Cardinal Peter Turkson to celebrate Mass at Westminster Cathedral next Sunday

HE Cardinal Peter Turkson will celebrate the 10:30am Mass at Westminster Cathedral next Sunday, 13 March. Originally from Ghana, the 62-year-old Cardinal Turkson now resides in Rome and is the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. He is also a member of the Congregations for the Evangelization of Peoples, for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He also sits as an active member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, and the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.

Cardinal Turkson is considered "papabile", especially as he is fluent in several modern languages. He is also an intelligent man, having gained a doctorate in 1992 from the Pontifical Biblical Institute. Since 2003, Cardinal Peter Turkson has also been the Chancellor of the Catholic University College of Ghana. Before being called to Rome, Cardinal Turkson was Archbishop of Cape Coast and the President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference for Ghana.

The Cardinal is coming to the UK to give the Bishop Dunn Lecture, organised by Durham University Centre for Catholic Studies and the Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. His talk will be entitled: "The Gospel and Social Teaching: On the Economic Crisis, Human Flourishing, and Church Ministry". It will be given on Thursday 10 March at 7:30pm in St Cuthbert's Church, Old Elvet, Durham. This lecture is free but ticketed. For more information, please see Durham University's Centre for Catholic Studies (here).

Some think it rather unfortunate that Cardinal Turkson seems to like the fact that he is spoken of as a potential pope (here - where he says "If God would wish to see a black man also as pope, thanks be to God!" and here - where he is encouraged to "go for the ultimate, being pope" by Osabarima Kwesi Atta II). It is also rather disheartening to read that he believes sermons should last more than 25 minutes, whilst also appearing to suggest that congregants should yell and shout during the Holy Eucharist (here). However, Cardinal Turkson is obviously devoted to his ministry and the vocation that God has called him to.

[Picture note: HE Peter, Cardinal Turkson; attributed to Haiducul and published under the Creative Commons Attribution Unported 3.0 Licence; source: Wikimedia Commons (here)