Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson has denied resigning from a crucial Vatican department last year, according to reports.
He just submitted a notification to the Pope to alert him that his time had come to an end, so the pope could make a decision.
In an interview with Asaase.com, Cardinal Turkson stated, “If you were to put it more clearly, we’ll probably say that within the church in our circus, the saying is that nobody goes on the cross and then lowers from the cross,” he stated. So I believe that when you join in a church service, you go all the way…
“What it is is a very simple thing; I’m not sure why it went around the world and sparked so much conversation.” Every job at the Vatican is for five years, and at the end of that time, either the term is prolonged, renewed, or the person is sent to another position. I left Ghana in 2010, so I’ve been here [for] eleven years, which means I’ve served two five-year terms…”
He went on to say that he had served for more than ten years and that the system required him to notify the Pope so that we may decide whether or not to extend his assignment or transfer him.
He added, “I’ve met this experience before, at the end of the set of five years, my mandate was slightly modified and extended. When I came here, I was to take charge of an office called Justice and Peace, at the end of five years it had a merger. Three other offices were joined with our office and that became the second set of five years and this happened in August 2016. So 2021 is the end of the second set of five years. So at the end of all of these years, you notified the Pope that your five years is up to enable him to take a decision.
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“So this is what happened last year, the Pope decided to reassign and…have you move on and that’s just what happened; you have to notify the Pope that your five years are up and doing that it’s not resignation, it’s just a notification,” he said.
He however added that he was not worried about the reports circulating about his perceived resignation, though he tweeted to make things clear. “Over here in the Italian language, we say that: you put your mandate back to his hands for him to reassign, extend, modify or do what he wants to do with it. So that’s just what happened. Why this was seen and interpreted as resignation beats my imagination and as a result of that, I tweeted to explain all of this but people took things the way they wanted to take it. There was nothing to get upset or get worried about,” he said.
Cardinal Appiah Turkson headed the Dicastery for Integral Human Development which was formed in 2016 to amalgamate four offices that dealt with issues such as peace, justice, migration, and charities.
His eventual departure will leave no African heading any large Vatican department as his fellow African, Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, who was the head of the Congregation for Worship at the Vatican, went into retirement earlier this year.
The department headed by Cardinal Appiah Turkson was in recent times subjected to an external review, headed by Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago at the behest of Pope Francis.
