About the Journal

Welcome to the maiden edition of St Albert the Great Major Seminary Series, commonly known as SAGS SERIES! The Series is the perspective of the Seminary on certain societal issues. The attack of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) triggered the birth of this Series. A mini-conference was organized on Tuesday April 21, 2020 on how the Church can continue her formation and ministry longside covid-19 pandemic.
The conference was charged with questions of “did you ask me to ask who”? Our world, where covid-19 has initiated “a new normal” way of living, with its social distancing as an indispensible remedy, even as when its vaccines are discovered. The more puzzling thing to the conference is the knowledge that religion is by nature social, and that the Catholic religion and its formation is not excluded from this social nature of the Church. So the question becomes
how can the Church freely exercise her ministry of sacraments and formation alongside social distancing?
Consequently, from the rumination of the issue emerged the theme, Covid-19: the New World Order, reflected here in this particular series. This Series comprises of eleven articles. Six articles, including a poem and some histories of coronavirus before 2019, reflect the concern about living with Covid-19 alongside formation ministry, faith and praxis. The other five articles move to cease the opportunity occasioned by Covid-19’s new normal world by re-imagining new anthropology; new approach to a health care system; problems of number politics and data collection, and challenges on our collective memory. Thus, it was a hot brainstorming at Idowu Offonran and the Seminary could not wait to brace the impact of covid-19 pandemic.

I thank the Rector- Very Rev Fr Anselm Ekhelar for initiating this Series; the amazing Formators, the editorial consultants, the Friends of the Seminary (FOSAGS) and our publishers. While promising more oracular issues subsequently, I invite you to pick a copy, and you will never regret it. Thank you all!!


Evarestus Igwe-Alufo, CM,
Editor in Chief.