Documentation

Over the past fifty years, Major Superiors of different religious congregations in Nigeria have met annually and deliberated and spoken loud, clear and consistently on a number of significant issues of faith and life, with emphasis on issues of national interest, socio-political and religious importance. However, their Assembly of 1998, January is remarkable as they began to release communiqués after their Annual Assemblies. Thus in this edition, there is a collection of communiqués from the year 1998 to 2013. The communiqués compiled in this volume are not only from the Annual Assemblies of the Conference, but also include a communiqué issued after a communication workshop organized by the CBCN for the Conference of Major Superiors of Nigeria. This is only a first edition, because the Conference of Major Superiors of Nigeria has not stopped talking. A future edition will have the opportunity of integrating into the present collection the outcome of the Annual Assemblies of the Conference. This edition is useful to the Major Superiors, to remind them of what they have been saying and how the Conference has developed over the years; it is useful to the Catholic faithful, so that they can keep before their eyes the persistent exhortations of the Major Superiors of Nigeria; it is also useful to researchers who can now have access to the mind of the Major Superiors of Nigeria. The title of the book, Echoes of Hope, has been taken from one of the communiqués of the Conference of Major Superiors of Nigeria. It is our hope that this book will enable the voice of the Major Superiors of Nigeria to echo more profoundly.