The Church does not seek to proselytize, Pontiff tells Ghana’s ambassador
November 18, 2025
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CWN Editor's Note: Benedict Batabe Assorow, Ghana’s new ambassador to the Holy See, offered an unusually detailed account of his recent private audience with Pope Leo XIV, during which he invited the Pontiff to visit the West African nation.
Pope Leo expressed closeness to the poor and marginalized, joy in the collaboration of Church and state, and “stressed that the Catholic Church did not seek to proselytize but rather to promote the welfare, dignity and integral development of every human person,” Ghana’s state-owned newspaper reported.
In a 2007 doctrinal note, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that “the term proselytism was often used as a synonym for missionary activity. More recently, however, the term has taken on a negative connotation, to mean the promotion of a religion by using means, and for motives, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel; that is, which do not safeguard the freedom and dignity of the human person.”
Ghana, a nation of 34.6 million (map) is 72% Christian (15% Catholic), 19% Muslim, and 9% ethnic religionist.
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