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00:00 (Générique)
00:12 (Présentateur) Hello and welcome to yet another edition of your weekly international current affairs program.
00:17 Globe watch from the Cameroon radio television with me Charles Ebuné.
00:21 Aid from the official residence of the Archbishop of Douala.
00:25 Here in Douala, the literal region of the country and Cameroon's economic capital and hub.
00:33 A controversial statement from a controversial institution on a controversial issue.
00:40 The last statement by Pope Francis last December talking about the blessings of homosexual couples sent global shock waves.
00:53 Especially to the global belief system and more particularly to the Roman Catholic establishment.
01:00 An establishment of roughly 2 billion followers already divided on contemporary issues including homosexuality.
01:10 How do we understand the statement from the Vatican which remains one of the most topical even at this moment of length.
01:19 Which is supposed to be a uniting moment for the Christian belief.
01:24 My guest today on Globe watch is one of the most insightful and powerful symbols of the Roman Korea in the world today and Africa in particular.
01:35 At one moment for roughly 10 years he was the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
01:44 And he is currently the chancellor of the Roman Catholic establishment on the academy and sciences.
01:52 And he was equally the president of the Council on Human Capital Development within the Roman Catholic establishment.
02:03 And had participated twice in the election of two popes.
02:08 My guest today on Globe watch is Ghana's first cardinal and one of the two R.N. figures of Roman Catholicism in Africa.
02:18 Cardinal Peter Tuckson.
02:20 [Music]
02:32 Cardinal Peter Tuckson welcome to Globe watch.
02:36 Thank you.
02:38 You once told the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, with Stephen Sacker as guest or as the person conducting the interview.
02:50 While responding on a question which had to do with the gay community.
02:54 And you said that you don't believe that gay community people should be criminalized because they have not committed any crime.
03:02 And that for somebody to be criminalized they need to know the crime.
03:08 At the wake of what the pope published, how do you see that statement today again?
03:15 It's a, again we're dealing with the media and sometimes this industry takes a lot of things out of context and exaggerates and explodes a lot of things beyond dimensions.
03:32 Which will be shared or whatever.
03:33 So, your beginning point is that yes, on the 23rd of November last year, I was at a BBC hard talk interview.
03:45 And when asked about LGBTism, incidentally it wasn't presented as a question of rights, but LGBT community, gay, whatever type of them.
03:56 My response was twofold.
03:59 You know, the thing is that, again, probably requires education.
04:04 When you talk about the LGBTQ, whatever type of the homosexual, whatever.
04:10 For me, we need to make a distinction between the phenomenon and its exercise or action.
04:18 Okay, I insist on this distinction because in Ghana where I come from, and probably also here, we know people, men, who act like women.
04:34 Who are effectively like, live like women.
04:37 And we need to call them man-woman.
04:41 Okay, and so with that I'm referring to the fact that the phenomenon of man-woman or they term that later on being called homosexuals.
04:55 Okay, it's a phenomenon that exists in several societies.
04:59 And in itself, nobody criminalizes them.
05:03 Sometimes they feel compassion for them or pity for them, but they're not subject to any...
05:09 Nobody in Ghana put any man-woman or being in this year as we call it in Ghana, in prison for being this.
05:17 Okay, what a country can legislate is what it considers offensive, criminal, unacceptable, abomination, whatever.
05:29 And that's... every country has a right to do that.
05:33 To legislate social conduct and say that if a man and a man commits sex or whatever type of...
05:41 A legislation can be passed.
05:43 And so what you can put people in prison for is people doing things against this legislation.
05:51 Okay.
05:52 That means that we pass from the phenomenon to action.
05:56 Absolutely.
05:57 To activity, alright?
05:58 And I'm sure that is because of that the Pope published the statement in just simple words, the blessings of same couples.
06:11 That again...
06:12 Are you for or against that?
06:13 The possibility...
06:14 No, no, no, no.
06:15 You talk about the possibility.
06:16 You see, that's the thing.
06:17 I appreciate your questioning, but that is precisely the type of journalism that leads to the confusion.
