According to the Acting Secretary General of RECOWA, Father Joseph Aka, “Ghana’s President, John Mahama, is expected to deliver the keynote address at the opening of the plenary assembly”.
The gathering will have talks and presentation of reports from RECOWA member conferences and commissions as well as discussions on the legal documentations of the regional conference.
The Church leaders will deliberate on the challenges that face the mission of evangelization in view of protecting the family, described as “the nucleus of society.”
In a press release issued by the Acting Secretary General of RECOWA- CERAO, Rev. Fr. Joseph Aka, apart from topics pertaining to the main theme the Plenary Assembly will also look at issues of Church-State relations; democracy and good governance; insecurity in the sub-region; migration; ecumenical and inter-religious relations and other matters regarding the integral development of the people of West Africa.
“In a world where some nations through lobbyists are making laws that are destroying the family, the bishops of West Africa want to bring to the fore that the destruction of the nucleus of society or to tear the family or deny what it is, inevitably undermines the very fabric of society and corrupts its foundations,”the release states.
RECOWA is a merger of the then Conférence Episcopale Régionale de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CERAO) formed in 1963 that brought together French and Portuguese-speaking West African Catholic bishops, and the Association of Episcopal Conferences of Anglophone West Africa (AECAWA) formed in 1972 by the English-speaking West African Catholic bishops.
The First Plenary Assembly of RECOWA-CERAO was held in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast, in January 2012.
During this Assembly there will be goodwill messages from a representative of Pope Francis and representatives of Catholic Partner Agencies from the US, Germany and the United Kingdom.
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