Marshallans from Council 93 and Court 89, Damongo, who recently graduated from the Mystic Psychology Course, were joined by some of their counterparts in Tamale on a pilgrimage to the Cardinal Dery Memorial Centre in Tamale where they prayed for his Beatification.
The pilgrims were received on arrival by Rev. Fr. Sebastian Zaato, the Tamale Archdiocesan Development Coordinator, who is also the Priest-in-charged of the Cardinal Dery Chapel. He also joined them in the prayers.
Earlier, the pilgrims had prayed at the tomb of the late Cardinal Dery which is located inside the Our Lady of Annunciation Cathedral, after which they donated an undisclosed amount to the Cathedral Administrator, Very Rev. Fr. Carolus Magnus Gambogi towards his Beatification Cause.
The pilgrimage, which was coordinated by Sir Knight Bro. G. Z. Yenyie, ended at the Adoration chapel at the Holy Cross Parish were the pilgrims adored the Blessed Sacrament.
Born on May 10, 1918, to traditionalist parents, Porekuu Dery converted to Catholicism and was baptized on Christmas Eve, 1932, and named Peter. He went on to become the first person of northern extraction to be ordained priest on February 11, 1951. He was also the first Bishop of Wa Diocese after only nine years as a priest. He later became the first African Bishop of Tamale in 1974 and also its first Archbishop in 1977. He resigned as Archbishop on March 26, 1994, after attaining the canonical retirement age of 75 years. On March 24, 2006, he was elevated to the Cardinalate by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and installed Cardinal-Deacon four days later. He died on March 6, 2008, aged 89, and given a State funeral which took place at the newly built Tamale Sports Stadium. He was buried on April 1, 2008.
In June 2013, the Cause for the Beatification of the late Cardinal, that is, declaring him a Saint in the Catholic Church, was initiated with a Petition to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican. The Cause, which is being sponsored by the Tamale Archdiocese with support from other partners, involves gathering testimonies of the life, heroic virtues and reputation of holiness and intercessory powers, through interviews with eye witnesses who directly encountered the late Cardinal and other documentary evidence by a four-member Diocesan Tribunal.
On July 13, 2013, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued a “no objection” to the Petition, hence he was declared “Servant of God”, the first of four steps to Canonization in the Catholic Church which can only be initiated five years after ones death.
The second, third and fourth steps are for one to be declared Venerable, Blessed and eventually, a Saint.
The Servant of God, Peter Cardinal Porekuu Dery, a member of the Knights of Columbus, to which the Knights and Ladies of Marshall is affiliated under the International Alliance of Catholic Knights, was also a former Supreme Spiritual Director of the Noble Order.
Report by: Bro. Francis Ekow Monnie