06:24 If you have time, I know you ran with this interview a little bit.
06:29 I have known Pope Francis for a while and worked with him.
06:35 And one of the personal audiences I have with him doing the work I do, he's talked to me about when he was a bishop in Buenos Aires, how he accompanied.
06:46 And in the church, when a priest or a bishop accompanies somebody, it just may become like a spiritual guide or director to a couple.
06:56 And some of them were gay people.
06:58 At the beginning of his pontificate, he came out with a thing about reaching out to the peripheries.
07:06 Peripheries are where people who are not part of the main line system live.
07:12 And coming from Latin America, these are the people that are campesinos, that are cateneros, those who collect rubbish from the street and whatever.
07:20 These are the people living on peripheries.
07:23 Other groups of people living in peripheries, we do have some here, would be people like this, people whose way of living or whose standard of living makes them excluded from society and all.
07:35 Therefore, when he came out with a writing called the Joy of the Gospel, his thing is that this Joy of the Gospel should not be excluded and nobody should be excluded from this Joy of the Gospel.
07:48 This Joy of the Gospel must be preached to everybody.
07:51 So everybody must have access to this Joy of the Gospel so that people can change, people can convert, people can become whatever type.
08:00 If because of the condition of a person, you exclude him from access to this Joy of the Gospel, how are you going to get that person to convert or to become anything?
08:13 So that is the premise.
08:15 Therefore, the document you refer to, came from an office of the Pope.
08:23 And he endorsed it, but it came from an office of the Pope which is talking about blessing.
08:30 It didn't start with the Pope himself coming up with this.
08:34 It started with several bishops writing letters to the Pope, asking for guidance, asking for explanation about what to do in certain situations.
08:44 That's when he came up with this type of thing.
08:46 And what he has said to me twice, in situations, whatever, is that his thing about the blessing is for persons and not for unions.
08:56 Which means that the Pope is not asking people and priests to bless unions, he is asking people to bless persons who may be gay or not.
09:06 So you bless the individual, you bless the person.
09:09 He is not asking for unions to be blessed.
09:12 And he said this twice already to me.
09:16 So this thing which is presented as the Pope asking homosexual gays to be blessed, it's not the case.
09:23 The Pope is asking just us.
09:25 When this morning we finished Mass and came out of the Mass, anybody could come to me and say, "Father bless me."
09:33 And a lot of people did.
09:35 I did not stop to ask anybody the question, "Have you just come out of prison?"
09:39 Or, "Have you committed any crime?"
09:41 You don't do that.
09:43 For a priest, when somebody comes to him and asks for a blessing or prayer, you bless him and you pray for him.
09:48 This, however, is different from when two people come holding hands and say, "Father bless us."
09:55 That kind of blessing then suggests, "Are you blessing them as a union? A couple or what?"
10:01 That is the type of thing that it's not what the Pope is asking for.
10:05 The Pope is asking that people in whatever situation can come and ask for prayer.
10:10 If even they live in this situation and struggle with this, you still can bless them.
10:16 That's the thing that would allow the grace of God to touch them and probably cause a change in them.
10:21 So you cannot deny them such a blessing.
10:24 The Cameroonian Episcopate published a statement following the publication of the statement from the Vatican.
10:34 They clearly indicated that they were not in accordance with what was published.
10:41 That a union is a man and a woman.
10:44 Archbishop of Bamenda even went further, Monseigneur Andrew Kere, to say that anything short of a union between a man and a woman is witchcraft.
10:56 How do you interpret that to our African audience?
11:01 I wouldn't use the word witchcraft because as an African, witchcraft means something else.
11:06 You know, I'll tell you this.
11:10 I did part of my studies in the United States in the 70s.
11:15 When I was doing psychology in those years, 71 to 75, every psychology textbook presented homosexuality as an abnormality.
11:25 In 20 years, that has changed.
11:28 No psychology book these days would present homosexuality as an abnormality.
11:34 Either because there's pressure or whatever type or their understanding has improved or whatever, I don't know.
11:40 But you see, I am citing a change in public attitude towards a social phenomenon.
