{"id":2041,"date":"2025-02-16T14:24:01","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T14:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/?p=2041"},"modified":"2025-02-16T14:24:01","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T14:24:01","slug":"mass-wedding-catholic-bishop-weds-21-couples-in-niger-as-400-worshippers-receive-sacrament-of-confirmation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/2025\/02\/16\/mass-wedding-catholic-bishop-weds-21-couples-in-niger-as-400-worshippers-receive-sacrament-of-confirmation\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass wedding: Catholic Bishop weds\u00a0 21 couples in Niger &#8230; As 400 worshippers receive sacrament of confirmation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">By Naseer Baba Uthman, Minna<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<p>The Catholic Bishop of Kontagora Diocese, Most Rev. Dr. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna has conducted a mass wedding for twenty one couples in Niger state.<\/p><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">While joining the couples in holy matrimony at the St. Mark Catholic Church in Nsanji Nkoso, Magama local government area of Niger state, Bishop Yohanna disclosed that, until a couple is joined together in marriage legally both traditionally (dowry or bride prize) and blessed in the church it is wrong to cohabit.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">According to him \u201cmost of the people had relied more on traditional marriage which encourages them to cohabit. And we needed to be sure too that none of them was under compulsion.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u201cWe have to encourage them to do what is right especially as Catholics. With this blessing of marriage, these twenty one couples are now legally and officially married\u201d.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Bishop Yohanna who is also the Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Niger state chapter while adding that, marriage is meant for the prepared adults, told the couples that marriage is a life time commitment which should be built on love and companionship.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The Parish Priest, Rev. Fr. Francis Yasak Joshua while disclosing that the 21 couples completed their marriage traditional rites especially paying their bride prizes, said they were subjected to three months marriage counselling which qualified them to be joined in the church.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Accordingly, he said the oldest married couple is 24 years and the youngest married couple is 1 year old.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">One of the sponsors of the couples Lydia Ishaya expressed her joy saying \u201cI am happy for them especially with their cooperation and I pray God to continue to bless their marriages\u201d.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Some of the couples expressed their joy saying, if not for the leeway given to them, they may not have gotten married even till death.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">One of the couples, Mr and Mrs Cyprian Uche who have been cohabiting for 22 years said and now have 5 children who have graduated from higher institutions and the remaining ones are currently in secondary school.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">According to Mrs Cyprian \u201cI am happy that my marriage has been blessed now. Ever since I have been a member of the women fellowship, I was not eligible to hold any position because she was not married in the church. But now, I feel so excited because we are officially married and I thank the Bishop for helping us realize the need to do the right thing\u201d.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The following day, the Parish witnessed the sacraments of Confirmation for 400 Parishioners by the Catholic Bishop of Kontagora Diocese.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Naseer Baba Uthman, Minna The Catholic Bishop of Kontagora Diocese, Most Rev. Dr. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna has conducted a mass wedding for twenty one couples in Niger state. While joining the couples in holy matrimony at the St. Mark Catholic Church in Nsanji Nkoso, Magama local government area of Niger state, Bishop Yohanna disclosed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[446,1240,350,49],"class_list":["post-2041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","tag-confirmation","tag-matrimony","tag-traditional","tag-wedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2044,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions\/2044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}