In its frenzy to compel the adoption of Gender Ideology, the Biden Administration has published numerous executive orders and other directives. Considered together, they constitute a standing order requiring all federal policies, programs, officials, and employees to give the highest priority to abortion and LGBT+ "equality."
Last April, Biden NSC spokesman John Kirby said that "LGBTQ+ rights are . . . a core part of our foreign policy," and followed up by threatening to impose economic sanctions on African countries that refuse to comply.
Millions of Africans have been wearied by decades of efforts by the secular West to force abortion, population control, and a growing multitude of sexual perversions onto the region. For the Left, sub-Saharan Africa is targeted for two reasons: it is the only continent that still has a growing population while at the same time having the fastest-growing Catholic Church in the world.
In response to this ideological colonization, righteous resistance to the purveyors of the Culture of Death is growing ever stronger throughout the continent.
In response, the Biden Administration has doubled down. [How dare the Africans claim there are only two sexes?] They are using U.S. taxpayer funds to force recipient countries in Africa to comply on pain of losing foreign aid funds dedicated to health care and other basic needs.
They mean it. And last April, they sent Vice President Kamala Harris to Ghana to drive the message home.
Ms. Harris arrived in Ghana bearing gifts: your taxpayer money.
She showered her host, Ghanian President Nana Akufo-Addo, with bounteous flattery, but behind her perpetually prolix prose, her message was clear: either President Akufo-Addo allows Biden and other western "leaders" to import their pro-abortion, pro-sodomy programs disguised as "foreign assistance," or Kamala's bribe of hundreds of millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars would disappear. [A bribe by any other name is still a bribe.]
Maybe Akufo-Addo was buying it, but Ghana's Catholic bishops were definitely not. They know that behind Kamala's babbling there lies a White House Cabal of ruthless Obama veterans like John Kirby running the country. The bishops are also aware that Harris' empty palaver serves merely as cover for Biden's Prime Mandate for Africa: to shove his satanic agenda down the throats of pro-family Africans throughout the continent by paying off their corrupt politicians.
If the taxpayer funding that the United States has offered Ghana is tied to the country's embrace of Biden's agenda, the response of Ghana's Catholic Bishops is firm:
Turn it down!
In an interview with Catholic Trends, Bishop Matthew Gyamfi, President of Ghana's Catholic Bishops' Conference, explained why President Akufo-Addo should throw Biden's bribes back in Kamala's face: accepting aid from the U.S. government with any LGBTQ conditions would simply amount to the government selling out the country's birthright.
The vast majority of Ghanians, he said, "do not want gays and lesbians ... to be formalized or legalized in Ghana. And that talk of democracy from (the) Vice President of United States ... (so what) if those two (gays and lesbians) are rights in her country? These are not human rights here for us."
"Who told her that they are? When did they consult us?" he continued. "She has absolutely no right to come and tell us what is human rights in our country. So in her country, a man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman - good. We don't have any problem with them. But they should not come and tell us what we should do as a Church."
"I believe in this I speak on behalf of most Ghanians," he continued. "We don't want anybody from outside our community to come and tell us what human rights are - we know our human rights. They have their rights, let them have their rights. We are not challenging them on that. But by no means should they come to Ghana, be they president or vice-president, come and tell us what we should do - they have no right to do that. So that is my position. And I believe I speak on behalf of all the bishops in Ghana, we have discussed these issues over and over."
When asked whether he would accept U.S. aid funding if the Biden agenda were attached, the archbishop firmly replied, "I will not. And the Ghanian people will not. ... This is a very, very serious issue. It is at the base of our culture, of our family, of our tradition of who we are, as Ghanians. So nobody should buy it with money."
"This is not the first time," he continued. "We have seen the European Union, the United States and these rich countries and say, 'if only you do this, then we'll give you the money."
"I know the governments have done that over and over and over and many Ghanians know it, it is not only I who have seen this. So, when it comes to something that is at the root, what makes people a people - that is their culture, their tradition. Then, if you sell your birthright, if you sell your culture, that tradition, if you sell who you are for money, then you get the money - who are you again?"
"Who are you again?"
That's a question Americans need to ask our own Catholic bishops.
"This is a very, very serious issue. It is at the base of our culture of our family of our tradition of who we are," said Bishop Gyamfi.
Isn't that true of American Catholic culture and tradition as well? And yet, in the last half century and more, America's Catholic bishops have travelled two perilous but parallel paths.
On the one hand, especially since the days of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," they have become increasingly dependent on a wide variety of federal government funding programs. Today they rely on billions in taxpayer funding for the operations of their secular subsidiaries.
On the other hand, during the same 60 years or so, they have become increasingly silent on the Church's fundamental moral teaching. In its endless lobbying for countless federal programs on Joe Biden's political agenda, the bishops' conference has never publicly opposed federal taxpayer funding of contraception in either domestic or foreign aid programs. In fact, they support full funding of Foreign Aid "family planning" programs that include contraception and abortion.
To top it off, instead of championing Humanae Vitae, the beautiful encyclical of St. Paul VI promulgated in 1968, they have put it in the bottom desk drawer.
Ideas have consequences, said Richard Weaver, and that silence of our shepherds was a very bad idea. All the prophecies of Humanae Vitae have been borne out in history. The bishops have been powerless in opposing the consequences of the sexual revolution, even among their own ranks and the ranks of the clergy.
Meanwhile, they are afraid to criticize their murderous government paymasters, and yet, due to scandals that they themselves have caused, they are more desperate to cash in that taxpayer funding than ever.
Let's face it. Those two parallel paths taken by our bishops might have been paved with good intentions, but they have led to a dead end.
When their political paymasters offer them the next bribe, pray that they follow Bishop Gyamfi's lead:
Turn it down!