11:46 That is America, not Cameroon.
11:48 No, no, no, but Cameroon universities, you use textbooks from America.
11:53 You use textbooks from everywhere.
11:55 It's not Cameroon. The author is not a Cameroonian.
11:58 But any university or place of learning uses textbooks imported from everywhere.
12:03 So you may have seen that textbook.
12:06 I'm not saying that because that was written, that's why you should be here.
12:09 I myself have been interviewed on the same BBC.
12:12 And if you go on website and you check my whatever detail, you will see that they present me as homophobe.
12:19 That somebody against homosexuality.
12:22 Because in the past I said that this is not an African cultural manifestation.
12:28 Okay, so that even the guy who interviewed me on BBC quoted that.
12:33 That we know that you are against whatever.
12:36 And so my answer on BBC is that you don't criminalize somebody for just being something.
12:43 You criminalize somebody for what they do.
12:46 That's why you have your evidence of criminality.
12:49 But not just because of whatever type of...
12:51 I say this because from the experience I have known people who manifest this, they struggle with it.
12:59 They've gone to psychologist and all until they were advised that this is probably...
13:03 So what I think we should do, we should research into the phenomenon.
13:09 What makes people sometimes be born with this tendency?
13:15 Recognizing that apart from being born, one can also adopt this as a political whatever type of...
13:22 As a new movement or as an exercise of rights or whatever type of politicize about it and all.
13:28 So what I'm referring to, there are genuine cases of people who are born as such.
13:33 Just as the Bible will tell us, people even are born eunuchs.
13:36 Would anybody expect that a man will be born who is impotent, who cannot use his sexual organs?
13:43 People are born eunuchs.
13:45 What happens in the childbirth in the womb that enables... that makes a man be born a eunuch?
13:50 So what happens in the birth process which makes people come out with the predominance of certain hormones
13:57 which makes them move one way or the other is something we need to research on.
14:02 And therefore my thing is that for that kind of consideration, do not just criminalize people for just being that.
14:09 If you want to criminalize Putin, you have legislations and anybody contrives that, that's what you put in prison.
14:16 So because you are a journalist and you're doing this, remember for example, Cameroon is not the only country dealing with this.
14:24 Museveni in Uganda, what does he say?
14:27 Threatens.
14:29 If you have this tendency, we'll help you cure it or get out of it.
14:35 Number two, if we catch somebody, introducing a young boy or whatever type into this, we shall kill him.
14:44 And if somebody comes making a propaganda for this, we shall put him in prison.
14:49 So this is what he has come out to say.
14:53 So at a certain point, there's a recognition that people may have this as a condition from their birth.
15:00 You may need help and those you try to help, you don't put into prison.
15:05 For about 10 years, you were the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
15:14 And when you look at the situation of reconciliation and peace in the world today, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, the DRC, Sudan, Boko Haram in Nigeria,
15:26 from a religious perspective, from a spiritual perspective, what accounts for the continual nature of these conflicts?
15:35 Despite numerous peace initiatives worldwide, at what moment do you lag behind Sudan on behalf of the Pope?
15:43 No, all of it depends on the causes.
15:47 Every conflict has to be dealt with in itself.
15:53 What caused it, what nourishes and maintains the conflict, and how it may be solved.
15:58 What are the indications for a solution?
16:00 In the case of Sudan, it was discovered that it was essentially between two protagonists, two leaders, Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, leading two groups.
16:10 So dealing with the two groups became a way of dealing with the situation.
16:15 That's why the two groups from Abu Dhabi were brought to the Vatican.
16:18 The Pope made overtures to them, and then at least between them, if even they're not talking every day, there is a certain amount of lull, a certain amount of whatever between them.
16:28 In the case of Ukraine and Russia, in the case of Israel, Palestine, in the case of Sudan, each conflict needs to be studied on its own.
16:40 Because I hear them on the Angelus of the Pope on a weekly basis.
16:44 The names of the countries are just cited, amongst others.
16:48 Certainly. So this is an introduction to what Vatican diplomacy is.
