Cardinal Dery Biographical Note
Dery, Peter Porekuu:-
The significance of Dery’s birth narrative is partly embedded in both his personal given name and family names and partly in the recent historical experiences of his kinship group and the Dagara people as a whole. The Dagara people of northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso of West Africa assign the personal name Dery to a male spirit incarnate who has already experienced a brief moment of human life and death at an early age. This happens when a male child of a couple dies before he is weaned. He is buried with a mark on his body and would be identified as the same individual if the next immediate child born to the same couple and after a few years, is also a male child and is carrying this mark. A similar process but within the context of the birth of a female child would produce a female spirit incarnate and the name Derpog will be assigned to the individual. Porekuu Dery was born into a kin and family group that had, over generations, maintained a great measure of individual and collective success in many ways. His parents had given birth to ten children, all boys, and in spite of the high infant mortality rate at the time, nine of them grew up into adulthood. Both his grandfather and father lived lives of multiple occupations and professions. According Dery himself, his father and two of his brothers combined very successfully the two occupations of farming and trading (Dery, 2001:20).
Like many Dagara people of his time and particularly following the footsteps of his father, Dery began his life career by being educated and trained in different areas of socio-cultural and economic practice of hoe-farming including the rites of initiation into multiple religious and secret societies such as the bagr[1] secret society. He was singled out at a very early age within a large number of candidates for the position family assistant priest and specially trained for the job by his grand uncle. Dery later described his grand uncle as great religious innovator who brought into existence two new cultic institutions within Dagara society and cosmology. Dery’s work as an assistant priest, diviner and shaman attached to these new cultic institutions prepared him very well for his eventual position as one of the greatest theological and pastoral innovators within the Catholic Church. He was a pioneer for the people of northern Ghana in terms of religious conversion and transformation. In 1932, his name was top of the list of the first baptismal class in northwest Ghana. In 1951 he was the first to be ordained priest in the area and by 1960 he was ordained bishop and given the newly created diocese of Wa. In 1974, he was transferred to Tamale and in 1977 he was elevated to the rank of Archbishop. He retired as administrator of the archdiocese in 1994 but continued to be active in pastoral work and was made cardinal in March 2006; a position he enjoyed until his death in March 2008. In December 2009, the Pope has made it known that steps are being taken toward his future canonisation as a saint.
Dery’s international career as religious leader and innovator began in 1929 when the missionaries of Africa, commonly known as the ‘White Fathers’ under the leadership of Fr. Remigius F. McCoy arrived for the first time in northwest Ghana and began to preach the Christian message. Dery was only twelve years old when the missionaries first employed him as a labourer on their mission premises. He soon later started to learn catechism with them. He was a fast learner and with his previous knowledge and experience with Dagara Traditional Religion, he soon became a consultant to the missionaries on matters relating to that religion. Within a short period of their arrival, the missionaries were soon overwhelmed by the large number of people and its continued increase turning up at different centres for catechism and baptism (see R.F. McCoy 1988). A catechist school was soon established for the formation of local pastoral agents. Dery played a key role in developing a program of formation rich with local (Dagara and Sisaala) cultural heritage and religious ideas. In doing this, he was already setting the agenda for the three main areas of innovations that he was to introduce and champion within the universal church; namely, the development of liturgical rites of worship based on local cultural expressions and ideas, the development of a mission for the laity as a necessary complement to the mission of the clergy and the development of a political philosophy that considered religious life and pastoral work as basically ensuring the integral development of human beings and their environment.
In terms of liturgical rites of worship, Dery was the first to have the foresight after his ordination as Bishop of Wa in 1960 and well before the second Vatican Council that brought serious reforms, to submit a petition to Pope John XXII asking him to permit him to “bring the Vernacular music into the liturgy”. The Pope not only granted the permission but exhorted him not to transliterate the Latin songs but to compose new songs using the people’s thought patterns and cultural symbolism that are expressing the essence of the Christian message and at the same time meaningful to the people. Dery then went ahead to compose, the Dagara Missa (The Dagara Mass) a service in the Dagara language and became the first bishop ever in the Catholic Church to compose non-Latin Mass Service. He was also one the first to introduced the use of such African and traditional instruments as the Xylophone and the drum and to encourage rhythmic movements of the body in resonance with ritual music. Having developed a humanist philosophy about religion Dery for the period of twenty-two years took on the national task within Ghana and the universal church to build such strong institutional structures as the National Laity Council (NLC) of Ghana, the Ghana national Youth Council (GHANCYC), the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) and the coordinator of the Pan African Laity Council Board responsible for organising the African Lay Apostolate.
Throughout his life and in all his activities, Dery was driven by the personal conviction that his actions were guided by Divine Providence and therefore, he could know the will of God just as much by intuition and human interaction as by rational theological study and thinking.
References:
Dery, P.P., Memoirs of Most Reverend Peter Porekuu Dery: Archbishop Emeritus of Tamale; Tamale: GILLB Press, 2001
McCoy, R.F., Great Things Happen: A personal memoir of the first Christian missionary among the Dagaabas and Sisaalas of northwest Ghana; Montreal: The society of Missionaries of Africa, 1988
Tengan, Alexis B., Mythical narratives in ritual: Dagara black bagr. Bruxelles; New York: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2006.
Alexis B. Tengan
Brussels; January, 8th 2009
[1] The bagr cult and society was the single most significant religious institution among the Dagara and some aspects of it were linked to secret knowledge. For more details see Tengan, 2006.
