Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, will discuss “Caritas in Veritate: Good News for Society,” in a 7:30 p.m. talk Tuesday, Oct. 26, in the auditorium of O’Shaughnessy Educational Center on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.
Cardinal Peter Turkson
The lecture, free and open to the public, is sponsored by St. Thomas’ Center for Catholic Studies, John A. Ryan Institute for Catholic Social Thought and Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy.
For more information, call the Center for Catholic Studies at (651) 962-5700.
Turkson, 62, was born in Nsuta Wassaw, Ghana, and is archbishop emeritus of Cape Coast, Ghana. He attended the St. Anthony-on-Hudson Seminary in New York and later studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, where he received a doctorate in Sacred Scripture.
Ordained in 1975, he was appointed archbishop of Cape Coast in 1992 and named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003.
Turkson has served as chancellor of the Catholic University College of Ghana and president of the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference. He has served on a range of pontifical commissions, councils and committees; Pope Benedict XVI named him president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in October 2009. The office is responsible for promoting the church's social teachings on justice issues, such as war, the death penalty and human rights.
Turkson, who can speak or read eight languages, was appointed to the church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Oct. 16.
