Homily of His Eminence Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples at the Holy Mass Commemorating the Centenary of Evangelisation in Northern Ghana, Navrongo, April 23, 2007
“This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24).

With hearts full of joy and sincere gratitude to God, we are gathered here to conclude the celebrations marking the Centenary of Evangelisation in this Northern part of Ghana.

We are united in the precious Name of Jesus, who has promised to be present where two or three are gathered in His Name. I thank His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for having sent me as his Special Envoy to this festive celebration, accompanied by Monsignor Roger Aboteyuure of the Diocese of Navrongo-Bolgatanga and Father Francis Bomansaam, M.Afr. Superior Provincial of the Missionaries of Africa in Ghana and Nigeria. I, personally, am delighted to be back in Ghana, which was my first love as Apostolic Pro-Nuncio twenty five-years ago.

A few days ago, I had a private audience with the Holy Father, and when I told him of my impending visit to Ghana, he very graciously asked me to convey his personal greetings, best wishes and blessings to the beloved people of this great nation: in particular, he greets His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency the Apostolic Nuncio, the Most Reverend Bishops, the Political and Civic Authorities, all the Catholic Priests, Religious men and women and the lay faithful, and the members of the various Christian denominations and of other faiths.
At the end of this Mass, together with my brother Bishops here present, I shall impart to you the Apostolic Blessing of the Holy Father.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ: every jubilee is a propitious occasion to look at the past with gratitude, at the present with joy, and to the future with hope.

We want to recall the divine blessings which Ghana as a whole, and the Tamale Ecclesiastical Province, in particular, have received through the Good News of Jesus Christ, and we want to ask God to continue showering His graces abundantly on the Church here as it “launches out into the deep” in the third Christian millennium.

Looking at the past, our hearts are indeed filled with thanksgiving for the innumerable graces God has deigned to shower on Northern Ghana during the past hundred years.

Gratitude is the memory of the heart. During this Holy Eucharist there are many intentions we would like to present to God our heavenly Father, through Christ Jesus Our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

We want to remember all those who have been tireless labourers in the vineyard of the Lord in this portion of the country.

In particular, we think of the first three Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) – Fr. Jean-Marie Chollet, Fr. Oscar Morin and Brother Eugene Gall – who came to Navrongo from Burkina Faso in 1906 and began to evangelise the people.

The diary of these pioneer missionaries tells of the joy and enthusiasm which reigned in the midst of their simple and humble surroundings, and of the initial setbacks they had as they started to settle in their newly adopted homeland.

The missionaries, in fact, had to face many hurdles – political, social, economic, cultural, religious and others – but with patience and perseverance, they overcame them all, so that the seed of the Gospel which they sowed with toil and tears did not die, but survived, sprouted and began to bear fruit, and continues to do so even to this day.

They preached the Gospel to all, without any discrimination whatsoever, their only aim being to unite the ethnic groups and to motivate them to live together in peace and harmony.

Fr. Oscar Morin who later became the first Prefect Apostolic, and then Vicar Apostolic, of Navrongo (1948-1974), and was followed by the Most Rev. Gerard Bertrand (1948-1973) and Gabriel Champagne (1956-1974).

We also pay tribute to the many priests who came after the first pioneers, and the Religious women and the Catechists who teamed up with them and are doing so even today in an admirable manner, and gave credibility to the message they proclaimed.

We cannot forget those who died, even violently, while carrying out their noble mission of preaching the Good News.
They are our intercessors in heaven and may the blood they have shed for Christ’s sake be the seed of new Christians (Tertullian).

Let us recall with gratitude the growth of the Church in this part of the country, especially during the past fifty years: the Diocese of Tamale was created as a Suffragan of the Archdiocese of Cape Coast in 1950, the Diocese of Navrongo was erected in 1956 and of the Diocese of Wa in 1959 with its first bishop, who is still in our midst today: our very dear Cardinal Peter Porekuu Dery, who later became Archbishop of Tamale (1977).

We also have Archbishop Gregory E. Kpiebaya who succeeded Bishop Dery, first in Wa and then in Tamale.
We think of Bishop Rudolp Akanlu of happy memory, the first Ghanaian Bishop of Navrongo (which was later on to be called Navrongo-Bolgatanga), and his successor Bishop Lucas Abadamloora.

