Young African priests are expressing anxiety about their retirement years. The absence of sustainable care infrastructure across the continent has often forced retired clergy into the indignity of relying on charity to survive.
The priests shared their concerns during a September 16 webinar organized by the Pan African Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN), the Christian Association of Nigeria, and other church entities.
Fr. Hyacinth Ichoku, Vice Chancellor of Veritas University, warned that following the vocations boom of the 1970s, thousands of priests in Nigeria and across Africa are expected to retire within the next few years. Without the requisite infrastructure to care for them, they risk falling into penury and indignity.
“From the early 1970s, ordinations started to go up. We started having 20, and sometimes 30, ordinations a year,” the Nigerian priest and intellectual noted.
“As the number of ordinations increases, so will the number of retirees. We are mindful that these large cohorts will eventually reach retirement age.”
He observed that young priests are often carried away by the euphoria of their vocation, but very few contemplate the day they will retire.
“We are priests who are actually afraid of [retirement]… because when we look forward, we realize there are no facilities or structures in place to care for us,” said Fr. Raymond Aina, Rector of the National Missionary Seminary of St. Paul in Nigeria.
Fr. Ichoku pointed out that while the canonical retirement age for priests is set at 75, the system breaks down when a priest falls ill before reaching that milestone.
“When a priest suddenly falls ill, what happens? What are the provisions for healthcare?” he asked.
Bindré Roger Dayamba, a sociologist and prominent young Catholic leader from Burkina Faso, recalled visiting a retired priest in a nursing home. The priest had been popular and hardworking, but when he could no longer perform his ministerial duties, he was sent to the home—abandoned by family, friends, and the Church he had spent a lifetime serving.
“I saw him shedding tears. It felt like he had been dumped there,” said Dayamba.
“He could not do anything for himself, and after long years of ministry, nobody cared to visit him anymore.”
“Experience shows that once a priest retires without children or immediate family, people begin to forget him and lose contact once he is no longer in active ministry,” he added.
Cameroonian priest, Fr. George Tomrila Ngalim expressed outrage at this abandonment.
“It is inconceivable that a priest should offer his life in service to the Church and end up neglected,” he told ACI-Africa.
“He deserves material and spiritual care from the diocese he has given his life to.”
In Cameroon, much like the rest of Africa, retired clergy are typically commissioned to parishes where they continue to serve. However, Fr. Ngalim noted that the younger priests running these parishes often lack the time to provide the comprehensive care these elderly men require.
“Retired priests need a lot of attention. Some are sick and need someone to look after their health, control their diet, and ensure they exercise,” said Fr. Ngalim, author of “The Reality of Retirement: A Complex Emergency.”
Physical parish infrastructure only adds to the difficulty. Fr. Ngalim explained that traditional parish houses were never built to accommodate aging residents.
“These buildings have stairs that make movement difficult, and the doors aren’t wheelchair-accessible,” he noted.
These struggles are confirmed by his own research. Referencing a 2010 study he conducted in the Bamenda Archdiocese, Fr. Ngalim shared a striking finding: “I discovered that more than 80 percent of retired priests preferred to live in a retirement home than in a parish.”
Fr. Ichoku warned that failing to tackle the problem head-on risks creating a Church plagued by scandal.
“I want to re-emphasize that we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder,” he said.
“Given the number of ordinations over the years, did we anticipate that one day these men would reach the ‘evening’ of their lives? We must make provisions for them; otherwise, we risk a scandal to the Church.”
He stressed the spiritual implications: “If priests begin to behave abnormally due to material insufficiency, it becomes a counter-witness to the Gospel. Every diocese must decide on a model, but the retirement period is the most crucial period of a priest’s life because it prepares him to meet his Creator. How he ends his life is absolutely important.”
During the September 16 webinar, African theologians proposed several ways to ease the lives of retired priests. Fr. Ichoku outlined five distinct “models of retirement,” each with its own challenges.
During the September 16 Webinar, African Theologians proposed several ways of keeping retired priests at ease.
Fr. Hyacinth Ichoku came up with what he called “models of retirement.” The first model he put forward was the construction of retirement homes for retired priests.
“Initially, as priests reached an age where they could no longer perform ministry work, the diocese would simply place them in public retirement homes alongside the general population,” he said, but these homes are too few and far between, and have the added inconvenience that the priests may feel abandoned, and parishes may lose contact with their retired priests.
The second model, he said, is the establishment of specific welfare homes for retired priests “to live in community,” but this model has been criticized for not being ‘African enough’.”
The third model is retirement within a parish. Some dioceses return a priest to a parish to be looked after by the active clergy and parishioners, usually providing him with a room there,” but this model too has its challenges.
“The fourth model is retirement in the family home. This involves the priest returning to live with his original family–brothers, sisters, or other relatives. Unfortunately, this often creates friction due to familiarity. It also becomes a resource issue where the priest must struggle for available resources, alongside his nephews, nieces, and siblings.”
The last model, he said, is based on a priest constructing a personal home, but this too has problems when it comes to funding, due to the small salaries of priests in Africa.
“This model works in non-African countries like Europe and America, but one must ask: would this really work back home given the financial constraints, unless one has a benefactor?” the Nigerian priest wondered.
Various speakers at the webinar underscored the need for priests to be enrolled in pension schemes to cushion the hardships they face upon retirement.
“In Nigeria, the 2004 National Pension Act mandates that any organization with a certain number of employees must enroll them in a pension scheme,” Fr. Ichoku noted.
“This raises a big question: since priests generally receive mere stipends rather than full salaries, are they—or their dioceses—able to make the contributions required to secure them in retirement?” he warned.
He said efforts are being made in his diocese to engage with the national pensions system.
“The idea is for the diocese to pay something, no matter how minimal, into a fund for the priest. It becomes a form of personal savings. This is crucial because living on charity in retirement is humiliating. A regular flow of income, however small, is absolutely necessary for a priest to take care of his basic needs.”
He concluded that it is critical for dioceses to either enroll priests in a national pension scheme or establish a specific funding mechanism.
“This requires building a pool of funds to help priests take care of themselves.”
Pope Benedict XVI once noted that the elderly are “a blessing for society,” meaning their care should be viewed as a “repayment of a debt of gratitude” rather than a mere “act of generosity.”
“The time is ripe for us to put policies and structures in place so that priests will not begin to panic in their old age about their welfare. As individuals and organizations in the Church, now is the time to support dioceses in providing suitable facilities for our priests so that they can live their twilight years with the dignity they deserve,” Fr. Ichoku said.
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