Formerly the British Colony of the Gold Coast, the Republic of Ghana is located in West Africa bordering the Gulf of Guinea on the south, Côte d'Ivoire on the west, Burkina Faso on the north and northwest, and Togo on the east. Ghana, which was formed from a merger of several British colonial holdings-on the west the Gold Coast and on the east the Togoland Trust Territory-was granted internal autonomy in 1954 and independence in 1957.
In 1960 it became a republic within the British Commonwealth and fell under a series of civilian regimes before beginning multi-party elections in 1993. Despite the wealth of natural resources in the region, by the start of the 21st century Ghana remained dependent on foreign aid due to its continued instability.
According to the 2021 national census, 10% of the Ghanaian population declared a religious affiliation with Catholicism. This makes the Roman Catholic Church the second-largest Christian denomination in the country (after the Church of Pentecost) and the biggest among the so-called historic missionary churches.
How EACH Christian denomination formed
The Developing Church
Encompassing an ancient African kingdom known as "the land of gold" as early as 800, Ghana was discovered by Portuguese traders in 1471. Portuguese priests arrived at the coast beginning in 1482, although their efforts were hampered by the developing slave trade in the region. Ghana was captured by the Dutch in 1637 but was returned to the Portuguese in trade for Brazil five years later.
Sporadic missionary work was carried on by the Augustinians (1572-76), the Capuchins (1637-84) and the Dominicans (1687-1704), although these early efforts were seriously hampered by tribal hostilities, a myriad of native languages, an unhealthy climate and the now-booming slave trade carried on by competing Dutch, British, Danish and French interests. Accra had an African priest from 1679 to 1682.
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The Vicariate of the Two Guineas, created in 1842, included Ghana. In 1879, four years after the region became a British colony, the Prefecture Apostolic of the Gold Coast was erected and entrusted to the Society of african missions. Catholic missionary work began in earnest in 1880, following active Protestant evangelization efforts begun as early as 1737 and growing in strength through the efforts of Presbyterian and Methodist missionaries in the 1800s.
In 1901 Ghana expanded northward and by 1906 the White Fathers began to evangelize this new region. In 1943 the Prefecture Apostolic of Accra was established and entrusted to the Society of the divine word. In 1950, with 300,000 Catholics in the country, the hierarchy was established, with Cape Coast (formerly Vicariate of the Gold Coast, 1901-50) as archdiocese and metropolitan see. The Ghana Catholic Bishop's Conference was established in 1960.
Catholic Dioceses in Ghana
In 1956 the territory of Togoland voted for union with Ghana, and the region achieved independence from Great Britain a year later, on March 7, 1957. A republic was established under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah in 1960, but was overthrown by a military coup in 1966. Although the civilian government was restored in 1969, its fall again within three years foreshadowed the political unrest that would plague the region for several decades.
The Modern Church
The Second Vatican Council, held from 1962-65, inspired a re-evaluation of the Ghanaian Church's relationship to its cultural milieu. Taking account of the socio-religious traditions shaping the country, the Church recognized the need for a dynamic interaction between the Gospels and native traditions. As a result, meaningful symbols from local cultures were introduced into the liturgy, and in catechesis Ghanaian concepts were used to transmit the message of the Gospel.
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Another postconciliar development was the resurgence of spiritual activity among lay people. The Spiritual Renewal Center in Kumasi and the Wanye Renewal Center at Wa were organized to support the formation of lay groups in their regions. As a result of diocesal training, lay people soon staffed national and diocesan departments and commissions.
Church Weathers Political Upheaval
Through a series of coups, a succession of governments held short-term control of the country following the fall of Nkrumah. Then, in 1979 a military government under Jerry Rawlings took power through brutal means. On Dec. 31, 1981 the brutality of Rawlings and his cadre of junior military officers reached extreme proportions, including the murder of three judges and a retired army major.
The constitution was suspended, and freedom of speech curtailed. Catholic schools had been nationalized in 1950; in 1987 the teaching of Christian religion within Ghana's public schools was further curtailed by the state, and by the late 1990s the Church role in education had been reduced to appointing and supervising teachers.
