Church in Ghana Announces Pro-Life Conference

CANAA || By Damian Avevor || 23 July 2015

The Catholic Church in Ghana on Wednesday announced a two-day pro-life conference to be marked from August 7-8, 2015 at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Accra under the theme: Promoting Life and Family Values in the Continuing Culture of Death.

The initiative is being spearheaded by the Health Commission of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC) with the aim to lead Ghanaians to a deeper reflection of the Gospel of Life and the appreciation of the sanctity of life, purity of marriage and the dignity of human sexuality.

Announcing the conference at a Press Conference held at the Ghana National Catholic Secretariat, Bishop Afrifah-Agyekum said that recognizing that Ghana is at the heart of the storm and struggle between the culture of life and culture of death in Africa necessitated the planning of the Conference.

“Realizing the urgent need for the Church in Ghana to rise up and promote the Gospel of life in speaking against the emerging culture of death in Ghana,” was also one of the reasons for the conference, he added.

He noted that the Conference was to strengthen the witness of the faithful and other Christians to promote the dignity of life from conception to natural death; promote long cherished values of family life such as unity, indissolubility, openness to life and incorporating government, leaders and people in the project of building an authentic culture of life in Ghana.

“The Catholic Church acknowledges the important role she has to play in (collaboration) with other like-minded Christian groups and Civil Society Organisations in renewing a pro-life mission in the world and calling on contemporary society to a deeper reflection of the Gospel of life,” Bishop Afrifah-Agyekum said.

“As the leadership of the Catholic Church in Ghana, we the Bishops recognize that a grave responsibility is imposed on us by our apostolic mandate to reiterate the Church’s true and beautiful teachings on the sanctity of life, the beauty of love, the purity of marriage and family life and the dignity of human sexuality” Bishop Afrifah-Agyekum continued.

According to the Bishop, the Conference was aimed at teaching and training the faithful to understand the Gospel of life (evangelium vitae) and to stand and defend the pro-life position of the Church.

In October 2014, the Holy Father, Pope Francis convoked an extra-Ordinary Synod on the family in Rome to enable the Church to reflect on the vocation and mission of the family in the contemporary world and to fashion a response to the very challenges that the family of today faces.

The Synod highlighted several challenges of the family and discovered that at the heart of these challenges was a blatant disregard for family values and the dignity and sanctity of life in the modern world.

The Synod observed that over the years but most importantly in recent times, there has been an increasing encroachment of the proponents of the culture of death in almost every part of the world including Africa.

For Africa, the Synod discovered that attacks and effects of the culture of death were evident in the persistent attempts by some international organisations, wealthy nations and philanthropists to limit, suppress and even destroy the source of human life among Africans.

In an interview after the launching, the Bishop said the unconditional respect for the right to life of every innocent person from the moment of conception to natural death is one of the pillars upon which every civil society stands and therefore the State has the primary duty to defend life.

“To be actively pro-life is to contribute to the renewal of society through the promotion of family values and the common good,” he added, stating that there can be no democracy without the recognition of every person’s dignity nor can there be a guarantee of true peace unless life is defended and promoted.

He lamented that the culture of death was emerging in Africa in a form of population control measures being proposed and propagated in African Nations by some multi-national organizations which had implanted themselves in Africa as Family Planning organizations.

He noted that in reality, these organizations were promoting unnatural and artificial means of birth control such as abortion, sterilization, vasectomies, the use of condoms over and above the Natural Family Planning the Catholic Church upholds.

Activities lined-up for the two-day Conference include, a prayer campaign which had been declared in all parishes, rectorates and stations from July 22, 2015; lectures by both local and international speakers on August 7, 2015; a pro-life/pro-family match from the from the Holy Spirit cathedral through some principal streets of Accra on August 8, 2015; and the issuing of a communique and the encouragement of the mass Media to take up the pro-life campaign throughout the country.

The Wednesday Press launching was attended by members of the Ghana Medical and Ethics Commission, staff of the National Catholic Secretariat (NCS), and Diocesan Directors of Communications, who were attending a meeting in Accra.