The Director of Communication, Catholic Diocese of Abeokuta, Rev. Fr. Gregory Fadele, has called on Nigerians to use the Valentine’s Day celebration to show true and sacrificial love to others.
Fadele, who made the call in an interview on Friday in Abeokuta, said true love should be sacrificial and reflected on daily human interactions and relationships, marriage, and society.
He said true love should be genuine, unconditional and expressed through kindness, compassion, forgiveness, kind words and gestures and not just material things.
“Today, Valentine’s Day celebration has become a global celebration which started with the church with a Saint called Valentine who fought for the sanity of marriage and love.
“It must be established that the kind of love that saint Valentine fought for and died for is the love that should be practiced within the marriage institution and the society.
“‘It is the Christian perspective of love which has no boundaries, the love that is patient, kind, forgiven, love that is not jealous and selfish is what the church wants Nigerians to demonstrate.
“The colouration the society is given to Valentine’s Day has shifted what the church meant by the celebration.
“The society we are now demonstrates a selfish kind of love. Today, you see people engaging in all kinds of immorality as a way of showing love for each other,” he said.
Fadele, however, urged political leaders to use the Valentine’s Day celebration as a reminder that we exist for one another by promoting love and impacting the society.
He also urged parents to raise their children with love, saying that most young ones celebrating the wayward kind of love were not loved from home.
The cleric urged youths to shun immoral acts, violence and vices that could lure them into crime.