Peter Poreku Dery

Life

Education and early career

Porekuu Der His birth followed closely upon the death of his immediate older brother. The Dagaare-speaking people of North-Western Ghana and Southern Burkina-Faso believe that a male child born not long after the death of his immediate elder brother is the reincarnation of the deceased brother and he is given the additional name "Der" to demonstrate that, a practice his pagan parents adopted.

He converted to Roman Catholicism and was baptized alongside ten others in Jirapa on 24 December 1932. He then changed his name from "Der" to "Dery" and took the name "Peter" in honor of Saint Peter. He was then sent to Jirapa to become a catechist, so he could return to his village to teach his people in the Catholic faith. and on 16 March 1960 appointed Porekuu its first bishop. He received his episcopal consecration in Saint Peter's Basilica on 8 May from Pope John with Bishops Napoléon-Alexandre Labrie and Fulton Sheen as the co-consecrators. Porekuu was installed on 10 June. He requested permission from competent ecclesial authorities in Rome to translate the Mass into Dagaare and have it sung in local melodies with local musical instruments; having received permission, he composed the first Dagaare Mass, a milestone in the "Africanization" of the Ghanaian Church.

He was named the Apostolic Administrator of the Tamale in 1972 and then appointed its bishop on 18 November 1974. He was the first to hold that position who did not belong to a religious order; his predecessors had all been members of the White Fathers. When Tamale was promoted to the status of a metropolitan archdiocese on 30 May 1977, he was named its archbishop.

From 1982 to 1988, he served as the president of the Ghanaian Episcopal Conference. He attended a similar synod in October 1987.

On a visit to Ghana in 1996, the theologian Stephen Bevans reported attending a ceremony in the Tamale cathedral "filled with music and dancing in the way only Africans can celebrate", with "the aging archbishop, Peter Poreku Dary, dancing around the altar as he incensed it in preparation for the gifts".

Cardinal

Pope Benedict XVI created Porekuu the Cardinal-Deacon of Sant'Elena fuori Porta Prenestina on 26 March 2006.

Porekuu was in a wheelchair and was lifted onto the dais to allow Pope Benedict to give him his ring.

Death and funeral Porekuu died in his sleep at his Tamale residence on 6 March 2008.