Switzerland Today

Greetings from Bern!

For years, a dearth of homegrown priests has resulted in Swiss parishes importing clergymen from all around the world. Vitus Nwosu from Nigeria is a Catholic priest in the Alpine municipality of Untergoms – and striker for the local football team – who is trying to make Mass a bit more fun and lively.

Plus we speak to another expat Swiss heading to Lugano for the Swiss Abroad Congress this weekend.

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In the news:  Russia “really hadn’t anticipated” Switzerland aligning itself with EU sanctions in March, according to a former Russian diplomat to the UN in Geneva.

• The Russians had hoped Switzerland would remain a “haven for Russian business – legal or not”, Boris Bondarev said in an interviewExternal link with Le Temps newspaper today. “It was very naive, but that’s really how it happened.” Bondarev resigned in May in protest at Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• Four years after the crash of a vintage Ju-52 plane in which 20 people died, the Swiss government has tightened the regulations for flights with historic aircraft. Commercial flights will no longer be permitted, and a maximum of nine people may fly on private flights, no more than six of whom may be passengers.
• Football clubs are an important pillar for integration into Swiss society, also for immigrants, according to a study. However, immigrant women are less likely to join teams and it is more difficult for them to take over official positions in a club. They are also more often victims of discrimination.

wikimediacommons / Roland Zumbühl

For years, the shortage of priests in Switzerland has led to guest priests being hired from abroad. Vitus Nwosu from Nigeria is a Catholic priest in the Alpine municipality of Untergoms – and striker for the local football team.

The 40-year-old Nigerian points to the ornate pulpit in his church, the 500-year-old High Baroque masterpiece St. Georg in Ernen (pictured), and shakes his head. “I never use the pulpit,” he tells the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper, which today has a long articleExternal link on him. “Speaking down from so high – that’s not my style.”

Ugonna Vitus Nwosu has been pastor of Ernen, Binn and Lax in Untergoms, southwest Switzerland, since 2019; before that he had been filling in for the ill pastor for almost a year. “Actually, I only wanted to come for a summer in 2018 to get to know Switzerland,” he says. He had been doing his Masters in theology in Bologna at the time.

“The services here are often a bit boring,” he admits. “After all, not every Mass is a funeral Mass.” In Nigeria, he says, it’s not unusual for Mass to last two hours and for people to dance during it. “It’s lively. Here, people look at their watches after 50 minutes and get restless.”

He says it’s important for him to be part of the community in everyday life. Villagers say he can also be found in the pub, where he has a beer and chats with locals. He is even better known, beyond Ernen, as the 1.90-metre striker of FC Ernen. His footballing skills resulted in an unusual success. “We promised our priest Vitus that the whole team would go to Mass as soon as he scored his first goal,” FC Ernen posted on social media in August 2020. “That happened on Thursday. So we dutifully went to Mass. He was delighted!”

How long Father Vitus will stay in Ernen is open. The diocese of Sion and his home diocese of Nsukka in Nigeria have good relations, and two other priests from Nsukka are on assignment in the canton. The bishops decide where their priests will work. “I feel comfortable here,” he says. And the parish would like to keep him. “With the shortage of priests, you never know what will happen,” says Anton Clausen, president of the parish council. “But we would like Father Vitus to stay as long as possible.”

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Off to Lugano! The Congress of the Swiss Abroad takes place this weekend. We speak to some of the Swiss Abroad who are travelling to the southern Swiss city.

The Assembly of the Swiss Abroad is meeting again physically for the first time since the pandemic: in Lugano from August 19-21. We contacted some of the delegates of the Council of the Swiss Abroad to see how they are preparing for the upcoming event.

Yvonne Diffenhard (pictured) is travelling to Lugano from Germany. “I’m hoping to talk to a lot of other delegates and to learn more about the current important topics,” she says. “I’m looking forward to seeing people I already know and getting to know new delegates from around the world who were elected in 2021.”

“Lugano is always worth the trip,” she adds. “And thanks to our sponsors, we can travel by train through Switzerland to get there.” She says one positive feature of the Swiss Abroad Congress is that it is held in different locations each time. As a result, “we Swiss Abroad travel to places we perhaps wouldn’t consider during our normal holidays back home”. “If I have time,” Diffenhard says, “I’ll make a detour to visit family and friends in Zurich.”

• Our Swiss Abroad pageExternal link.
• 98^th Congress of the Swiss Abroad 2022 in Lugano websiteExternal link.