His Eminence Peter Cardinal Appiah Turkson, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development at the Vatican, says US President Donald Trump has been caught in a conflict of values on immigration and wondered whether pursuing an ‘insular’ version of American security really contributes to making the world safer.
In an interview with Crux, during a recent Summit of African Catholic Leaders in Rome sponsored by the Centre for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, US, Cardinal Turkson said the immigration policies being pursued by the Trump administration in the United States, will be deferred to the US Bishops by Rome, but also challenged Trump to reflect on a possible conflict of values.
“You provide safety for your people, yes, but would that ensure the safety of the U.S. alone or lead to general safety for the world?” he asked. “Is there also a global value that needs to be looked at, instead of a simple national value?”
On the impact of Pope Francis’s Ecological Manifesto Laudato Si’, Cardinal Turkson noted that no Papal Encyclical had ever quoted the Documents of Bishops’ Conferences around the world so extensively – which implies, a responsibility for Bishops to step up and make sure its vision takes hold.
“The Pope has done his part,” he said, stating that “It is now up to the local Bishops to come on board in teaching and making the message of Laudato Si’ known. The Pope has reached down, referred to all of you, invited all of you on board, to teach this.”
Cardinal Turkson said that Bishops in the developing world should do so with extra urgency, since their people are the projected victims of climate change.
His talk at the Summit focused on the need for African Catholic Clergy to shape consciences but stay out of direct political engagement, calling on them to follow “the way of the shepherd,” quoting Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI at the close of the 2009 African Synod.
In part, he suggested, he was trying to save Africa from repeating the painful experiences of the Church in Latin America during the early years of the Liberation Theology Movement, when several Priests took up political roles and some even embraced armed revolution.
In October 2009, Cardinal Turkson, then the Archbishop of Cape Coast in Ghana, came to Rome for a Synod of Bishops on Africa expecting to spend a month.
Eight years later, he is still at the Vatican, having been named to a Vatican Office at the end of that Summit and now heading the new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
In effect, Cardinal Turkson was deemed too valuable by two Popes in a row, to let him go home. Today, he is arguably the Vatican’s most important African, acting as Pope Francis’ Social Justice point man.
Cardinal Turkson denied that he finds it hard to keep up with the ever-on-the-go Pope Francis, but conceded that “the pace at which he moves is striking, you can not just miss it.”
“I think it is the way that any convinced pastor feels and acts,” Cardinal Turkson said of his boss. “We have lived with all these stagnant evils for so long, how can we not, with urgency, engage them and try to make a change?”
