Catholic Bishops criticise Parliament

The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference has criticised Parliament for importing furniture from China instead of using made-in-Ghana ones to boost the local economy.They said they were surprised that such a decision was taken when made-in-Ghana furniture could have been patronised to boost the furniture industry and the economy as a whole.

“We add our voices to those of the many Ghanaians who disapprove of the importation of furniture from China for our Parliament.”

“Economic practices such as these impact negatively on most families, leading to despair, poverty, a sense of abandonment and marginalisation,” the Catholic Bishops Conference said in a communiqué issued after this year’s plenary assembly held in Accra last Friday.

The Plenary Assembly

The communiqué, which touched on a wide range of issues, was on the theme, “The pastoral challenges of the family in the context of the new evangelisation.”

The bishops conference also deplored what it called “a radical and faceless culture of death” which promoted, among other things, the supply and use of condoms in schools, in-vitro fertilisation and the contraception agenda of some national and international institutions in the country.

“Painfully, some Ghanaian homosexual and pro-abortion groups, and even our Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection overtly and subtly support these international organisations.

“We wish to draw attention to this dangerous culture of death being imposed on us and call on all Ghanaians to forcefully reject this so-called freedom which, indeed is suicidal,”  the  bishops said.

The conference called on government appointees at the United Nations (UN) and other such bodies to realise that those practices were culturally abominable, and morally and spiritually reprehensible and, therefore, appealed to them to refrain from endorsing such “disastrous protocols on our behalf”.

“Whenever they do sign such protocols, they betray the trust the good people of Ghana have vested in them. We are to remind ourselves of the well known fact that a nation that kills its unborn babies has no future,” the bishops added.

Dowry

The bishops conference also spoke against the commercialisation of bridewealth, also known as dowry, which it said was making it difficult for poor people to marry.

It attributed such excesses partly to the low place society gave to women in their marital home and the society at large.

Ebola

On the threat of Ebola, the bishops conference prayed for families in the affected countries that lost their loved ones and called for intensive prayers for an end to the scourge, “even as we urge all Ghanaians to continue to observe all health safety precautions.”