16:57 How does Vatican exercise or play its diplomacy in this regard?
17:03 Since the days of Pope Pius XI, when the Vatican, when the city of Rome, the Vatican was pushed to a Vatican territory and all, the Vatican has a policy of mediation, which is referred to as common paternity.
17:24 It means that the Pope considers himself to be the father...
17:27 Especially since 1929 with the establishment of the Vatican State by the Lateran people.
17:32 Sure. So the Pope, like a father of a household, whatever, if any nations are in conflict, he considers them as his two sons or two whatever fighting.
17:45 So his position is not to take the side of one against another, but seeks to reconcile two children or two sons who are at war.
17:54 Therefore, it's one thing that not everybody understands. In between Ukraine and Russia, for example, everybody thinks that the Vatican should come and condemn Russia to whatever.
18:05 In simple diplomacy, and I'm just beginning to do something like that, in simple diplomacy, you do not start mediating by criminalizing sides.
18:15 If you want to talk with people, you don't demonize them before you go to talk to them.
18:20 Otherwise, you lose the chance of talking to them.
18:23 So the expectation that the Pope should come and blast this and blast that and blast that, it's not part of it.
18:30 It's like the Pope would consider it to be true, "Boys, don't fight. Let's see what is the problem and let us solve it."
18:37 These days, a lot of media people think that the Pope should simply come and condemn Russia.
18:42 That's not what the Pope wants to do.
18:44 Nobody expects the Pope as a moral authority to do this.
18:48 No, moral authority, yes. Moral authority to mediate, to call them to attention.
18:53 Nobody expects the Pope to say that this person is correct, this person is right, for the purpose of peace, to bring everybody together.
18:59 Certainly. And it's the same. So what you refer to as hearing the Pope in the Angelus Call, that is the best he can do.
19:05 Call them to peace. Pray for them. And invite them in.
19:09 And behind the scenes, he may invite the ambassador of certain countries in the Vatican to speak to them or send a message through them to their head of state.
19:20 That is not announced in the Angelus, but that's something that he also does behind the scenes.
19:27 One of the greatest values of the Church is reducing poverty in the world.
19:34 You, in your various training, 20 years now as a cardinal, and in your various publications, at what moment you said that maybe the current financial layout of the world is not the best?
19:46 The IMF, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and others.
19:50 And you proposed for more equity to solve global problems, the creation of a kind of a world central bank and other institutions.
20:00 Are you still on that project? The current architecture is not the best?
20:04 No, I mean, the current, certainly, everybody knows that. All serious economists will tell you that the current architecture is not the best.
20:11 It's always dominated by the masters. Have you been to Washington D.C. before?
20:15 Absolutely.
20:16 You know where the White House is?
20:17 Absolutely.
20:18 You know what is next to the White House? The World Bank?
20:21 Absolutely.
20:22 And you know what is next to that, the IMF?
20:24 The International Monetary Fund. I have been to the headquarters of all those institutions.
20:27 So what we are talking about? These institutions are there for world poverty?
20:32 Concentrated in one particular country.
20:34 Okay, fine. So these institutions are there for world poverty.
20:37 Okay.
20:38 But they are also close to the centers of political power.
20:41 Okay.
20:42 Okay? I'm not there for condemning the World Bank and the IMF for whatever they do and all of whatever type of term.
20:49 But it's simply that the world is still in need of that.
20:53 The one other institution which brings the whole world together but which doesn't have such power is the United Nations.
21:01 Okay? And if the United Nations brings all people together, you must also recognize that within the United Nations there is a Security Council.
21:09 So where the big decisions are taken is not where everybody is represented.
21:15 So that in itself, that's why we talk about a reform even for the UN.
21:20 If this is a forum where everybody comes and expresses themselves, then there should not be where people talk and where people take decisions.
21:28 It's an imbalance.
21:31 But with the terms of poverty, this is a program.
21:35 When Pope Paul VI visited Uganda, Kampala, okay, in the 1960s, this is the term he said.
21:43 That the church has a program which is not its own, but a program belonging to the continent, which is the question of development.
