Promoting interreligious dialogue

By Simon Hart

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For Father John Asanyire, the arrival of autumn has set an alarm bell ringing in his head. After all, he has not forgotten how the heating in the presbytery at Saint Vincent de Paul parish, the place that became his home 11 months ago, began to malfunction earlier this year. “Winter’s approaching again, and if it’s not repaired, I’ve told my confreres I’ll be moving to London!” he says with a laugh as he looks back on the shock of his first English winter. 

A member of the congregation of the Missionaries of Africa – also known as the White Fathers – Fr John is a Ghanaian who had previously only lived in his home continent. Landing in Liverpool last November was, quite understandably, a shock to the system. “I left my country and it was 30 degrees and then I got here and I was freezing,” he recalls. “But I’ve got used to it now.” 

It was not the only thing that he had to get used to here in Liverpool. “What was quite difficult for me at the beginning was the accent,” he explains. “One day a young guy came here, and I couldn’t understand what he said. It was so different that I was wondering whether he was speaking Gaelic!” 

The 59-year-old is one of three priests from the White Fathers who are based at St Vincent’s, close to Liverpool One and the Baltic Triangle. He serves this city-centre parish alongside Fr Charles Obanya and Fr Henry Moses Ariho. A list of their duties, beyond administering the sacraments, includes weekly Gospel-sharing sessions, helping with the parish foodbank, and performing chaplaincy work at the Liverpool Women’s University Hospital. “The people here are lively and open, and it’s a very diverse community,” he notes. 

A priest since 1999, Fr John had previously visited the UK as a student in 1997. He actually spent time at the Jesuit retreat centre in Rainhill, Loyola Hall, but, as he confesses, “didn’t know Liverpool was so near!”. He is now making up for that missed opportunity. “You have two very nice cathedrals,” he says of his exploration of the city, which has also taken him to several Beatles sightseeing spots – and will in time, he hopes, include his first English football match. 

It is a long way from his earlier postings with the White Fathers. Father John has had two separate stints in Mali – the first for eight years and the second for another six, sandwiching a period building a new parish back in Ghana. Before coming to Britain, he had been in the Ivory Coast, working for six years in the city of Korhogo. 

Our conversation leads to memories of his own home in the Upper East Region of Ghana, where he grew up in the village of Nabango. “It’s a very rural region and we lack roads and telephone connections,” he explains. 

The challenges faced in the communities he served as a priest in Mali could be just as considerable. He mentions that there was “no clean water” in his first parish there. Sadly, he has since seen the situation worsen for his old friends in Mali, where there have been three military coups since 2012 and a growing terrorist threat from the north – a consequence, he observes, of the Western powers’ removal of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. “The time I was living there it was okay,” he recalls. “Most of the population were Muslim but we got along very well. I have many Muslim friends and there were many Muslims and Christians intermarrying.” 

This point brings us to the very essence of the work of the White Fathers, who can be found across four continents. “We are a missionary congregation that lives in international and intercultural communities, working as missionaries wherever we’re needed,” he explains. “We believe in interreligious dialogue and justice and peace.” A mission, it goes without saying, which feels ever more vital in the world of today.