Peter Turkson

Cardinal Peter Turkson became Ghana's first cardinal in October 2003, in the last consistory of John Paul II. He has been seen as a possible pope in the 2013 and 2025 conclaves, and since 2022 has been chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences.

Wassa Nsuta

Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson was born on 11 October 1948 at Wassa Nsuta in the Western Region, the fourth of ten children. His mother, a Methodist, traded vegetables in the market; his father, a Catholic, was a carpenter. His priestly training took him from the minor seminary at Amisano and the regional seminary at Pedu, near Cape Coast, to a seminary in Rensselaer, New York, and was ordained on 20 July 1975. He took a licentiate in Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 1980.

Church leadership

He taught and served as vice-rector at St. Peter's Seminary before Pope John Paul II named him Archbishop of Cape Coast on 6 October 1992. From 1997 to 2005 he was president of Ghana's Catholic bishops. Moving to Rome in 2009, he headed the Vatican's justice and peace council for eight years, then became the founding head of its new department for integral human development, serving until 2021. He voted in the conclaves that elected Benedict XVI, Francis and Leo XIV. He is a fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.