We have Bishop Paul Bemile of the Diocese of Wa, Bishop Philip Naameh of the Diocese of Damongo (1995), and Bishop Vincent Sowah Boi-Nai, SVD, of the Diocese of Yendi (1999). So, today, we have an Ecclesiastical Province of Tamale with five Dioceses, all headed by indigenous Bishops. Praise God!

Thanks to this glorious past, the Church in Northern Ghana presents a very consoling picture today, even more when considered within the broader framework of the whole Catholic scenario in the country.

I was so glad to note the many changes for the better which have occurred in the Church since I served here as Apostolic Pro-Nuncio.

The Church in Ghana has blossomed into eighteen Dioceses and has the honour to have two Cardinals among its Bishops, the Catholics have grown in strength, as also the number of Priests and Religious men and women.

This is a clear sign of its inner vitality and dynamism. Furthermore, the Church’s remarkable involvement in the fields of education, health and social initiatives, is indeed worthy of praise: it is a concrete expression of its faith flowing into action, and a witness to its generous service for the greater glory of God and the welfare of the people. We are, indeed, witnessing a “miracle of grace” in Ghana, for which we must raise an ever joyful hymn of praise – like the Magnificat of Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our own – thanking God for His marvelous deeds all throughout the history of the Church in Ghana, and in the Tamale Ecclesiastical Province during the past ten decades, in particular.

Looking to the future, we must recall the missionary mandate we have received from Our Lord Jesus Christ to preach the Good News to every creature, and the challenges it poses to proclamation within an ecumenical and inter-religious dialogical framework.

These challenges are many and varied: from lifting high the sacred Person of Jesus to people who are worshipping an unknown God in their traditional religions to the urgency of inculturating the Gospel and evangelising our cultures, remembering that we are children of our respective cultures and parents of the cultures which will follow us.

These modern challenges demand that our quality of Christian witnessing should progress from good to better, and from better to very good. On the one hand, we must beware of the globalizing trends which seek social and economic progress at any cost, even at the risk of losing one’s own soul, i.e. our Christian identity.

On the other hand, we must also be alert to the demands posed by what Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio (n.37), called “the modern areopagus” where he mentioned new areas of evangelisation which transcend all geographical, cultural and social boundaries, viz. the world of culture and research, of migrants and poverty, of social communication and international relations – which include, of course, information technology and the media in all its forms – commitment to peace, development and the liberation of peoples, the rights of individuals and peoples, especially those of minorities, the empowerment of women and the education of children, the ecological safeguard of the created world.

All these sectors of the modern aeropagus, says the Pope, need to be illuminated with the light of the Gospel, and hence enter within the missionary mandate of the Church.

Let let humbly present all these intentions to the Lord during this Holy Eucharist, and pray that the Church in Ghana may respond generously to Christ Our Lord’s mandate and become an ever more vibrant missionary Church both within and without its national borders.

Finally, le us remember the many peoples and persons in this country who have not yet received the Good News of Jesus Christ, or rather, the Good News who is Jesus Christ, true God and true man.

Evangelisation, we know, is primarily the action of the Holy Spirit, who has been at work in all cultures since the beginning of the universe. It was He who prepared the Incarnation of the Son of God and His redemptive sacrifice two thousand years ago.

He has left pointers all along the history of world cultures and traditional religions: they are the “seeds of the Word” which would lead honest seekers towards the fullness of the truth in Christ Jesus.

The Holy Spirit started the work of evangelisation with direct and indirect proclamation at the very moment that Christ Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Lk. 2:8-20; Mt 2:1-12).

Direct proclamation: when the Angels announced the glad tiding of Jesus’ birth to shepherds who watched their flock that night. Indirect proclamation: when a star rose in the East and led some Wise Men laden with precious gifts to Jesus, the new-born King and Saviour of the world.

Applying this to the peoples of Ghana, we must acknowledge and respect the precious treasures of the cultural and religious heritage which – like the Wise Men – they carry in their bosom, and also appreciate and assist their efforts to discover the full Truth as they follow their respective scriptures and saints as guiding stars.

Just as the Wise Men were restless until they found Jesus and placed their treasures before Him and adored Him, so also will the people of Ghana, with their varied and rich cultures and religious traditions, be restless until they find and adore Him who alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You” (St. Augustine).

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