Fr. Joachim Cabanyes: Everything you need to know about the Spanish priest who died of COVID-19 in Enugu
Nigeria recorded another high profile death from COVID-19 on Thursday July 16, 2020. This time not someone in the political class, but a clergyman – Rev Fr. Joachim Cabanyes.
According to Rev. Fr. Nkemjika Igweshi, Secretary to Most Rev. Callistus Onaga, Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Fr. Cabanyes was a Spanish priest of the Opus Dei Prelature who worked in the diocese and had served the Nigerian Church for more than 28 years.
“He was such a nice, easy-going, cordial, generous, prayerful, and dedicated pastor. He hailed from Spain but loved our people so much and always attended our diocesan functions,” Igweshi said in a statement.
The diocese added that Cabanyes has been buried according to the NCDC guidelines.
The 62-year-old Catholic Priest who has been described by many of his parishioners as selfless, dedicated and a loving personality was born in Madrid, Spain on November 29, 1957.
According to his social media profile, he studied Biochemistry at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain and was ordained as a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei (the Latin for “Work of God”) in June 1985 before he moved to Nigeria in 1988.
When he arrived in Nigeria in 1988, many of his congregants, who shared fond memories of Cabanyes on the internet, said he fully immersed himself in the local culture, and could be said to have enjoyed local foods more than the locals. His rare acts of love, humility and selflessness, according to them, endeared him to many and made hundreds of priests and lay people adopted him as spiritual director and advisor.
Between 1988 and July 16, 2020 when he passed on, Cabanyes had been Chaplain to a number of Opus Dei centres including Greendale, Uhere, Hillpoint, Uzomiri, Ezindo and Ugwuoma in Enugu State.
His death has prompted a wave of tributes from many of his former and present parishioners on social media.
“Fr. Joachim was very generous and always available to help. No task was too menial for him,” a tribute on remembr.com (an obituary website) said.
“I knew him as someone with a very open, direct personality. He was very witty, frequently coming up with very wise, insightful, and funny angles to things,” Emeka Enemuoh, one of those who have paid tributes to him on remembr.com, wrote.
Enemuoh’s testimony of the exemplary life of Cabanyes is coming from a privileged perspective, for a man who claimed to have lived with the late priest when he arrived Nigeria in 1988.
“I lived with Fr. Joachim from 1988 when he came to Enugu till 1992 when I myself left for my NYSC in Ibadan. I knew him as someone with a very open, direct personality. His humility came through in his eagerness to waste time with people, to cooperate, and to learn from them,” he said.
Recounting how the late Priest displayed rare selfless acts while he lived with him as an undergraduate, Enemuoh wrote “One thing I can never forget was how he accompanied for many long nights while I was doing my final year in Architecture, encouraging me to finish the numerous drawings bleary-eyed as I was from several sleepless nights. He even helped me shade several of my drawings, having insisted that I let him know how to do it. It was help and companionship I was very grateful for.”
Ifeoma Nwaroh in her tributes to the late priest said he made spiritual direction fun for her and was humility personified.
“I still find it hard to believe you are no more. I have been replaying the advice you gave me the last time I came running to you helpless. You were so simple yet firm in your spiritual direction and your smiles, hmmm will melt the hardest of hearts,” Nwaroh wrote.
Zita Obi said “the sacrifice and joy with which he embraced his vocation was outstanding. He lived the virtues of punctuality and self-giving to a heroic degree.
Chidi Okoro who said he lived with Cabanyes for three years also shared fond memories as he paid tributes.
“He always enjoyed Nigerian meals more than we enjoyed them. He wished me a happy birthday on the 15th, which was a day before he passed on. I was quite moved by that – because here was someone already diagnosed with COVID remembering others! It came as a shock to me when I heard he had passed on the next day. It was quite tough for me but I see it as God’s will and I know he’s up there, smiling at us,” he wrote.
Cabanyes left behind his mother Pilar and siblings Luis, Maria, Diego and Isabel.
