Speaking at the Turning of Sod and fundraising ceremony held recently at the St. Agnes Catholic Church, Maryland, Lagos, Martins said the aim of SJMVHP project is to create a comfortable home for retired priests and also provide serving priests the opportunity to work without thinking of what would happen when they retire. Martins also laid the foundation stone of the project with other dignitaries.
The Parish Priest and SJMVPH project Committee Chairman, Rev. Father Anthony Fadairo, said that the time has come to have a home for the retired priests, adding that a lot of priests are retiring and they need a place to lay their heads, instead of staying in some parishes. He cited the example of two priests who were staying in his parish.
He said: “Since the number is getting larger, there is the need to have a place where they can all live. It will be a permanent home for them. It is a home we are building for them.”
Fadairo disclosed that the project has been on for six years and will be completed in 2023.
Noting that foreign priests also have similar homes, the chairman, of the fundraising subcommittee, Chief Anthony Idigbe said: “When they finish in Africa, they go to where they are taken care of, but now, we have indigenous priests; they cannot go back to their families and they do not have similar homes as the foreign priests where they will go back to. So, it is for the laity to make sure that a system is put in place, which is why this project is very significant.”
According to him, the six-storey building consists 34 apartments and would accommodate 28 to 30 priests. He added that the project cost is over N900m.
