{"id":16356,"date":"2023-02-17T16:42:16","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T16:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=16356"},"modified":"2023-02-18T07:25:27","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T07:25:27","slug":"kenya-vicar-general-for-nakuru-diocese-appointed-new-bishop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2023\/02\/17\/kenya-vicar-general-for-nakuru-diocese-appointed-new-bishop\/","title":{"rendered":"KENYA: Vicar General for Nakuru Diocese Appointed New Bishop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA<\/em><\/p>\n

Pope Francis on Wednesday, February 15, appointed the Vicar General for the Catholic Diocese of Nakuru in Kenya, Monsignor Cleophas Oseso Tuka as the new Bishop for the same Episcopal See, a position the new Bishop-elect accepts with \u201cmixed feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the day of the appointment, the Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya His Excellency Archbishop Hubertus van Megen shared the message with Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) saying, \u201cI have the honour and pleasure to inform you that His Holiness Pope Francis has appointed Reverend Father Cleophas Oseso Tuka, as Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Nakuru.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appointment of the new Bishop comes nearly a year after Nakuru Diocese fell vacant on February 18, 2022, following the elevation<\/a> of Most Rev. Maurice Muhatia Makumba as Archbishop for the Metropolitan See of Kisumu. Pope Francis then in the month of March appointed<\/a> Auxiliary Bishop of Nairobi Archdiocese, Rt. Rev. David Kamau Nga\u2019nga as the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese.<\/p>\n

The Bishop-elect, in an interview with AMECEA Online<\/em> Thursday, February 16, said the new mission is challenging because of the nature of work but accepts the appointment with \u201ctrusts in God\u2019s grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message came as a surprise and I am still trying to understand,\u201d Msgr. Oseso narrates and recounts how he received the message saying, \u201cI received a call from the Nuncio\u2019s Secretary for an appointment on a given date. Actually the Nuncio had never called me and I had a lot of questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I visited the Nuncio and he delivered the message, I did not respond immediately but requested if he could give me some days to think about it,\u201d the Bishop-elect revealed and continued, \u201cTo my surprise the Nuncio asked me to reflect within some hours and give feedback. Since then, I am still trying to understand what it is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until his appointment, the Bishop-elect who was brought up in Nakuru Diocese but originally hails from the Archdiocese of Kisumu, Ukwala Parish, has been serving as the Vicar General since 2019 and doubled as the Father in Charge of Bahati Parish.<\/p>\n

Msgr. Oseso appreciates that the Diocese is not new to him in terms of knowing the people and the places, a state that will facilitate his faster adjustments to the reality of the new ministry.<\/p>\n

Asked during the Thursday interview about his priority focus for the Diocese, the successor of Archbishop Makumba emphasized the use of Diocesan strategic plan as a guide.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike a new person not familiar with the Diocese, I know where we are currently and the Diocese has been working on a five-year strategic plan which I intend to use as a guide going forward,\u201d he said adding that the process of developing the strategic plan has been so inclusive and the clerics, Religious and the lay faithful have been fully involved.<\/p>\n

He disclosed that the 2023-2027 strategic plan focuses on a self-sustaining diocese in terms of human resource and capital to help in developing various ministries including human integral development.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe things I need to address are already identified in the strategic plan including food security, peace and reconciliation especially in areas prone to conflict, and also to make our small Christian Communities Christ centered so as to increase spiritual growth among the people,\u201d Msgr. Oseso disclosed and added that he wishes to focus more on the \u201ccall to serve others above self.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strategic plan also focuses on service, that is, as religious, priests and the lay faithful how to serve those whom we have been called to serve, how to become of service to the diocese and to one another,\u201d he emphasized centralizing the act of service to St. Paul\u2019s message who said, \u201cout of love be of service to one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bishop-elect was ordained in 1995. Since then, he has served as dean, parish priest, financial administrator and parochial vicar in Rochester Diocese, New York while heading Nakuru Diocese Mission Appeal office in New York, USA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA Pope Francis on Wednesday, February 15, appointed the Vicar General…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16324,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea-news","category-kenya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16356"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16379,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16356\/revisions\/16379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}