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CNS Story:
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GHANA-ISLAM Oct-16-2007 (440 words) With photos posted July 2. xxxi
Cardinal: Ghana's Catholics learn Islamic texts to further dialogue
By Simon Caldwell
Catholic News Service
LONDON (CNS) -- Catholics in Ghana are being taught the Quran and Islamic scriptures to further interreligious dialogue and community cohesion, said the country's first cardinal.
Cardinal Peter Turkson of Cape Coast, Ghana, said in an Oct. 15 interview with Catholic News Service that relations between Catholics and Muslims in Ghana were "pretty cordial," but he acknowledged that rising Islamic militancy around the world presented new challenges to relations between Christians and Muslims in his country.
Cardinal Turkson said that any rising tensions were being countered by a "dynamic program of action."
"We are promoting the study of the Quran among Catholics so there is no ignorance about or intolerance of what it stands for," the cardinal said.
"We have what we call a dialogue of action," he said. "We come together to undertake common projects.
"If a well needs digging for water, we will drill the borehole together, for example, and we build schools together," he said.
Catholics account for 15 percent of the predominantly Christian West African nation's nearly 23 million people. Muslims make up about 16 percent of the population.
"But all over the world there is the changing face of Islam," the cardinal added. "With the collapse of communism there is an ideological vacuum to be filled, and some people are pushing Islam to fill that.
"There are quite a few tensions over what others conceive Islam should be," he added. "We are challenged to deal with such situations of tension that every now and then arise."
Cardinal Turkson, 59, spoke during an Oct. 15-21 visit to England to strengthen existing links between England and Ghana and to highlight the importance of World Mission Sunday Oct. 21.
He also spoke of his gratitude to England for sending Catholic missionaries to Ghana in the 19th century, when Ghana was part of the British colonial territories.
He said he believes that Africa now has a duty to support the Catholic Church in Europe -- if needed with priests and religious men and women.
Cardinal Turkson was ordained a priest in 1975 in Cape Coast. He later received a doctorate in Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.
His early years as a priest were spent teaching in the seminary and at the University of Cape Coast, where he also served as chaplain for two years.
In 1993 he was ordained archbishop of Cape Coast, and 10 years later, Pope John Paul II made him Ghana's first cardinal.
END
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