21:52 And from there he went on to say that development is the new name of peace.
21:57 If you want peace, it's not simply stop fighting, but also promote development.
22:02 And where development, the promotion of development is stymied or reduced, it's also difficult to have peace prevail.
22:11 So, the truth is, yes, we work on the thing about development and we seek to promote it in all its forms.
22:18 And because of that, we're talking with economists, we're talking with financial experts, we're talking with entrepreneurs and business people, we're talking all kinds of whatever type of term.
22:30 And one of the things I tell you we're working on, Africa, despite its poverty, has very few rich people who's some.
22:39 Who's assets brought together can defy the cause of Africa's poverty.
22:46 Why don't they do it?
22:48 It's about 30 years now since the ecclesia in Africa was proclaimed in Cameroon.
22:56 When you look at the way the Catholic Church is expanding worldwide, the greatest number of increase each year is mostly from Africa.
23:06 Do you think that the church, the curia, has really taken into consideration the specificities of the African church?
23:18 You're talking about representation of Africa in the curia?
23:22 Whatever format you want.
23:24 I think that happens already.
23:27 Of course, people look at it and say, but there's no African head of a new curia now.
23:38 And this has been only for the past two years.
23:41 That's when one went on pension, 75, and I was there and I'd been in this office, as you said, for 14 years.
23:51 So every office, normally one occupies for five years until it's extended.
23:56 I've done this for 14 years, so that's why I moved to the academy.
24:00 But moving to the academy means that I'm not in charge of the ecclesia.
24:04 Even in terms of doctrine, prayers and whatsoever, that's actually my point of interest.
24:08 No, so that's what I mean. I think Africa plays a crucial role.
24:11 The role of worship.
24:12 Yeah, the role of worship is not determined by the Vatican.
24:16 The role of worship is defined by the local bishops' conference.
24:20 The local bishops' conference, you know, the Pope is a bishop at the end of the day.
24:24 We know that.
24:25 Okay, and he relates with all the bishops out of whatever.
24:28 If you look at some of his writings, like Lauda to see, or the last one he came up with.
24:33 Lauda is a bishop of Rome.
24:34 Fine, he's a bishop of Rome, but he functions in collegiality with all the bishops around the world.
24:40 That means that he knows that he's the head, although the head, but a member of a college of bishops.
24:45 Okay, with whom he thinks and with whom he acts.
24:48 Therefore, when he writes some things, he refers to what bishops elsewhere have also said.
24:55 In that regard, the thing about worship is a thing the Pope sitting in Rome will not pretend to understand all the nuances of a culture in Cameroon.
25:06 He will depend on the bishops' conference of Cameroon to indicate these cultural sensibilities which need to be taken on board in the liturgy.
25:14 Okay, so that move has to come from back here and then be sent up for consideration.
25:20 In the case of economic and development issues, we have two offices which essentially look at this.
25:27 The office of the Council for Integral Human Promotion is, for example, currently engaged with one initiative.
25:34 Which you are heading, of course.
25:35 I did head that. Now I move to the academy.
25:38 Okay, for the past year and a half, I've been in the academy. I don't head that anymore.
25:43 But that has a project of the Sahel.
25:46 Sahel is this West African region in need of a lot of help.
25:50 And there's this foundation entrusted to the German Bishops' Conference for funding which is to help Sahel's development.
25:57 And this project is now developed with the U.S. support into a project about building a green wall, wall of trees, from Dakar to Djibouti, to stop the desert from moving down.
26:10 Fighting against climate change?
26:12 Yeah, fighting against climate change, but the desert to move on.
26:15 And fighting against climate change, you introduced the expression.
26:18 Because of that, fighting against climate change, it's already known that Africa, which suffers a lot from climate change like several other islands, is the least producer of the elements that cause climate change.
26:32 Finally, Kadena.
26:34 Therefore, it is important that some of its media looks at how some resilience measures can be brought to Africa for its way of dealing with these challenges of climate change.
