Ghanian priest spends sabbatical here

Ghanian priest spends sabbatical here; built school at home

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
WORCESTER – A multi-lingual biblical scholar who spent part of his sabbatical in Worcester has returned to his native Ghana, where he started schools for poverty-stricken students.
He plans to finish his sabbatical in Germany, serving at a parish with seven churches.
Father Bonaventure K. Kambotuu, a seminary professor in Ghana, stayed at Holy Name of Jesus House of Studies, where he met Worcester diocesan seminarians from various countries.
He learned of the House of Studies from a priest from Worcester, who serves in Scotland. They were both at a conference in Tanzania. That’s a sneak preview of his life of adventure and service, which he described as follows.
One of 13 children, he was born in Ghana. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Wa, Ghana, in 1986, and taught at St. Francis Xavier Minor Seminary there.
In 1988 he was sent to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, where he got his licentiate in Scripture in 1992.
Back in Ghana, he taught at St. Victor’s Major Seminary in the Archdiocese of Tamale from 1993 to 1999, returning in 2004 after completing a doctorate in Scripture from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. (He still teaches at the seminary.)
At a general assembly of the Catholic Biblical Federation, held in Tanzania in 2008, he met Father David Cotter, who grew up in Worcester and serves in the Diocese of Paisley, Scotland. He said Father Cotter invited him to visit, and in 2010 he spent his sabbatical there, helping at the cathedral in Paisley.
When he was due for another sabbatical, Father Cotter told him about the House of Studies here.
“Quite a number of people in Ghana asked, ‘Why do you want to go to the United States now?’” Father Kambotuu said, in reference to concerns about President Donald Trump’s administration.
But he got a five-year visitor’s visa. It didn’t allow him to work, even to be main celebrant of a Mass, he said. So after arriving in May, he concelebrated at nearby St. Peter Parish, and spent time reading and relaxing.
Father Kambotuu plans to spend the rest of this sabbatical – through next July – in Germany. That, he anticipates, will involve much work.

Many languages

“I had to learn German – it’s a requirement for the study of Scripture,” as students need to read commentaries in the original language, he said.
For Scripture study he also learned French, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin, he said. And Italian, since his classes were taught in that language. He knows some Spanish, and learned English and his native Dagaare growing up. Receiving limited scholarships from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, he had to study languages in the summer, in preparation for school-year courses, he said.
Since studying German in 1989 at the University of Bonn, he’s returned to Germany most summers to serve in a parish, he said. This year he is to serve in a merged parish with seven churches, parish halls and rectories. One of the priests is leaving when he comes and returning in October. The other is being transferred in September.
Father Kambotuu said that when he was in Germany in 1995, friends from Austria who supported him in seminary asked what they could do for him.
“I said, ‘I don’t need anything, but, if you want to help me, I’m going to build a school in my village,’” he recalled. The nearest elementary school to that “very deprived rural area” in Ghana was about three miles away.
The Austrians donated money, and the villagers in Ghana made cement blocks by hand.
In 1997 St. Gregory’s Primary School opened. It was named for one of the Austrians and the bishop who ordained Father Kambotuu. A junior high was finished in 1999, and a teachers’ home was also built.
 Father Kambotuu said he started a vocational center in 2004, but students left too soon to earn money with their new skills. So in 2012 he turned it into St. Augustine Senior High Technical School, which includes academics, and uses national programs. There is now housing for students too.
Many graduates are doing well, Father Kambotuu said. Some have gone to college, some are working.
“The whole purpose is to help people to help themselves,” he said. “It’s been a lot of work, but it’s been worth it.”’

Shackles of poverty

The literacy rate in that part of Ghana is only about 22 percent, housing is inadequate, people don’t have enough for one square meal a day and some die of illnesses that could be cured, he said.
He said he believes education is the way “to get rid of these shackles of poverty.” He also started a women’s group to help widows and mothers earn money, he said.
Father Kambotuu said people asked how he copes, seeing this misery at home and skyscrapers abroad. He replies that the Ghanaians are happy; this is all they know. But for him, it hurts.
When donors want to help rectify the situation, he tells them to  come and see for themselves.
“If you come there during school time you see…kids all over the place,” he said. He said there are about 150 in kindergarten, 280 in grades 1-6, 100 in junior high and 400 in the high school.
He maintains, “You can’t visit this area and go away untouched.”