(LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic Bishops Conference of Ghana issued a document defending the country’s anti-sodomy laws, contradicting a statement made by Cardinal Peter Turkson.
In a communique titled “The Catholic Church and the State on Homosexuality,” the bishops of Ghana wrote that “the State is within its right to criminalize the acts of homosexuals in the interest of the nation.”
The document defends the right of a state to criminalize homosexual acts and specifically mentions Ghana’s anti-sodomy bill currently being discussed in Parliament, saying that it is a step “in the right direction, as it seeks to enact laws against criminal homosexual acts.”
“We commend our law makers for the effort and time spent on this bill. It is our hope that, when passed into law, it will indeed promote proper human sexual rights and authentic Ghanaian family values which are under threat from homosexual acts,” the African bishops wrote.
“It is the hope of the Church that the bill will impose punitive measures that are commensurate with the crimes committed.”
The bishops’ communique was published two weeks after Cardinal Turkson, who is from Ghana, condemned the country’s anti-sodomy laws in a BBC interview.
READ: Vatican liaison to World Economic Forum denounces anti-sodomy laws in Africa
“My position has simply been this: LGBT people may not be criminalized because they’ve committed no crime, but neither should this position also become something to be imposed on cultures which are not yet ready to accept stuff like that,” said Turkson, who is the Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and a leading Vatican cardinal with close ties to Pope Francis.
Turkson has joined at least five annual summits of the World Economic Forum (WEF) during Francis’ pontificate, including in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020, often delivering remarks from the pope or hosting the Vatican’s own WEF “roundtable.”
After the 2022 edition of the globalist meeting, Turkson explained the Vatican’s involvement with the WEF, saying, “we need to be open” to the Reset.
Pope Francis has also condemned laws in African countries that outlaw homosexual acts, saying the bishops who defend such laws “have to have a process of conversion.”
READ: Pope Francis says Church must fight anti-sodomy laws and bishops who support them need conversion
The bishops of Ghana defended the traditional doctrine of the Church on homosexual acts, citing Sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).
“In the Old Testament, this practice was seen as a perversion and a pagan abomination,” the communique states. “In Lev 18:22 we read, ‘You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.’ Similarly, in Lev 20:13 we read, ‘If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.’”
The bishops cite St. Paul, who “In 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10 Paul speaks of homosexuality.”
“These two verses may be discussed together,” the document states. “In 1 Cor. 6:9 Paul says, ‘Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts.”
“In 1 Tim. 1:10 he speaks of ‘immoral persons, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine.’ The terms “sexual perverts” and “sodomites” in the two passages translate the same Greek word (arsenokoitai) which denotes practitioners of homosexuality.”
READ: Ghana bishops thank their Parliament for advancing pro-family bill against LGBT agenda
“Homosexuality is also incompatible with the creation stories about man and woman in Genesis,” the bishops continued. “In the opening chapters of Genesis, the creation of the sexes by God is presented as having a twofold purpose: men and women are meant to come together in a one-flesh unity of life (Gen 2:24) and to beget children (Gen 1:28).”
“Since sexual activity was seen to be ordered to procreation and the continuance of the human race, any form of sexual activity other than heterosexual intercourse is against nature and is a clear violation of right reason.”
“For the Church, to choose someone of the same sex for one’s sexual activity or for marriage is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals, of God’s sexual design.”
The bishops point out the distinction between homosexual tendencies or attraction and “individual homosexual actions.” While the Church does grant “fundamental human rights” to people with same-sex attraction because they are “created in the image of God,” these rights “do not include the right of a man to marry a man or of a woman to marry a woman.”
“For the Church, this is morally wrong and goes against God’s purpose for marriage.”
“With regard to ‘individual homosexual actions,’ however, the Church says that they are ‘intrinsically disordered’ and are ‘in no case to be approved of,’” the document states.
“Thus, while the church does not condemn homosexuals for being homosexuals, it condemns the homosexual acts that they perform.”
“For the Church also, although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is more or less strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder,” the bishops conclude.
As LifeSiteNews journalist Michael Haynes pointed out, the saints and Church Fathers explicitly called “for public action to be taken against acts of homosexuality, no matter whether the acts themselves were private.” The position of the bishops of Ghana is thus supported by the great doctors of the Church such as St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine and St. Peter Damian.
St. Augustine, for instance, writes the following about homosexual acts in “Confessions” (Bk. 3, Ch. 8):
Those foul offenses that are against nature should be everywhere and at all times detested and punished, such as were those of the people of Sodom, which should all nations commit, they should all stand guilty of the same crime, by the law of God which hath not so made men that they should so abuse one another. For even that very intercourse which should be between God and us is violated, when that same nature, of which He is the Author, is polluted by the perversity of lust.