By Chidiebere Ugwu
Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja on Friday performed the foundation laying block for the building of Gaudium Et Spes Institute (GSI), a spiritual home meant to cater for prayers, psychotherapy, and counseling of people in need in Asokoro district.
Abuja Catholic Arch. Bishop, Kaigama Ignatius, while performing the foundation laying ceremony, said the project is a multipurpose centre in honour of Late Dominic Cardinal Ekandem, who was originally meant to live there before God called him.
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Bishop Kaigama, challenged generous spirited individuals to donate to ensure timely completion of the project, stressing that a lot of money is required.
“A lot of money is required. With the naira rate today, the projects requires about N1.6 billion to reach completion” he said.
Also speaking, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, provided insights into the project saying:
“Today the Arch. Bishop has laid the foundation which has started already.
“The church has always impacted the lives of the people in many ways, we build schools to educate children and adults, health facilities to give physical treatment in hospitals, even the major job we do as religious leaders, we deal with spiritual problem of the people.
“This particular project is beyond, health, education, spiritual and physical because it is also for psycho-spiritual work to help people who do not have only spiritual problems but have psycho problems.
“Remember our lord Jesus dealt with these issues after healing the paralised, blind, crippled even raised the dead. We have not worked too much in this direction. So, this project will be a pilot scheme in the Arch. Diocese of Abuja, it might not be the only one. By ramification, more priests, more religious people will be trained in this regard, specially now there is so much problem in our nation.
“A lot of psychological problems are raised, and very often we do not even recognize them. There will be need now for more facilities for people to g and sort themselves out psychologically and spiritually because the two go together. Here we are addressing these issues scientifically, the Rev. Fathers working here had gone through the courses for three years, they know what it means and all about. As soon as the project is over, the programme will start running very well”.
In his remarks, the former Senate leader, Sen. Ndoma Egba, who is the project chairman, said the project is meant to dealt with psycho=spiritual therapy.
“This premises was initially acquired as retirement home for late Ekandem unfortunately he passed on when the project was at German level, the successor decided to convert it to priests retreat and resources centre. The centre has transformed into a centre for dealing with psycho=spiritual therapy, which people who are passing trauma and depression , addiction issues are attended to.
“The society has been making a lot of demand for these services. We think three facilities had become inadequate we want to remodel the centre to from nine room s to 15 rooms, with conference room, a library, kitchen, and bigger chapel.
“The centre serves the society at large and not the Catholic church alone, especially those who have mental health issues. Our desire is to serve the society at large.
“An estimate of 1.2 billion is currently required to finish the project”.
