NIGERIAN SEMINARIAN STUDIES AT ST. MARY'S

Patrick Nwokoye remembers every detail of the day he was confirmed. The archbishop of Lagos laid his hand on the 14-year-old boy's brow and made the sign of the cross. "It was an incredible feeling," Nwokoye says.

"I told my friend if I died that day I'm going to heaven."

Nwokoye (pronounced Wo-ko-yuh) grew up Catholic in Nigeria, a former British colony that is half Christian and half Moslem. His father, a director of the Nestle Company, wouldn't let his children eat chocolate because it was bad for their teeth. And he refused when his youthful son asked for permission to attend a seminary.

"He probably thought, something is wrong with this little kid," Nwokoye said.

Fourteen years later, smiling at the voyage "God's work" has taken him on so far, he says, "I wouldn't have thought I would be here."

Here is St. Mary's Cathedral in Cape Girardeau, where Nwokoye is completing his final year of study for the priesthood. Before coming to the U.S., he spent 12 years in Rome. He earned his doctorate in philosophy there at Pontifical University Lateranensis, often called "the pope's university."

"Philosophy is a great eye-opener," he says. "It opened lots of thinking processes."

Empathy was the subject of his dissertation, an unusual choice in a field where the power of reason is so highly prized. Nwokoye wanted "to study people on a human level, to understand the notion of compassion.

"... A good combination of faith and reason can move you places you've never been before," he says.

Two of the years Nwokoye spent in Rome were devoted to conducting interviews on a youth talk show seen by six million TV viewers throughout Italy. Some American television shows trouble him.

"I see TV as an incredible tool to better the lives of many. Misusing it is mad," he says.

His mother died in a car accident when he was 6. His father died five years ago. He moved to Rome to be nearer older brothers who were living there. "My family has been a rock and pillar," he said.

Nigerians grow up with a different concept of family than Americans have, he said. Every personal decision is considered for the effect it will have on the family.

His sisters still check to make sure he's getting enough sleep and not getting in too late. He has four brothers and three sisters in a variety of vocations including engineer, architect, student, caterer and housewife.

Had he moved directly from Nigeria to the U.S. without the stay in Rome in between he would have had problems adjusting, Nwohoke says. "In my country the family is one of the strong things. It is sacred. It is disheartening to find out in the U.S., where you have everything, the family is lacking."

He sees that, he says, in the orphanage where he has worked in St. Louis and in the ease with which people divorce.

People need to invest more in the family, he says, assuring he doesn't mean wealth. "Make sure the family is the first thing and the last thing," he said.

"What we do in the family can affect the nation. If the family is bad you don't expect the country to be good."

How he ended up in the United States involved a process mysterious even to him. As Nwokoye was finishing his doctorate, a friend suggested he consider going to America. He wrote to five dioceses and was brought to the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau to visit in 1996.

"The bishop (John Leibrecht) made an indelible impression on me," he said. "He is more than a bishop. He is very human, more like a father."

When the decision was made to come to this diocese, he spent three months at the cathedral in Springfield before he was sent to Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis to begin his studies toward becoming a diocesan priest.

This period at St. Mary's Cathedral is called his pastoral year. "You're seeing the life you think God might be calling you to," he says.

Nwokoye is helping teach a theology class to seniors at Notre Dame High School and art to elementary students at St. Mary's School. "My goal will be to make of them Michelangelos," he jokes.

He visits people who are sick and people in nursing homes and does everything a priest would be expected to do except celebrate Mass.

Nigerian Catholics spend three hours on Sunday singing and dancing to God.

If he is ordained next year, Nwokoye will be assigned to the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau.

He isn't being trained in the U.S. to return to Nigeria, he said.

"The church is bigger than the church in America, the church in Nigeria and the church in Rome."

He misses his family and friends in Rome but does not wonder why he is here.

"At a certain point I cannot answer that question," he says. "I say to myself, God, do whatever you want me to."

Nwokoye is fluent in five languages: English, Italian, Ibo (spoken in eastern Nigeria), Yoruba (the language of western Nigeria), and the pidgin English commonly spoken in countries colonized by the British. He also speaks a bit of Spanish.

He has studied modern dance, plays soccer and likes to sing. Unlike fellow countryman Hakeem Olajuwon, he doesn't play basketball.

These are all parts of the nascent priest his travels and education have helped create. The decision whether to make that commitment will come next year. Priests or not, Nwokoye says, "We all have a duty and obligation in some way or other to help people."