Hospital ministry draws priest from Nigeria to Utah

Intermountain Catholic

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Father Rowland Nwokocha

SALT LAKE CITY — Father Rowland Nwokocha, associate pastor of Saint Ambrose Parish, was assigned in August as chaplain in hospital ministry for Primary Children’s Hospital, the University of Utah Medical Center, Shriners’ Hospital and the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Fr. Nwokocha will also assist Father Andrzej Skrzypiec, pastor, when he is needed in the parish.

"I feel it was very providential that just at the time that Father Jerome Kim announced that his community was calling him back to Korea, I heard about a priest from Nigeria who had certification in Clinical Pastoral Education," said Monsignor Colin F. Bircumshaw, vicar general.

Fr. Kim left the diocese in August; Fr. Nwokocha is replacing him as chaplain.

Fr. Nwokocha has served as an associate pastor, a parish priest, a hospital chaplain and a principal of a secondary school between 1997 and 2010 in Nigeria. He most recently was a priest in residence at Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque Church in Lomita, Calif.

Fr. Nwokocha received training in Clinical Pastoral Education from Long Beach Memorial and Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, Calif., and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange County, Calif. He also received a master’s degree in bioethics from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Calif., in May 2013.

"After I graduated in bioethics, it was my intent, and that of my bishop, for me to gain hospital setting experience in the United States," said Fr. Nwokocha. "I wanted to gain more in-depth knowledge and practical experience, and was invited to come to the Diocese of Salt Lake City."

Hospital ministry is something Fr. Nwokocha has always enjoyed, he said. "I was raised in a hospital environment," he said. "We lived two miles away from a hospital, where I met a priest who had a great influence on my entering the seminary. Also, my mother is a nurse and she has always encouraged me to take part in hospital ministry."

In Salt Lake City, Fr. Nwokocha would like to "get to know patients, their families and also the medical teams," he said. "My ministry is allowing me to get to know people of different faiths and cultural backgrounds. I have always enjoyed meeting new people and making new friends. Coming to Salt Lake has been a wonderful experience and also a challenge because the four hospitals are very big and there are a lot of people, but they have the support of Fr. Skrzypiec and that of the diocese. I think my experience here will be wonderful."

Fr. Nwokocha was raised in a very solid Catholic family in Nigeria, he said.

"I became an altar server in the fifth grade and was given the chance to serve with the priests," he said. "Two years of serving at Mass and seeing what the priest was doing at the altar had an influence on me, so one day I went home and told my mother that I wanted to enter the seminary."

Fr. Nwokocha entered the junior seminary at age 12 and spent the next five years there. "It was 35 kilometers away," he said. "I had the desire and enjoyed meeting people from different families and cultural backgrounds, but I was homesick. The last year I served an internship assisting a pastor and teaching."

Upon the recommendation of his bishop, Fr. Nwokocha then entered Seat of Wisdom Major Seminary in Nigeria, where he studied philosophy for four years at Urban University, Rome. After learning philosophy, he taught philosophy at the seminary for one year before continuing his formation and completing his bachelor’s degree in 1997.

Fr. Nwokocha was ordained a priest on Aug. 2, 1997, in his home diocese of Okigwe in Nigeria.