In 1985 the government forced the shut-down of the Church-run Catholic Standard after it criticized state policy, and four years later, in June of 1989, required the registration of all religious bodies, although this law was later repealed. The Catholic Standard resumed publication in 1992. The Church remained active in the areas of education, medical care and socio-economic well-being. Under pressure from international organizations, Rawlings eventually restored democracy, although he won the first multiparty election, held in November of 1992 amid some controversy.
Continues Active Role in Politics, Society
The growing presence of native bishops in the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference during the 1970s enabled it to play an active role in the protection and defense of human rights. The Conference maintained a good working relationship with the Christian Council of Ghana and on several instances worked together to jointly protest government injustices. In 1972 the bishops published a statement on family planning to express concern about public policy.
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A pastoral letter in December of 1973 stressed the right to life as fundamental to human beings. In September of 1982, a Justice and Peace Commission document drew the nation's attention to the causes of the steady desertification of the country. To stop the process, it made some important recommendations and suggested measures for their implementation.
In July of 1988 the bishops issued a statement on the effects of the government's Economic Recovery Program, expressing their indignation at high taxes, the importation of drugs forbidden in the countries of their origin and the vast funds being used for Family Planning. And in 1991 they published The Catholic Church and Ghana's Search for a New Democratic System, a document that strongly advocated the promotion of human rights, the harmonization of aspects of structures and norms of traditional constitutions with modern ones, party politics and the enshrinement of the freedom of expression and of the press in a future constitution. Ghana's April 1992 constitution reflected most of the concerns in this document.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1471 | Ghana discovered by Portuguese traders. |
| 1482 | Portuguese priests arrive at the coast. |
| 1880 | Catholic missionary work begins in earnest. |
| 1950 | Hierarchy established with Cape Coast as archdiocese. |
| 1957 | Ghana achieves independence. |
| 1960 | Ghana becomes a republic; Ghana Catholic Bishop's Conference established. |
Into the 21st Century
By 2000 Ghana had 289 parishes, tended by 684 secular and 169 religious priests. Three major seminaries were in operation: St. Victor's at Tamale, St. Peter's at Cape Coast and St. Paul's in Accra. In 1990 the Holy Ghost Fathers opened a House of Philosophy at Ejisu and an Institute for Continuing Formation for the religious was also established.
The country's 172 brothers and 767 sisters were active in the ministry of the Church, aiding in the operation of hospitals, clinics, nurses' training colleges, midwifery training schools, pharmacies and orphanages. The Christian Hospitals Association of Ghana (CHAG), Catholic and Protestant served as a liaison between religious-run service organizations and the Ministry of Health.
Among the issues facing the Church by 2000 was the continued conflict between local cultures and Christianity caused by the proliferation of syncretic churches that adopted some Christian doctrines while placing them within a native faith. Financial self-reliance, the treatment of leprosy, AIDS and other diseases, and efforts to maintain public health through the preservation of safe drinking water also received Church attention.
Of particular concern to Catholics with regard to tribal religions was the prevalence of a form of religious slavery known as "trokosi" which violated the human rights of thousands of young women and children in the Ewe tribe. A pastoral letter issued in 1997 calling for an end to ethnic tensions and political corruption was followed up by Pope John Paul II in February of 1999, when he encouraged Ghanaian bishops to help the nation's weakest people, adding that "Rivalries based on race or ethnic origin have no place in the Church of Christ."
(Trans)Forming Ghanaian Catholicism
The history of Catholicism in Ghana demonstrates the transformation typical of the region where “one of the principal struggles of West African Christians was to take a European-introduced tradition and reshape it into something where West Africans could feel spiritually at home”.
Early Stages
Even though the presence of Catholic priests in what is now Ghana was recorded as early as 1482, initial contacts with indigenous people were very limited as these first clergymen acted mostly as chaplains in the Portuguese seaside forts and castles. The few Catholic proselytizing attempts in the coastal area (mostly around the European fort at Elmina) were associated with periodic activities by Augustinians during the 1570s, as well as the Capuchins and Dominicans in the second half of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century.
