How African bishops view Obama

US President Barack Obama has been spoken of as part of God’s plan for the history of humankind at the ongoing Special Synod of African Bishops.

Archbishop Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana, said on October 7 that there was a divine plan behind Obama’s election. “It’s like the biblical story repeating itself,” he told reporters, citing the Old Testament figure of Joseph who, after being sold into bondage in Egypt, ended up as one of the leading officials in the court of the Pharaoh. Sharing the same sentiments as millions of Africans, he said: “We believe God has His own plans. He directs history. We pray that his presidency brings blessings for Africa and the whole world.”

The Ghanaian prelate said he was aware of Obama’s support for abortion rights, and that many US bishops had opposed Obama’s being awarded an honorary Law degree at Notre Dame University. “But,” he said, “we feel it our duty to meet him and find out what the things are that unite us more than divide us.”

Earlier that week, another Ghanaian archbishop, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Cape Coast, one of the principal moderators of the three-week synod, said that now that the leader of the most powerful country has a Black president, he didn’t see why there couldn’t be a Black pope. When John Paul II died in 2005, the widespread hope in Africa was that at last this time there could be an African as successor of S.t Peter.

Voicing his support, the archbishop of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Msgr. Laurent Monsenwo Pasinya told the synod that it would be wise not to ignore what he called this “primordial event” in our times. “If,” he said, “the election of a Black man as head of the United States of America was a divine sign and a sign from the Holy Spirit for the reconciliation of races and ethnic groups for peaceful relations, this synod and the Universal Church would gain from not ignoring this primordial event of contemporary history, which is far from being a banal game of political alliances.”

Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, the Nigerian capital, was even more practical and to the point when meeting reporters. “Obama has the authority”, he said, “to talk straight to our bad leaders and tell them they are messing up our countries”. The whole of Africa, from Kogelo, near Lake Victoria, the birthplace of Obama’s father, in every direction, would say “Aye” to that. “Besides,” he added, perhaps with a twinkle in his eye, “in Africa we are always happy when our brother is big.”

 

Martyn Drakard is a writer based in Kenya and Uganda.