. In the great plain of the north, the response to the environment produces the culture and structures that suit it also. So, the people differ from one another according to how they adapt to their milieu.
In the seminary, I was a teacher in a tiny community, with a small administrative unit for several years. I was quite used to and happy with what I was doing. In Yagoua, on the other hand, teaching is of another kind, and the administration is vast and diversified.
The Catholic faith is the same everywhere but the lived experiences are different. The difference between the grass field environment and the Chad basin environment are there but we don’t stop at that: we read them, we wonder at what we read; we appreciate each one of them with its good qualities. I’m aware of the fact that as long as we live, we are always learning new things and deepening our knowledge of what we know already. My experiences of the two regions have been most enriching for me, spiritually, socially, intellectually and morally.

What advice would you give to a young person who thinks he’s hearing God’s call but is not quite sure he’s being called to the religious life?
To a young man who thinks he’s hearing God’s call but is not quite sure he’s being called to the religious life, I would say: Firstly, pray ardently and perseveringly to hear well if the call is really from God. Prayer is union with God “in whom we live, move and have our being,” as Saint Paul says. All that we are and all that we have, come from God. In prayer, we’re in union with him and he’ll show us the right way. In God, with Him, for Him, we will always discern well.
Secondly, in case of doubt, ask the advice of one who has true knowledge of what a call to serve God through his church means. Thirdly, the young person should belong to a vocation group. If, in the end, he discerns that God is really calling him to service in the church, he should thank him for deigning to call him.
However, if he finds out that he is not being called to the religious life, he should equally thank God for showing him that he is not calling him to permanent service in the church. Let him pray and ask God to show him what he has called him to do in this life in order to get himself ready for eternal life.

When a young seminarian comes to you with some doubts about his vocation in mind, what advice do you give him?
When that happens, we usually consider the difficulty together to know what it really is and to discern what it means for this vocation to the priesthood and how to answer the difficulty. Sometimes it’s an encouragement and advice, sometimes the seminarian is asked to take time off, a year or more, to pray and reflect on what it means to be a seminarian, sometimes still he is advised and re-oriented to another vocation.

Comments

[JJ Asongu]

I came online to read this interview again, following the news that Bishop Immanuel Bushu had been transferred from the Doicese of Yagoua to that of Buea.

He is truly a man of God and his faith and vision are clearly stated in this interview. I wish him all the best.

Having been a student of Bishop Bushu, Ph.D., D.D., I have no doubt that his coming to Buea is the best gift the diocese can have. He is the most holy person I ever knew and I pray God to continue to bless him and the people of God in Buea.

My Lord, Welcome to Buea.

[JJ Asongu]

VATICAN CITY, NOV 30, 2006 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Appointed Bishop Emmanuel Bushu of Yagoua, Cameroon, as bishop of Buea (area 13,410, population 957,000, Catholics 295,630, priests 59, religious 72), Cameroon. He succeeds Bishop Pius Suh Awa, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese, the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

- Appointed Fr. Christophe Zoa of the clergy of the archdiocese of Yaounde, Cameroon, archdiocesan chancellor, as auxiliary of the same archdiocese (area 4,964, population 1,591,960, Catholics 700,700, priests 307, religious 794). The bishop-elect was born in Yaounde in 1961 and ordained a priest in 1991.
NER:RE:NEA/.../... VIS 061130 (270)

[Vally china]

We thank God foe father Bushu.we had waited Father awa,s retirement for a long time.we heartily welcome father Bushu to our diocese.we hope to see with his prayerful life and spiritual talents improve upon the spiritual life of both peoples of our parish and our preist.added to that we hope to see that our diocese too becomes a progressive one.We also hope to see the birth too of another diocese from the Buea diocese region,because from ndian to meme to kupe manenguba to konye is too vast.so we strongly awiats news of the creation of the long awiated kumba diocese.once small father Bushu you are welcome to Buea diocese the great mother that has given birth to so many children.we are behind you.more grease to ur elbows.