The African Front-Runner: Peter Cardinal Turkson

At the last conclave, the main African contender was Nigeria’s
Francis Cardinal Arinze. Now, at the age of eighty, Arinze is too old to be considered seriously. This puts Ghana’s Peter Cardinal Turkson next in line as Africa’s most serious
papabile candidate.

Peter Kodow Appiah Turkson is sixty-four years old. He was born in Western Ghana to a Methodist mother who sold vegetables in the local market and a Catholic father who worked as a carpenter. 

After studying in a local seminary, he continued his studies at
St. Anthony-on-Hudson Seminary in New York and at the
Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He became Archbishop of Cape Coast in Ghana in 1992, and went on to serve as President of the National Bishops’ Conference and to play an active role in the
Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. He was elevated to the cardinalate by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

In 2009, he was chosen to lead the Synod of Bishops on Africa in the Vatican, and at the end of the Synod he was appointed President of the
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Within the Curia, he also serves as a member of the
Congregation for the Evangelization of the Peoples, the
Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, the
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the
Pontifical Council for the Cultural Heritage of the Church. He also serves on the
Committee for Eucharistic Congresses, the
Congregation for Catholic Education and the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Cardinal Turkson was described in London’s
The Tablet as one of Africa’s most energetic Catholic leaders. He is a charming and engaging man with a frank manner and a lively sense of humor. He communicates ably and openly with the media – so much so that he is accused of campaigning for the papacy because he has entertained the idea to a reporter in an interview.

Turkson has a strong background in diocesan governance and has accumulated good experience in the Curia during his time in Rome. He is clear of scandal and takes a strong conservative stance on doctrinal and moral issues while doing so with intelligence, clarity and good humor.

What would a Turkson papacy look like? First of all, and most importantly, it would immediately shift the center of the Church’s attention from Europe and the developed world. Attention would be centered away from Western obsessions like sexual scandals, financial skullduggery and Vatican infighting. As the world looked to Poland and Eastern Europe with John Paul II, Catholics would immediately start paying more close attention to the needs and strengths of Africa and the developing world.

At the same time, it would put all of the Church’s Western media critics off balance. Those who are left of center might be instinctively drawn to the notion of an African Pope, but they would also be dismayed to find that he holds to orthodox Catholic values.

Turkson would give the Church a new face and a new message, reminding the world that the concerns of the burgeoning continent of Africa are the concerns of the young and therefore the concerns of tomorrow’s world. While looking to the future, Turkson would also firmly uphold the Church’s positions on sexual morality and doctrine.

There is also the possibility that he would bring a fresh and lively dimension to liturgical worship, importing or at least allowing the dynamic African styles of worship, preaching and praise to find their way into the mainstream. He would also challenge the developed world’s economic presuppositions.

As such, Turkson is seen by some to be too left wing economically.  In 2011, his council issued a document titled “
Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Political Authority,” which endorsed a “true world political authority” to regulate a globalized economy. For conservatives wary of a one-world government and a one-world economic system, the suggestion is bizarre and alarming.

Finally, with a Muslim uncle in his family, and the ever-real conflict between Islam and Christianity fermenting across Africa, Turkson would bring the Muslim problem to the forefront of the Church’s concerns.

An African pope like Cardinal Turkson would mean a revolutionary shift in the Church’s center of gravity. It would be a papacy of youthfulness, dynamism, hope and a return to the core principles and priorities of the Church: the proclamation of the gospel to a needy world.

In this way, ironically, an African Pope may do more to re-evangelize Europe and North America than a Pope from the developed world. The dramatic shift in awareness and renewal of priorities might just wake up the Western world, which is sated with materialism, confused by relativism and despairing in its decadence and self absorption.

Such a choice would require the cardinal electors to take a huge risk and present the world with a stunning surprise, but if the history of the papacy has taught us one thing, it is that it is an institution full of surprises.