26:48 I said at the beginning of our conversation and finally that you are one of the most insight figures from Africa and globally of the Roman Curia, or if you like, of the Roman Catholic Church, with roughly 500,000 churches spread in all the ends of the world to spread the gospel, of course, as indicated in Matthew and the Revelations.
27:10 My last question to you is this. You are a Kadena elector. You were there in 2005 to choose Pope Benedict XVI of blessed memory.
27:22 You were there in 2013 and you voted to choose Pope Francis, who is the current head of the Roman Catholic Church.
27:33 In simple English and to the understanding of everyone watching us tonight, all of that takes place inside the 16th chapel of the conclave.
27:47 What actually goes inside there if it is not a secret?
27:51 No, it's not a secret. There's no secret anywhere. We talk about mysteries with God, but there's no secret in anything.
27:57 When the Pope dies or the seat of Peter becomes vacant, all Kadena electors, that means Kadenas who are under 80 years, are invited to Rome.
28:09 It's not a question therefore of voting by proxy. You need to be there physically.
28:15 So they come to Rome. Normally, for the past few years, we try to keep a number of about 120 electors.
28:24 At any particular event, it may be slightly less or whatever. In the last two conclaves, we just had about 115 and 118, whatever.
28:32 So they are invited to Rome and they come to Rome. What do they do?
28:37 They hold a series of meetings for a week or two to try to create a vision about the Catholic Church in the world.
28:45 What is the Catholic Church in the world today?
28:48 They try to inform themselves. So coming from different parts of the world, each one comes with his contribution about what the Church is.
28:56 So it's to create a global vision of the Catholic Church.
28:59 On the basis of that, they sometimes propose suggestions and solutions.
29:05 And then they go into prayer, a kind of retreat.
29:09 Have somebody to come preach, tell them about the importance of this task that is ahead of them.
29:15 And give exhortation and advice.
29:19 When the day comes for them to go into the conclave, they go in there.
29:24 Each one dressed in red, whatever type of them.
29:27 And then when they get in there, the last exhortation, the last preaching is done.
29:35 Some preacher is invited to again remind them about the gravity of the work ahead of them and all of that.
29:44 When that preaching is done, each one goes up to swear.
29:50 And express an oath that in the exercise ahead, he will express his position not influenced by anybody or anything, but by his own mind and conscience.
30:02 Who proposes the name of who can be proposed?
30:04 No, no, no one proposes a name. No name is proposed at the conclave.
30:08 People come in there, nobody proposes a name.
30:11 It's not a question of short listening any time.
30:14 It happens like it was in the Bible when they had to replace Barabbas, Judah Iscariot, the drawing of the Lord.
30:20 No sir, so that, no, it doesn't take that form.
30:23 It doesn't take that form.
30:24 It doesn't take that form.
30:25 So everybody comes and goes to, each one goes one by one.
30:29 You go there, there's a formula, you swear that you vote according to whatever type of them.
30:33 And then you put in their turn.
30:35 So that way they count also those who are in there.
30:38 And after that, they constitute an election team.
30:43 One of the cardinal is made to be the one to read the names on the votes.
30:47 The one, you know, another one repeats it and then the second one with the 12 pieces through there.
30:52 So each one then goes up to vote.
30:56 Okay, in front of you will be just a list of names with sheet of paper.
31:01 You take it and you write the person you want's name on it and you fold it.
31:05 And the name that appears most becomes the Pope.
31:08 Sure.
31:09 And the Pope's name is Abemus Papa.
31:12 Yeah.
31:13 Okay, forever and ever.
31:15 Amen.
31:16 The Cardinal Peter Thompson, thank you very much indeed for being a guest on Globe Watch from the Cameroon Radio Television.
31:24 I wish to thank sincerely the Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon and the Metropolitan Archbishop of Douala Monseigneur Cléda,
31:33 the former president of the Cameroon Episcopal Conference.
31:38 Thank you very much.
31:39 Thank you and thank all your witnesses and I wish you all a fruitful, blessed Advent season and may God bless you all.
31:45 Muchas gracias.
31:46 De nada.
31:47 *Bruit de l'explosion*