From Damian Avevor, Takoradi
Most Rev. Emmanuel Kofi Fianu, SVD, Episcopal Chairman of Laity, Women and Youth, has said that the Church in Ghana must continue to harness the competences of Catholic Professionals for greater efficiency and encourage their engagement in the professional, social, cultural and political world.
“In our world today, we need to do things professionally in order to be efficient and also to get value for money. We should be grateful to God that in the Catholic Church in Ghana, we have competent Lay Faithful who are ready to offer their professional competence to the Church.” he said.
The Bishop stated that “we need to bring these expertise to bear on the life of the Church in the various Communities or Parishes to which the Laity belong, adding that with the current information technology at our disposal, many lay people were educating themselves on the teachings of the Church.
He stressed that the Church in Ghana should find a way of creating a forum for these people to share their experiences.
Bishop Fianu was speaking at the three-day maiden Bishops Essuah/Sam/Darko Memorial Lectures from September 29 to October 1, 2017 at the Star of the Sea Cathedral, Takoradi on the Topic: Living Our Vocation as Catholic Faithful.
For the first two days, he spoke on the sub-topics: The Vocation of the Catholic Lay Faithful and The Vocation of the Laity and its Implications for the Contemporary Ghanaian Catholic and was climaxed with a Mass at the Cathedral last Sunday.
The Lectures were organised under the auspices of Most Rev. John Bonaventure Kwofie, CSSp, Bishop of Sekondi-Takoradi, to keep alive the memories of the three Bishops- Joseph Amihere Essuah, Charles Kweku Sam and John Martin Darko – who had led the Diocese since its erection on November 20, 1969.
Bishop Essuah shepherded the Diocese from November 20, 1969 to October 7, 1980; Bishop Sam from September 30, 1981 to January 13, 1998 and Bishop Darko from June 27, 1998 to December 14, 2011.
Present at the Lectures were Rev. Msgr. Francis Abuah-Quansah; Vicar General; Very Rev. Fr. Peter Kaitoo, Cathedral Administrator; Mr. Edward Aloysius Prah, Chairman of the Memorial Lectures Planning Committee; Dr. Joseph Arko, Chairman of the National Catholic Laity Council (NCLC), who chaired the Lectures as well as Priests, Religious and scores of Lay Faithful from Parishes within the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis.
Bishop Fianu who is the Bishop of Ho Diocese appreciated the number of lay faithful who out of their own resources seek special training in Catechetics, the Sacred Sciences and in the Mass Media in view of acquiring knowledge about their faith.
“I learnt that some Dioceses and Archdioceses encourage the formation of groups of Catholic professionals. This is an effort in the right direction and should be promoted by the Ghana National Laity Council,” he added.
Such Associations, he emphasised would offer the Church in Ghana a ready human resource base which would go a long way to contribute to the growth of the Church in Ghana.
Bishop Fianu was of the view that the formation of Catholic Professional groups would offer them a platform to share their faith and help one another develop a Catholic perspective to their professions.
He said the absence of such groups in the Church leads some of our professionals to join non-Catholic oriented groups and they soon find themselves at doctrinal crossroads as they are not able to reconcile what they learn from those places with their Catholic faith.
According to Bishop Fianu Canon 212 §3 makes it clear that “According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the Sacred Pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their Pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.”
He noted that this same point was repeated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, saying that it showed the importance that the Church attached to the professional contribution of the lay faithful.
