Asantehene Calls On Church Leaders

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has asked church leaders to do more to calm tension and assist the people to live in peace and harmony. He also asked church leaders to promote tolerance and reject division and ethnocentrism. The Asantehene made the call when His Eminence Peter Cardinal Appiah-Turkson paid a courtesy call on him at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi on Friday. The Cardinal was in Kumasi to deliver the �R.P Baffour Memorial Lectures� at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), as part of activities making the 60th anniversary celebration of the university. Archbishop Emeritus Peter Kwasi Sarpong, Most Reverend Thomas Kwaku Mensah, Metropolitan Catholic Archbishop of Kumasi, and Professor William Otoo Ellis, Vice Chancellor of the KNUST, accompanied Otumfuo Osei Tutu. The Asantehene commended the Catholic Church for its contribution to the socio-economic and religious development of the country by way of the building of schools, provision of health and water facilities among others. Otumfuo called on the leadership of the Church to work hard for Pope Benedict XVI to �visit with us.� The Asantehene said he had no doubt that the Pope�s presence would be of enormous blessing to the nation and the people of Ghana. Cardinal Turkson presented books on the social teachings of the church to Otumfuo Osei Tutu. Cardinal Turkson said he should have returned to Rome with the Pope after his recent visit to Benin but decided to come home to participate in the lectures.