Cultural Self-Degradation Is Not National Development

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., The Author


I first came into remarkable knowledge about the great significance of the now-retired Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Kumasi, the Most Reverend Dr. Peter Akwasi Sarpong, vis-à-vis the venerable institution of Ghanaian cultures, in general, and Akan culture, in particular, in 1978, when the Oxbridge-educated prelate paid a weeklong working visit to Okwawu-Nkwatia’s St. Peter’s Secondary School (PERSCO).

The visit coincided with one of the school’s annual religious retreats during which, in synch with established Catholic tradition, we took stock of the value, meaning and significance of our lives as humans and spiritual beings who were inextricably interconnected with the cosmos as a unified, organic and divine entity.
Indeed, it was on this occasion that I seriously considered converting into Catholicism and becoming a celibate priest of the Roman Catholic Church. I would be dissuaded by the utter displeasure of my maternal grandfather and guardian for most of my youth, the Rev. T. H. Sintim, of Akyem-Asiakwa and Akyem-Begoro as well as Asante-Mampong.
In the main, my grandfather was not totally averse to the idea of me becoming a priest, except for my selection of the Catholic denomination. And, indeed, while the old man had great respect and even admiration for the Catholic Church and faith, nonetheless, on the question of clerical celibacy, the old man felt fully convinced that the Catholics were in great error. But what even irked him more than all else, was the fact that celibate priests who had never half-shouldered the hefty burden of parental responsibility would call themselves “Fathers.” Not only did the old man find the latter to be unpardonably insulting, he viscerally felt that it egregiously devalued the sacred institution of marriage and the familial fruits thereof.
Anyway, as readers may already have become aware of, I did not enter the seminary and become a Catholic priest; neither did I become a priest of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), the branch of the Christian faith to which the Rev. T. H. Sintim (Circa. 1896-1982) belonged and faithfully served for over a half-century.
Still, today, I can proudly point to a classmate or two who entered the Catholic seminary and priesthood and distinguished themselves as clerics. Unfortunately, the only one of such high-achieving classmates whose name readily comes to me is Rev. Matthew Amponsah Samoa, a veritable protégé of Archbishop Peter Akwasi Sarpong. Today, my classmate and good friend is a Monsignor, and the very first time that he E-mailed me, he was serving the Catholic Church in the honorable capacity of Secretary to the Apostolic Pronuncio of El-Salvador.
Now, I don’t know how the Rev. Matthew Amponsah Samoa got to master the Spanish language in order to serve his Church in Latin-America. Anyway, the last E-mail that I received from my friend informed me of his historic voyage to Damascus, Syria, a little over a year or two ago. I had not been particularly loquacious with him, because it had become wistfully apparent that three decades of physical and geographical separation had rendered either of us a virtual stranger to the other.
Nonetheless, fond memories and delightful thoughts of my friend flash through the film of my mnemonic plate now and then. I even brag about him to my mostly American-Catholic students from time to time.
What, in sum, I am driving at here is the fact that among the things that have perennially endeared me to the Catholic Church is, of course, the great respect that the latter Christian denomination has for the local – or indigenous – culture wherever it has found and established roots. Such remarkable trait could readily be noticed in the auspicious liturgical adjustments and adaptation the Catholic Church has made wherever it has found acceptance in practice. The latter state of affairs, however, has never been without a fight. And it is, in fact, on the latter score that the great significance and impact of Archbishop Peter Akwasi Sarpong may be envisaged.
During the late 1960s and 1970s, for instance, when the Ghanaian Catholic Church appeared to be losing a quite remarkable percentage of its membership to the so-called revivalist, neo-traditional African Christian churches, it was Archbishop Peter Akwasi Sarpong who eloquently and convincingly argued before the global council of Catholic Bishops, in Rome, Italy, about the imperative necessity for the Church to permit the introduction of traditional African musical instruments, as well as African religious music and dance, if, indeed, the Church was to remain relevant and also maintain a destiny-shaping influence and future on the African continent.
In other words, the unmistakable thrust of our argument here is that Archbishop Peter Akwasi Sarpong is not your average run-of-the-mill sociologist-cum-anthropologist, but, in fact, an equally distinguished and well-published scholar who is also a great advocate and practitioner of traditional African cultural principles and values.
In sum, it is our unflappable contention here that when the retired Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Kumasi decries the Atta-Mills government’s evidently derelict attitude towards the sacred and institutionally indispensable pouring of libation at state functions, Dr. Peter Akwasi Sarpong knows far more than he is letting on (See “Archbishop Sarpong: Don’t Downplay Libation at State Functions” Peacefmonline.com 3/10/11).
On the spiritual significance of Libation, this is what Archbishop Sarpong told a Daily Graphic reporter who recently interviewed him: “As a people, we should give praise to God that He has given us an institution such as Libation, which helps us [to] keep our religiosity and Godliness intact.” If, indeed, President John Evans Atta-Mills really believes that God is the head of his National Democratic Congress government, then he had better listen to this revered voice of reason or stand perpetually condemned for hypocritical sacrilege.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: [email protected].
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