A priest of the archdiocese of Cincinnati, Fr. Paul Rehling, had taught at a seminary in Ghana and developed friendships there. When he returned in 1991 to become pastor of St. Aloysius church in Cincinnati, Ohio, he gradually built a twinning relationship between our parish and the diocese of Jasikan in Ghana. After my family returned from lay missionary work with Maryknoll, we found this to be a great parish to join.  Over these years, we’ve had four of their priests as our assistants while they completed advanced studies at our local seminary. We’ve connected with local Ghanaian Catholics and choirs and have developed relationships that have brought new life and hope for racial harmony to our nearly all white parish.  In turn, a dozen of our parishioners have visited these priests and their home villages in Ghana over these years and learned of their joy and Spirit filled cultures as well as their severe needs, especially in health care and education.

Beside the 40 parishes in our diocese twinning with other parts of the world and the US, this example of St. Al’s solidarity with African churches is now spreading to other parishes during our five-year Archdiocese African Solidarity Project. This effort has led to a highly successful African World Mission Sunday Mass and Celebration last October in Cincinnati. This event will be repeated this October and my Mission Office is adding an “Africa Summit” this September in Dayton, Ohio, with the support of Fr. Rocco Puopolo of AFJN. In this process it has been energizing to see new relationships that didn’t exist before that are now being built in our archdiocese among Africans, African Americans and members of other cultures. (Please see our new publication, Stand with Africa, a guide for our parishes and examples of parish twining at our website:  www.catholiccincinnati.org/mission ). 

Because of these personal friendships with Africans through our twinning endeavors, it’s been much easier and understandable for our parishes to consider advocating for a variety of pieces of legislation affecting Africa in recent years. During a recent April visit from Ghana, one of our twinning friends, Sr. Philippine Dzormeku, explained, “It is terrible to see our people often die in transit to distant clinics or find few or no medical workers when they arrive.” Consequently, it was not difficult for St. Al’s leadership to allow our twinning committee to generate letters about the new African Health Capacity Investment Act, now Senate bill #805, as recommended by Phil Reed of the AFJN staff.  We learned from him that passage of this bill would directly deal with the severe shortage of health care workers in Africa.

With the blessing of our pastor at St. Al’s, our twinning committee explained this bill in our recent church bulletin and on the following weekend we provided sample letters for our parishioners to read and sign after the Masses. We have found that this as a great education tool that allows parishioners to: a) learn about African issues, b) appreciate Catholic Social Justice Principles, and c) demonstrate their global solidarity as U.S. Catholic citizens.  As a result, St. Al’s parish alone generated 500 signed letters and took 250 each to our congressperson directly and to the aide of one our senators in early May. 

Sr. Philippine and our current Ghanaian resident priest, Fr. Vincent Antie, accompanied our twinning committee to these offices to share their own stories of health care problems to add real depth and urgency to this issue.  This was also a great opportunity for our parishioners and our African friends to learn of our legislative process and how we U.S. citizens/parishioners show our solidarity with Africa.  “I was afraid to see Congressman Chabot the first time,” said retired secretary Barb Wuest of St. Al’s, “but after visiting my friends in Ghana, my love for them got me through my fears.  I now feel empowered to continue this ministry.” Stand by me has become a concrete reality, not just a nice song for us.

Our local senators and congresspersons pride themselves on being conservative, Republican, pro-life, Catholic, “budget hawks.” Consequently, our parishioners pointed out in our visits to them that our U.S. tax dollars would be better spent for pro-life purposes if more and better health care workers could be funded in Africa to actually administer needed medicines and services.  They agreed that African economic development is not possible without basic health care and personnel to administer it.

As Archdiocesan Mission Office director, it’s a real blessing to see ordinary parishioners around our archdiocese allowing the Spirit to empower them through these twinning relationships to become advocates for and with our African sisters and brothers.  I’m glad to report that that other parishes and dioceses are now lobbying with us on Senate bill 805.  However, I’m especially enthused that I now serve on AFJN’s board, as we are now reaching out to other U.S. parishes and dioceses in order to enliven and unite with their efforts of solidarity/advocacy with/for Africans.

If you have suggestions or comments to help our efforts or similar stories of solidarity/advocacy for us, e-mail AFJN, or me at: mgable(at)catholiccincinnati.org.  As our bishops conclude in their 2001 pastoral letter, A Call to Solidarity with Africa, “We indeed mutually enrich each other in mission when we engage one another as sisters and brothers in Christ.”  …or in other words, Stand by me! 

By Dr. Mike Gable, AFJN Board Member and
 Mission Office Director, Archdiocese of Cincinnati