Bishop in Ghana Urges Charity Organizations to Use Funds for Intended Purposes, Bishop-Elect Calls for Collaborative Ministry

CANAA || By Damian Avevor and Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla || 06 August 2015

The Vice President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC), Bishop Anthony Adanuty, has called on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to make good use of the funding at their disposal for the intended purposes, encouraging them to support the underprivileged.

Bishop Adanuty made the appeal in a Lecture he delivered at Christ the King Parish Hall in Accra, during the 25^th Anniversary of the Centre of Hope, a Catholic NGO under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Accra.

He said that it was the duty of NGOs and all Charity Organizations to ensure that the donations for victims of circumstances were used judiciously and for the purpose for which they were given.

Speaking on the topic, The Church’s Role in Living the Mission of Charity: Challenges and Prospects, Bishop Adanuty called on Church authorities to ensure that there was transparency and accountability for donor funding.

He argued that the Christian idea of charity is the emptying of oneself to some degree so that another person might be enriched.

“Self-impoverishment in charity is not necessarily material. It could as well be the troubles one goes to in order to make someone else feel good and loved,” Bishop Adanuty noted.

He acknowledged with appreciation the initiative of Accra Archdiocese through the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) sisters who run the Centre, saying in taking care of the needy at the Centre, the Archdiocese was making God’s love a reality and therefore living the mission of the Church.

Centre of Hope was established by the late Archbishop Dominic Kodwo Andoh in 1990.

The Lecture was chaired by Archbishop Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle of Accra, with the Ghana Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, as the Special Guest.

Archbishop Palmer-Buckle commended the FMM Sisters for taking up the mantle to care for the aged, widowed and abandoned, and lauded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for fostering the care for the vulnerable.

He also thanked donor agencies, the clergy, religious women and men and the lay faithful for their continuous support for the Centre.

Centre of Hope has been a haven for the afflicted in society and dignities of persons have been restored there, a fact the Centre’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, Prof. Dr. Edmund Delle, appreciated.

Meanwhile, the Bishop-elect of Ho diocese, Father Emmanuel Fianu, has called on the priests, the religious and the lay faithful of the diocese to collaborate with him when he assumes office and appealed for prayers to be a faithful shepherd in the vineyard entrusted to him.

In an Interview, the Bishop-elect expected to be accepted by all saying, “most of them may not know me but I hope we will not be strangers to one another.”

“What binds us is our common Baptism and the invitation to work together to create the Kingdom of God here among us,” he added.

He promised to listen to his predecessor, the clergy, the religious and the laity when he will start off his ministry as the diocesan ordinary.

Asked how he felt when he got the news of his appointment as Bishop, he said, “The news came to me like a thunderbolt. I could not believe my ears and thought they dialed a wrong number. It took me some time to come to terms with the information.”

“Although I have been in the General Administration of an international Religious Missionary Institute of over 6,000 members in more than 70 countries, it was not the same thing as being the shepherd of a Diocese,” the Bishop-elect who belongs to the religious Congregation of Divine Word Missionaries (SVD) said.

He was appointed Bishop of Ho diocese in Ghana on July 14, 2015 by the Holy Father, to succeed Bishop Francis Anani Kofi Lodonu.

“I accept this appointment in the spirit of religious obedience and trust in the support of Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference as well as the Priests, Religious and faithful of Ho Diocese,” he concluded.