By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
March 13, 2016
E-mail: [email protected]
I don’t know how these Ghanaian and African Roman Catholic clerics are able to square up their grossly contradictory teachings with their consciences, that is assuming that they really are endowed with the fundamental civilized human faculty of a conscience (See “Homosexuals Are Children of God – Palmer Buckle” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 2/29/16). Nevertheless, we need to also honestly acknowledge the fact that the likes of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, the Most Reverend Charles Palmer-Buckle, have come a long way and progressively so. Not quite long ago, for instance, Archbishop Palmer-Buckle was smack amidst the chorus of those stentorian and self-righteous so-called men and women of the cloth intemperately denouncing LGBT people as subhuman elements who had absolutely no inheritance, whatsoever, in the celestial Kingdom of God.
Now, refreshingly, the Archbishop of Accra has not only charitably and humbly extended God’s heritage to the members of the gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual community – not that he has any divine mandate to doing so – Bishop Palmer-Buckle is also saying that LGBT people have an inalienable right to dignity and social security and justice that ought to be respected by all. But, of course, like his bosses at the Vatican and his continental African clerical colleagues, the Prelate of Accra still has a long way to go. He has a long way to go because Archbishop Palmer-Buckle has yet to assume the same pontifical tone he has maintained when it comes to discussing the subject of homosexual existence and culture. For instance, he has yet to fully or comprehensively address the prevalence of homosexuality among members of the Catholic priesthood and sisterhood.
He has also yet to address why as a bona fide African with self-confessed veneration for African cultures, he still believes that clerical celibacy is a liturgical praxis worthy of universal emulation, when all the practical indicators point to the inescapable fact of the prevalence of pedophilia and adultery, as well as fornication, among the members of the Catholic priesthood. Indeed, there is more than ample and readily accessible documentary evidence that year in and year out, the Vatican and many Catholic dioceses around the globe settle criminal cases involving the sexual molestation and exploitation of the Church’s laity by members of the clergy. For the most part, the Church has stepped in to jealously protect its own, by ensuring that most of these offending priests would not face the full heft and brunt of the all-too-unsavory “worldly” judicial system, thus seriously leaving open to question and doubt as to whether judicial impartiality exists in the Christian paradise or heaven.
In other words, the Catholic Church, in particular, and all Christian and non-Christian religious establishments, in general, have more soul-searching to do than self-righteously presuming to police the conduct of the laity. The Catholic Church leaders need to explain to the rest of us Africans why they find celibacy, a clearly negative principle of traditional African fatherhood to be a cultural and spiritual ideal that is worthy of emulation. I have also observed time and again – and must quickly add that this is not a personal viewpoint, or perspective, but one that is staunchly backed by scientific research and practical experience – that all humans are inextricably implicated in the sacred act of sexuality. And so maybe the magisterial likes of Bishop Palmer-Buckle would do well to enlighten the rest of us on how celibate priests like himself, and even the Holy Father at the Vatican, express their sexuality. And also whether such non-conjugal expression of their sexuality is in consonance or synchrony with divine precepts and edicts bordering on the same.
Ultimately, the eternal argument here is for the Church to make itself relevant and productive on the question of human sexuality and, in particular, a smugly non-compliant clergy’s right to dictate policy in this aspect of human existence and conduct for the rest of humankind.
*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs.