By Daniel Amoako & Staff writer
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Pope Benedict XVI, has nominated His Eminence Ivan Cardinal Dias as his Special envoy to the Centenary of the Evangelisation of the Northern part of Ghana.
The climax of the celebration would be marked by a solemn Pontifical Mass in Navrongo-Bolgatanga on Monday, April 23, 2007.
Cardinal Dias, who is the Prefect of the Evangelisation of Peoples, will also be the Principal Celebrant of Eucharistic Liturgy to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of St. Peter’s Regional Seminary at Pedu, Cape Coast, scheduled for Saturday, April 28, 2007.
Cardinal Dias’ nomination for the celebration, is in line with the Holy Father’s desire to unite himself with Catholics in Ghana “in this historic and blissful occasion.”
From 1982 to 1987, Cardinal Dias served as Pro-Nuncio to Ghana.
During his stay, Cardinal Dias will visit different Dioceses and various institutions, according to a release issued by Archbishop George Kocherry, Papal Nuncio to Ghana.
Cardinal Dias, 71, was consecrated Archbishop in 1982 and posted to Ghana the same year.
In 1987, he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to South Korea where he worked for four years.
Just a month after the Indian Prelate was named a Cardinal in February 2001, late Pope John Paul II named him to be one of three Presidents of the World Synod of Bishops and a member of the three key Vatican Congregations: Doctrine, Catholic Education and Worship and the Sacraments.
The need for strong, convinced witnesses of faith, was a recurring theme in his speeches and messages, whether addressed to an international gathering of Priests, a Vatican Conference on Health Care, a Religious Order holding its General Chapter or one of his rare interviews.
Cardinal Dias was the homilist at one of the liturgies held during a Vatican-sponsored international gathering of Priests in Malta. He said that “in a world dominated by information technology, by New Age teaching and by the decline of ethical values,” God is calling Priests to be models and guides of holiness for others.
Cardinal Dias told the Priests, “God forges Saints on the anvil of love, which sometimes takes the form of a Cross.”
“Every Saint has had to overcome difficulties and suffering of various kinds, but all of them have done so with a profound interior peace and with spiritual joy. In fact, we know that a sad Saint is a poor Saint,” he said.
Cardinal Dias, was one of the most outspoken supporters of the controversial 2000 Document by the Congregation for he Doctrine of the Faith on the uniqueness of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Speaking to Reporters in Rome shortly after the document, “Dominus Iesus,” was released, the then Archbishop said, “It is a reaffirmation of what we believe and what we think,” namely that “Jesus is the only Saviour of the world.”
“We have a right to say who we are, and others can accept it or not,” he said.
Cardinal Dias has consistently warned of the dangers of materialism. At a 2003 Vatican Conference on Clinical Depression, Cardinal Dias said the Christian virtue of hope, based on faith, is needed not only by individuals, but also by rich countries as a whole and by “the developing nations who often try to mimic the richer ones.”
Despite “affluence in wealth, the immensity of knowledge and spectacular inventions and achievements,” he said, entire countries are being “crushed down by godless ideologies and enticing proposals that exalt the anti-God cultures, including the culture of death.”
The Cardinal also told the Conference he believed the Sacraments of Reconciliation and of the Anointing of the Sick could cure people who are depressed because they are gay.
He told the Conference he knew a Priest who had helped two male couples and a female couple by leading “them first to receiving individually the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and then the anointing of the sick because their problem was leading them not to death of the body, but more seriously that of the soul.”
“You will be glad to learn that all the three cases were cured completely of their unnatural tendencies,” he said.
In his preaching and teaching, Cardinal Dias also has a penchant for combining quotes from Scripture with everyday images.
“The Bishop, like the donkey, must carry Jesus high on his shoulders for all the people to see and hear and follow. The hosannas and the alleluias, the palm and olive branches, the clothes strewn before it on the roadside are not for the donkey, but for his Lord and Master,” he told an International Conference for Bishops in Rome in 2000.
When he was named to the College of Cardinals, he said his experience in the Diplomatic Service taught him to avoid confrontation and solve problems through dialogue and fostering good will, reported UCA News, an Asian Church News Agency based in Thailand.
He was ordained a Priest in 1958 and worked at St. Stephen’s Church in Mumbai for two years before going to Rome to study at the Vatican Institute for Diplomats. On completing his studies in 1964, he was appointed to the Vatican Secretariat of State.
He worked for the Secretariat’s Eastern Europe Desk for nine years, at the height of the Cold War, and became acquainted with the then Archbishop of Krakow, Poland – later Pope John Paul II.
He also began picking up familiarity with an increasing number of languages, eventually managing to function in more than a dozen different tongues.
He served at Nunciatures in Scandinavia, Indonesia and Madagascar.
He was transferred to the Vatican’s Council for the Public Affairs of the Church as Chief of the Desk that served several former Soviet Republics, as well as West African countries and China.
In 1982, he was consecrated Archbishop and sent as Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Ghana, Togo and Benin.
In 1991, he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to post-communist Albania, where his task was to rebuild the Church after decades of harshly imposed official atheism.
Additional file by the Catholic News Service and Damian Avevor
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