Kenyan Cardinal John Njue has retired as Archbishop of Nairobi after serving the see for 13 years.
The Vatican said it had accepted Njue’s resignation and appointed Bishop David Kamau, the archdiocese’s auxiliary as the apostolic administrator. Kamau has served the archdiocese as the auxiliary since 1999.
The Cardinal had tendered his resignation after attaining the age 75 years. Njue who was born in Embu County in eastern Kenya in 1944 is now 77 years old. He was ordained a priest by Pope Paul VI in 1973. At the age of 42, he became the first bishop of Embu diocese after its creation in 1986.
In October 2007, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Njue the Archbishop of Nairobi. He had succeeded the late Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a’ Nzeki who had also retired after serving for a decade.
Only two months in office, Njue was created a Cardinal in a consistory in Rome, becoming Kenya’s second Cardinal after the late Cardinal Otunga. Until he attains 80, he can still vote in a conclave to elect a new pope.
Apart from the chairman of the bishop’s conference, he had also led other commissions, including the Episcopal Commission for Major Seminaries, Justice and Peace and the Development and Social Services Department.
Some Catholic faithful in Nairobi said Njue had put the archdiocese on the path of development, with more churches and church structures being constructed during his time. Some of them include a Clergy House in Nairobi, the Cardinal Otunga Plaza which houses the secretariat of the Nairobi Diocese and a new building for Radio Maria, a Church radio station he also started. The latest is a huge underground parking lot at Holy Family Basilica in Nairobi.
Njue had prioritized financial independence and sustainability for the church, helping start the Caritas Microfinance Bank. He had started by urging the Catholics in Nairobi to save or contribute anything starting from a shilling.
Whenever the cardinal travels for mass in the archdiocese a carries a box of sweets for children. It is out of his love for children that he stresses “positive fatherhood”, often urging men to mentor the boy child for the future of the family.
In 2016, he signed up for a UN campaign known as “HeforHer”, a gender equality strategy to help empower the boy child.
But the Cardinal was also accused of failing to take a firm stand in 2007/2008 post - election violence, when hundreds of people were being killed.
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