2014-10-15 16:24:00

Ghana: Promoting the Church’s Social Teaching Among Catholic MPs


The Catholic Bishops Conference of Ghana in October 2013 created the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office (CPLO) to facilitate contact and dialogue between the Catholic Church and the country’s lawmakers. The CPLO is to help especially Catholic parliamentarians make informed decisions on political, economic and social issues for the common good and in the light of Catholic Social Teaching.

As a follow-up to that initiative, representatives of the Catholic Bishops of Ghana met with Catholic Parliamentarian in August to discuss a wide range of issues of national interest.

In an interview here at our studios during the recent Ad Limina visit of the Ghanaian bishops, Archbishop of Accra, Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle explained the reasons for setting up an office to interact with members of parliament.

The archbishop said, “It is an office where we have one or two priests and hoping to have a few more competent lay men and women in maters economic, financial, political, who would be allowed to sit in parliament as observers, to listen to the discussions that are going on in parliament in order to bring to the Church: 1) What is happening in the various caucuses; 2) To be able to help us in the Church to know, for instance, bills that are passing through parliament, what is being discussed, so that we can bring our contribution to our Catholic parliamentarians.”

Listen to Archbishop Palmer-Buckle speaking to Festus Tarawalie about the CPLO.

The president of the country’s bishops conference, Bishop Joseph Osei-Bonsu brought up this issue during their Ad Limina visit in September. Speaking about the engagement of the Church with the Temporal Order, the Bishop of the Diocese of Konongo-Mampong said, “We see it as our responsibility to do all we can to promote integral human development through providing for both the spiritual and material needs of God’s children.” He said in line with this, they strive to cater for the “educational and health needs of our people through the provision of educational and health institutions that are rendering invaluable service to our people.”

In the political domain, continued the bishop, “we have contributed to democracy and peace in Ghana through the application of the Church’s Social Teaching to public life and through regular communiqués, pastoral letters and statements on pertinent national issues.” He also went on to talk about how they have regularly given advice to the political leadership and led efforts in the management and resolution of conflicts.  Bishop Osei-Bonsu said to further enhance the application of the Church’s Social Teaching to public life the Church established the CPLO office last year “to facilitate regular dialogue with the Government and Parliament on policy issues.”

 








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