Part 2: Truth Is Truth – A Catholic Priest on Colonialism, “Fetish” and African Religion

Truth Is Truth: A Catholic Priest on Colonialism, African Religion and the Gods of Our Fathers

Rev. Father Emmanuel Ahiatrogah on slavery, missionaries, respect and where the old powers went

Featuring Rev. Father Emmanuel Ahiatrogah

By Dufe Edor | Student Journalist, Filmmaker and Founder of Dufe Voice

“Not admitting that is like deciding to forget a part of you.”

It is not the answer many people expect from a Catholic priest who has just been asked whether his church was used to justify slavery and colonialism. Rev. Father Emmanuel Ahiatrogah gave it without flinching, and without surrendering his faith.

At St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Adenta Frafraha, Accra, Dufe Voice put the hard questions to him: the history, the insults, the shrines, and what a priest really thinks of African traditional religion. What follows is his view as a Catholic priest. Readers will agree with some of it and disagree with the rest, and we welcome respectful responses in the comments.

Two things can be true

Fr. Emmanuel begins by conceding the critics’ point. In history, he says, some of those who carried the Christian message acted against it, and some early missionaries had ulterior motives. He sees no use in hiding that. But he adds that, in his reading, some early missionaries also came sincerely, to bring the message and to improve people’s lives.

His central request is that we separate the message from the messenger. No part of Christianity tells anyone to enslave another human being, he says, and he argues that the church also helped end slavery, pointing to papal condemnations and the Second Vatican Council. He also credits Christianity with much of the education and healthcare Ghana has enjoyed. These are his claims as a priest, and readers are free to weigh them against the historical record.

The vocabulary of insult

On the words “fetish” and “pagan,” he does not hedge. They are derogatory, he says, and they came from Europeans who met African societies in earlier centuries, some of whom hoped to win people over to Christianity.

He says the church has learned from that history. A priest who goes around destroying shrines, he explains, is not acting with the authority of the church, because priests work under their bishop and no single priest speaks for the whole. Today, he says, using derogatory language about another person’s religion is strongly discouraged.

Respect, and a course he took

How does he see African traditional religion? As the religion of people who hold their beliefs with real conviction. His own faith teaches that every person is made in the image and likeness of God, so he says he cannot disrespect or dehumanise anyone over what they believe.

He goes further. God is all-powerful and can speak through anyone, he says, and Catholic teaching recognises that there are truths in other religions. If a traditional priest says something true that makes sense to a Christian, it remains true. And his respect, he adds, is not uninformed: during his formation he took a course on African traditional religion.

“It is their religion.”

Heaven, and who gets in

Can a good traditionalist reach heaven? Pointing to the Letter to the Romans, Fr. Emmanuel says Catholic teaching holds that a person who has not come to know Christ, but who follows his conscience and searches for the truth, can. He links this to what Catholics call the natural law, the sense in every human heart that killing, stealing and degrading others are wrong.

If such a person never encountered Christ, he suggests, part of the responsibility may lie with Christians: too little evangelisation, or a way of life that does not bear witness to the faith. Truth, he says, does not belong to one side. “The truth is the truth.”

The question he turns around

Why does holy water or anointing oil sometimes seem to work after a visit to a shrine? Catholics, he says, see such things as channels of grace, and he believes other spirits exist too, often used for harm. But Catholics believe in the Almighty God above them all.

Then he turns the question back on the listener. If the old powers were as strong as people claim, he asks, where were they when our people were colonised? And where are they now, as machines tear up rivers once regarded as the abodes of the gods?

He stops short of closing the case. The subject, he says, is “not a black and white situation,” and it deserves more conversation between our African heritage and our Christian faith. On that, at least, readers on every side of the argument may agree.

Part 3 moves from history to daily life: fear, sickness, miracles that should never be sold, and why he calls the church a hospital for sinners. 

Follow Dufe Voice (@Dufevoice) and subscribe on YouTube so you don’t miss it.