So it was also in this city founded on the top of hills when the messengers of peace published the good tidings of salvation in Christ Jesus. So onerous was their task then, but so rewarding are their efforts that we today speak of the Catholic Diocese of Enugu.

Indeed, the history of the Church in any part of the world is always associated with the story of indefatigable and dauntless missionary zeal of the lovers of the Word. The illumination of the territory of Enugu with the Word of God took various stages and turns.

Enugu was part and parcel of the Apostolic Prefecture of the Lower Niger, which His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII created in 1889 in acknowledgment of the efforts of Fr. Joseph Lutz and his team. Fr. Lutz was made the first Apostolic Prefect of this Prefecture.

He and his successors made relentless efforts to spread the Good News to the length and breadth of the new Prefecture. However, it was under Fr. Joseph Shanahan (later Bishop), as the fifth Apostolic Prefect of the Prefecture of Lower Niger, that the Good News of salvation in Christ Jesus had a grip on the soil of Enugu.