The significance of Dery’s birth narrative is partly embedded in both his personal given name and family names and partly in the recent historical experiences of his kinship group and the Dagara people as a whole. The Dagara people of northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso of West Africa assign the personal name Dery to a male spirit incarnate who has already experienced a brief moment of human life and death at an early age. This happens when a male child of a couple dies before he is weaned. He is buried with a mark on his body and would be identified as the same individual if the next immediate child born to the same couple and after a few years, is also a male child and is carrying this mark. A similar process but within the context of the birth of a female child would produce a female spirit incarnate and the name Derpog will be assigned to the individual. Porekuu Dery was born into a kin and family group that had, over generations, maintained a great measure of individual and collective success in many ways. His parents had given birth to ten children, all boys, and in spite of the high infant mortality rate at the time, nine of them grew up into adulthood. Both his grandfather and father lived lives of multiple occupations and professions. According Dery himself, his father and two of his brothers combined very successfully the two occupations of farming and trading (Dery, 2001:20).
Like many Dagara people of his time and particularly following the footsteps of his father, Dery began his life career by being educated and trained in different areas of socio-cultural and economic practice of hoe-farming including the rites of initiation into multiple religious and secret societies such as the bagr[1] secret society. He was singled out at a very early age within a large number of candidates for the position family assistant priest and specially trained for the job by his grand uncle. Dery later described his grand uncle as great religious innovator who brought into existence two new cultic institutions within Dagara society and cosmology. Dery’s work as an assistant priest, diviner and shaman attached to these new cultic institutions prepared him very well for his eventual position as one of the greatest theological and pastoral innovators within the Catholic Church. He was a pioneer for the people of northern Ghana in terms of religious conversion and transformation. In 1932, his name was top of the list of the first baptismal class in northwest Ghana. In 1951 he was the first to be ordained priest in the area and by 1960 he was ordained bishop and given the newly created diocese of Wa. In 1974, he was transferred to Tamale and in 1977 he was elevated to the rank of Archbishop. He retired as administrator of the archdiocese in 1994 but continued to be active in pastoral work and was made cardinal in March 2006; a position he enjoyed until his death in March 2008. In December 2009, the Pope has made it known that steps are being taken toward his future canonisation as a saint.
Dery’s international career as religious leader and innovator began in 1929 when the missionaries of Africa, commonly known as the ‘White Fathers’ under the leadership of Fr. Remigius F. McCoy arrived for the first time in northwest Ghana and began to preach the Christian message. Dery was only twelve years old when the missionaries first employed him as a labourer on their mission premises. He soon later started to learn catechism with them. He was a fast learner and with his previous knowledge and experience with Dagara Traditional Religion, he soon became a consultant to the missionaries on matters relating to that religion. Within a short period of their arrival, the missionaries were soon overwhelmed by the large number of people and its continued increase turning up at different centres for catechism and baptism (see R.F. McCoy 1988). A catechist school was soon established for the formation of local pastoral agents. Dery played a key role in developing a program of formation rich with local (Dagara and Sisaala) cultural heritage and religious ideas. In doing this, he was already setting the agenda for the three main areas of innovations that he was to introduce and champion within the universal church; namely, the development of liturgical rites of worship based on local cultural expressions and ideas, the development of a mission for the laity as a necessary complement to the mission of the clergy and the development of a political philosophy that considered religious life and pastoral work as basically ensuring the integral development of human beings and their environment.
In terms of liturgical rites of worship, Dery was the first to have the foresight after his ordination as Bishop of Wa in 1960 and well before the second Vatican Council that brought serious reforms, to submit a petition to Pope John XXII asking him to permit him to “bring the Vernacular music into the liturgy”. The Pope not only granted the permission but exhorted him not to transliterate the Latin songs but to compose new songs using the people’s thought patterns and cultural symbolism that are expressing the essence of the Christian message and at the same time meaningful to the people. Dery then went ahead to compose, the Dagara Missa (The Dagara Mass) a service in the Dagara language and became the first bishop ever in the Catholic Church to compose non-Latin Mass Service. He was also one the first to introduced the use of such African and traditional instruments as the Xylophone and the drum and to encourage rhythmic movements of the body in resonance with ritual music. Having developed a humanist philosophy about religion Dery for the period of twenty-two years took on the national task within Ghana and the universal church to build such strong institutional structures as the National Laity Council (NLC) of Ghana, the Ghana national Youth Council (GHANCYC), the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) and the coordinator of the Pan African Laity Council Board responsible for organising the African Lay Apostolate.
Throughout his life and in all his activities, Dery was driven by the personal conviction that his actions were guided by Divine Providence and therefore, he could know the will of God just as much by intuition and human interaction as by rational theological study and thinking.
References:
Dery, P.P., Memoirs of Most Reverend Peter Porekuu Dery: Archbishop Emeritus of Tamale; Tamale: GILLB Press, 2001
McCoy, R.F., Great Things Happen: A personal memoir of the first Christian missionary among the Dagaabas and Sisaalas of northwest Ghana; Montreal: The society of Missionaries of Africa, 1988
Tengan, Alexis B., Mythical narratives in ritual: Dagara black bagr. Bruxelles; New York: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2006.
Alexis B. Tengan
Brussels; January, 8th 2009
[1] The bagr cult and society was the single most significant religious institution among the Dagara and some aspects of it were linked to secret knowledge. For more details see Tengan, 2006.
© Alexis B. Tengan, All Rights reserved.
Comments
Post a Comment