Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson is a Ghanaian prelate and cardinal of the Catholic Church who has served as chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences since 2022. He was president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 2009 to 2017 and the inaugural prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development from 2017 to 2021.
Turkson was Archbishop of Cape Coast from 1992 to 2009. He was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003. He has been widely regarded as papabile, that is, a candidate for election to the papacy. The Tablet described him in 2013 as "one of Africa's most energetic church leaders".
Early life and priesthood
Turkson was born in Wassaw Nsuta in Western Ghana to a Methodist mother and a Catholic father. He is the fourth child of ten children. His mother sold vegetables in the open market while his father worked as a carpenter. He had a paternal uncle who was a Muslim. He studied at St. Teresa's Minor Seminary in Amisano and St. Peter's Regional Seminary in Pedu before attending St. Anthony-on-Hudson Seminary in Rensselaer, New York, where he graduated with an M.A. in Theology and a Master of Divinity. He was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop John Amissah on 20 July 1975. Additionally, he earned a licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 1980. He returned to St Teresa's for a year, 1980–81, and became vice-rector at St Peter's Seminary in 1981. He also did pastoral work in a parish annexed to the seminary. From 1987 to 1992, he pursued doctoral studies in Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute but his work on his thesis was interrupted by his appointment as archbishop of Cape Coast.
Episcopal career
On 6 October 1992, Turkson was appointed Archbishop of Cape Coast by Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on 27 March 1993 from Archbishop Dominic Kodwo Andoh, with Archbishops Peter Poreku Dery and Peter Kwasi Sarpong serving as co-consecrators. He served as President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference from 1997 to 2005, and as Chancellor of the Catholic University College of Ghana beginning in 2003.
John Paul II created Turkson Cardinal-Priest of San Liborio in his final consistory of 21 October 2003. Turkson is the first Ghanaian cardinal and was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the papal conclave of 2005 that elected Pope Benedict XVI and the papal conclave of 2013 that elected Pope Francis.
Roman Curia
On 24 October 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Turkson president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Turkson is also a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church and, since 4 March 2010, the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses. On 12 June 2012, Turkson was appointed a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education.
On 16 October 2010 Pope Benedict named him to a five-year renewable term as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Since 2009 Turkson had been president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
In the spring of 2011, Pope Benedict XVI sent Cardinal Turkson as a mediator to contribute to a diplomatic, non-military solution to the civil conflict in Ivory Coast, where Laurent Gbagbo had refused, in spite of international condemnation and local protests and resistance, to step aside and hand over power to Alassane Ouattara, the certified winner of the presidential election. Atrocities have been committed by both sides.
In October 2011, Turkson called for the establishment of a "global public authority" and a "central world bank" to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises. His text was very specific, calling for taxation measures on financial transactions. It said that "The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence". The document condemned "the idolatry of the market" as well as "neo-liberal thinking" that looked exclusively at technical solutions to economic problems. "In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviours like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale." It added that world economics needed an "ethic of solidarity" among both rich and poor nations.