Cardinal John Njue has retired as the head of the Catholic Church in Kenya.
On Monday, January 4, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of Cardinal Njue as the Archbishop of Nairobi following the attainment of the mandatory retirement age of 75 years.
At the same time, the Pope also appointed Bishop (Rt. Rev) David Kamau as the Apostolic Administrator of Nairobi Archdiocese.
“Bishop Kamau has been serving in the archdiocese since December 22, 1999, when he was appointed the Auxiliary Bishop of Nairobi,” said the Catholic Mirror, a publication of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Cardinal Njue served as the Archbishop of Nairobi for 14 years having been appointed in October 2007 to take over from the late Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a Nzeki who retired in 2007.
Njue was elevated to a Cardinal a month after his appointment, becoming a member of the Sacred College of Cardinals.
He is the second Kenyan to become a Cardinal in the history of Kenya after Cardinal Otunga.
Njue Biography
Cardinal Njue was born in 1944 at Kiriari, Embu District (now Embu County), Kenya.
He was ordained a priest by Pope Paul VI on 6 January 1973.
Njue holds a doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical Urbaniana University and a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Lateran University.
In 1974, he was appointed philosophy professor and dean of students at St. Augustine Senior Seminary, Mabanga in Bungoma, of which he was also rector from 1978 to 1982.
In 1982, he was appointed to Chuka Parish as its first African parish priest.
He then served as rector of St. Joseph’s Philosophicum Seminary in Nairobi until his appointment on 9 June 1986 as the first Bishop of Embu.
He was ordained bishop on 20 September of that year and then coadjutor Archbishop of Nyeri on 23 January 2002.
From 2005-2006, he was Apostolic Administrator of the Vicariate of Isiolo.
He was also Apostolic Administrator of the diocese of Murang’a (2006-2009).
On October 6, 2007 he was appointed Archbishop of Nairobi.