After these not-very-successful Catholic endeavors (e.g., the Augustinian mission ended with the killing of the monks by local people), the main wave of missionary Christianity in the Gold Coast was associated with the arrival of various Protestant missions during the 18th and 19th centuries. The churches, which were officially established by these missions, today compose mainline Protestant denominations in Ghana, i.e., Methodist, Presbyterian, Evangelical Presbyterian, and Anglican.
The real birth of Ghanaian Catholicism is usually associated with the year 1880 and the arrival of two French missionaries from the Society of African Missions of Lyon. Catholicism spread across the southern part of the country and in 1908, the first Catholic mission was established in Kumasi (the capital of the Asante). In 1906, a very different area of today’s Ghana-at that time known as the Northern Territories within the British protectorate-witnessed the arrival of three White Fathers who began proselytizing among the Dagaaba, Frafra, and Kassena people. During the first half of the 20th century, the Roman Catholic Church in the Gold Coast saw the development of an organizational structure supported by the Vatican through the creation of vicariates and the nominations of the first bishops (with European origins).
Independent Ghana and Post-Conciliar Church
From the mid-20th century, the gradual transformation of Christianity from a “white man’s faith” to a religion contextualized by various ethnic groups inhabiting the Gold Coast accelerated in all the missionary Churches. This movement coincided with the political changes that led to an independent Ghana in 1957. In the case of Catholicism, its institutional development involved the transformation in 1950 of the vicariates into three dioceses (in Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale) and the establishment of an archdiocese in Cape Coast.
In 1960 the Ghanaian priest, John Kodwo Amissah, became the Catholic archbishop of Cape Coast, while Peter Poreku Dery, from northern Ghana, was ordained as the Catholic bishop of Wa. These appointments of Ghanaians not only signaled changing leadership within the global and national Church but also brought the first significant liturgical changes in Ghana.
Approximately two years before the Second Vatican Council began, Bishop Dery asked Pope John XXIII for official ecclesiastical consent to introduce the Dagaare language and music into the liturgy performed across his diocese within the northwestern region of Ghana. When permission was granted, Dery himself composed the Dagaare Mass, which included music based on local traditional songs, the use of drums and xylophones (originally connected with traditional rituals), and the corporeal holistic involvement of the people participating in the service through dancing and rhythmic bodily expressions.
The official post-conciliar liturgical reforms introduced globally in 1969, as well as changing attitudes towards African “traditions”, opened all the Ghanaian Catholic dioceses for liturgical experimentation. Importantly, this change in religious practice was visible and experiential for all members of the Catholic congregations. Despite the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, the liturgical transformation helped to empower a number of lay leaders (e.g., catechists, choirmasters, and prayer-group organizers) and even regular Church members by encouraging them to look for new material and corporeal religious forms such as individual dancing styles.
The natural reservoir for these bodily and material expressions was provided by cultural traditions, familiar to the faithful from different ethnic groups, as well as by the state-promoted image of African and national heritage.
At a theological level, this development went hand in hand with the popularization of the idea of “inculturation”. As Ludovic Lado has pointed out, since the 1970s “the discourse of inculturation […] has dominated theological debates in Africa Catholicism”. The concept was coined in Roman Catholic missiological circles during the 1960s as an attempt to describe interactions between “Christianity” and “indigenous cultures” in new ways. It was supposed to depart from openly paternalizing concepts of “adaptation” or “accommodation” by emphasizing, instead, the possibility of mutual encounter. “Inculturation signals respect for customs and teachings considered to be aspects of Eternal Truth, even if foreign to the Christian tradition”. The concept also refers to the central Christian doctrine of Christ’s incarnation-the embodiment of the divine in human flesh and the material world.
Ad gentes divinitus-the Second Vatican Council decree on missionary activity-turned attention towards the cultural context of incarnation. The decree declared that through incarnation, Christ bound himself “to certain social and cultural conditions of those human...
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