Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan

If Jesus had wanted a Church free of scandal or problems, he would have put it in the hands of angels, not a humanity he loved, said Nigeria’s newest cardinal elector.

“If you say the Church needs to reform and improve, it would be the first to admit it, because the Church has never reached the end of its journey; the Church is always under reform,” Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, told Catholic News Service.

Even successful changes or improvements don’t signal the job of conversion “is done and finished once and for all, because every generation has to go through its own reforms,” he said on the sidelines of pre-conclave meetings March 6.