PORTLAND — Bishop Robert P. Deeley has announced the following priest assignment for a new priest arriving in the Diocese of Portland from the Archdiocese of Lagos, Nigeria.

Effective immediately, Father Patrick Efé-egiughwe Agbodi, SMA, has received a temporary assignment to serve at St. Joseph Parish (St. Joseph Church, Bridgton; St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, Fryeburg) and St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish (St. Catherine of Sienna Church, Norway; Our Lady of Ransom Church, Mechanic Falls; St. Mary Church, Oxford). Agbodi, who will receive a permanent assignment in the early summer, arrived in Maine recently.

“Good people, good people, a very friendly kind of people,” Agbodi said about his first impressions of Maine. “Human nature is the same everywhere, whether white or black or yellow or red, we have something in common. And you (Americans) are wonderful. Without your generosity, I don’t think that we would have some of those investments that we have in Africa today. In the Catholic Church, I see charity and generosity is part of our identity, so it’s everywhere. So you have helped us.”

Born in Nigeria in 1968, Agbodi was accepted as a seminarian for the Society of African Missions in 1990. The SMA is an international community of missionaries founded in France in 1856. Agbodi completed his philosophical studies at Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic Major Seminary in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1995. After completing a spiritual formation year in the Republic of Benin and a pastoral year in Ivory Coast, he completed his theological studies at the Catholic Institute of West Africa, also in Ivory Coast, in 2000. He was ordained to the priesthood on July 1, 2000, at St. Patrick Church in Asaba, Nigeria.

Agbodi has served as an assistant parish priest in Liberia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. During his eight years in Tanzania, he also served as director of vocations for the SMA’s Tanzanian Region and as a vice regional superior. From 2010 to 2012, Agbodi was a formator and burser for the SMA House of Formation in Ibadan, Nigeria. Since 2012, he has served as an assistant parish priest at St. Joseph Church in Lagos, a parish priest at Sacred Heart Church in Lagos, and an assistant parish priest at St. Mary Church in Lagos.

As a missionary priest, Agbodi is always inspired by new opportunities to share the Catholic faith.

Patrick Efé-egiughwe Agbodi