Richard Baawobr

Richard Kuuia Baawobr, MAfr (21 June 1959 – 27 November 2022) was a Ghanaian Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Wa from 2016 until his death in 2022. A member of the Missionaries of Africa (also known as the White Fathers), he worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, and Tanzania before being named a bishop in his native country. Pope Francis created him a cardinal on 27 August 2022. Baawobr died just a few months later.

Biography

Richard Kuuia Baawobr was born in Tom-Zendagangn, in Nandom District, Dominion of Ghana on 21 June 1959. as well as serving as Vice Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. He received his episcopal consecration on 7 May 2016 from Cardinal Peter Turkson.

Baawobr was also appointed a member and consultor of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity on 4 July 2020.

In harmony with the Ghanaian Episcopate, he repeatedly expressed his opposition to claims by the LGBT+ community. He praised the draft law of the Ghanaian anti-LGBT bill, which was presented in 2021 to the Parliament. Despite strong criticism from various international organizations, Bishop Baawobr invited the president of the Parliament to proceed with the discussion of the text.

On 29 May 2022, Pope Francis announced that he would make Baawobr a cardinal at a consistory scheduled for August.

Later that year, Baawobr was elected president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) on 30 July at a plenary assembly in Accra. He became the first Ghanaian to hold that position. On that day Pope Francis made him a cardinal priest and assigned him the titular church of Santa Maria Immacolata di Lourdes a Boccea. He became the third Ghanaian to have been created a cardinal, after Peter Turkson and Peter Porekuu Dery. He remained in hospital for several days. He had undergone heart surgery in late August and was released from the hospital a few days before his death.