Ghana’s Bishops Offer A Model For The USCCB
By CHRISTOPHER MANION
Last week we reported that, when Biden NSC spokesman John Kirby said that “LGBTQ+ rights are . . . a core part of our foreign policy,” he followed up by threatening to impose economic sanctions on the African nation of Uganda if that predominantly Christian country enacts an anti-LGBTQ identity law recently passed by Parliament.
Well, this past Wednesday, the Catholic bishops of Uganda announced that they will reserve judgment until they are able to study the full contents of the proposed legislation. “As fathers of the Catholic Church, we will meet to discuss it and give the position of the Catholic Church in Uganda,” assured Archbishop Paul Ssemogerere of Kampala, according to reports from La Croix.
At press time, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had yet to sign the legislation into law.
But Uganda is not alone. Millions of Africans have been wearied by decades of efforts by the secular West to jam abortion, population control, and a growing multitude of sexual perversions onto the region. For the Left, Africa is a key target: It has both the fastest-growing population and the fastest-growing Catholic Church in the world.
That freaks out the Usual Suspects — Leftist politicians, the WHO, Bill Gates, and Planned Parenthood.
In response to this ideological colonialism, righteous resistance to the purveyors of the Culture of Death is growing throughout the continent.
But the Biden Junta isn’t finished. This week, on Africa’s Atlantic coast, Kamala Harris arrived in Ghana, and she came bearing gifts: your money.
Kamala’s host, Ghanian President Nana Akufo-Addo, is often accused of massive corruption, so America’s most notorious palaver purveyor laid it on thick.
“Under your leadership,” she said, “Ghana has been a beacon of democracy and a contributor to global peace and security.” Fatuous flattery, to be sure, but behind Kamala’s perpetually prolix prose about “strengthening our partnerships across the continent” lay John Kirby’s mortal threat: Either Nana allows Biden and other Western “leaders” to import their pro-abortion, pro-sodomy programs disguised as “foreign assistance,” or Kamala’s bribe of hundreds of millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars will disappear.
Maybe Akufo-Addo swelled with pride, but Ghana’s Catholic bishops aren’t buying it. They know that behind Kamala’s babbling there lies a White House Cabal of ruthless Obama veterans like Kirby who are running the country. The bishops are also aware that Harris’ empty palaver serves solely as cover for Biden’s Prime Mandate for Africa: to shove his satanic agenda down the throats of pro-family Africans throughout the continent by paying off their corrupt politicians.
While Uganda’s Catholic bishops “reserve judgment,” Ghana’s Catholic bishops have taken a stand. And it’s powerful.
Kamala Go Home!
If the taxpayer funding that the United States has offered Ghana is tied to the country embracing Biden’s agenda, the response of Ghana’s Catholic bishops is firm:
Turn it down!
In an interview with Catholic trends, Bishop Matthew Gyamfi, president of Ghana’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference, explained why President Akufo-Addo should throw Biden’s bribes back in Kamala’s face: accepting aid from the U.S. government with any LGBTQ conditions would simply amount to the government selling out the country’s birthright.
The vast majority of Ghanians, he said “do not want gays and lesbians . . . to be formalized or legalized in Ghana. And that talk of democracy from (the) Vice President of United States…(so what) if those two (gays and lesbians) are rights in her country? These are not human rights here for us.”
“Who told her that they are? When did they consult us?,” he continued. “She has absolutely no right to come and tell us what is human rights in our country. So in her country, a man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman — good. We don’t have any problem with them. But they should not come and tell us what we should do as a Church.”
“I believe in this I speak on behalf of most Ghanians,” he continued. “We don’t want anybody from outside our community to come and tell us what human rights are — we know our human rights. They have their rights, let them have their rights. We are not challenging them on that. But by no means should they come to Ghana, be they president or vice-president, come and tell us what we should do — they have no right to do that. So that is my position. And I believe I speak on behalf of all the bishops in Ghana, we have discussed these issues over and over.”
When asked whether he would accept U.S. aid funding if the Biden agenda were attached, the archbishop firmly replied, “I will not. And the Ghanian people will not. . . . This is a very, very serious issue. It is at the base of our culture, of our family, of our tradition of who we are, as Ghanians. So nobody should buy with it with money.”
“This is not the first time,” he continued. “We have seen the European Union, the United States and these rich countries and say, ‘If only you do this, then we’ll give you the money.’
“I know the governments have done that over and over and over and many Ghanians know it, it is not only I who have seen this. So, when it comes to something that is at the root, what makes people a people — that is their culture, their tradition. Then, if you sell your birthright, if you sell your culture, that tradition, if you sell who you are for money, then you get the money — who are you again?”
Turn It Down!
“Who are you again?”
That’s a question we need to ask our own bishops.
“This is a very, very serious issue. It is at the base of our culture of our family of our tradition of who we are,” said Bishop Gyamfi.
Isn’t that true of American Catholic culture and tradition as well? And yet, in the last half century and more, America’s Catholic bishops have traveled two perilous and parallel paths.
On the one hand, especially since the days of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs, they have become increasingly dependent on a wide variety of federal government funding programs. Today they rely on funding that amounts to billions of taxpayer dollars per year.
On the other hand, during the same 60 years or so, they have become increasingly silent on the Church’s fundamental moral teaching. The bishops’ conference has never publicly opposed federal taxpayer funding of contraception in either domestic or foreign aid programs. Instead of championing Humanae Vitae, the beautiful encyclical of St. Paul VI promulgated in 1968, they have put it in the bottom desk drawer.
Ideas have consequences, said Richard Weaver, and that silence of our shepherds was a very bad idea. All the prophecies of Humanae Vitae have been borne out in history. The bishops have been powerless in opposing the consequences of the sexual revolution, even among their own ranks and the ranks of the clergy.
Meanwhile, they are afraid to criticize their murderous government paymasters, and yet, due to scandals that they themselves have caused, they are more desperate to cash in that taxpayer funding than ever.
Let’s face it. Those two parallel paths taken by our bishops might have been paved with good intentions, but they have led to a dead end.
When their political paymasters offer them the next bribe, pray that they follow Bishop Gyamfi’s lead:
Turn it down!
