A branch of the Catholic Church at Sumbrungu, a town in the Upper East regional capital, Bolgatanga, was thrown into disarray Sunday morning in a manner the worshippers may not even remember what the under-pressure priest said in his sermon.
The church, St. Francis of Assisi Rectorate, usually holds two masses in sequence on Sundays because its flock population, estimated to be more than 500 by some members, is larger than the church hall.
But before the first mass could start at 7:00 a.m. some aggrieved worshippers had arrived on the church’s premises and locked all the doors leading into the worship hall with new padlocks.
They also pasted some placards on the doors, some of which read: “Fr. Peter Ayorogo, take your belongings and go away. You don’t belong here again”; “Fr. Peter Ayorogo, you have milked the church enough”; “Fr. Peter Ayorogo, 24 years of disservice rather than service”; and “Fr. Peter Ayorogo, enough is enough”.
A crowd of people, who had arrived for the first mass one after the other from around 6:30 a.m. onwards, gathered outside, unable to enter the building.
They stood on the premises, expressing shock at the sight and talking in groups among themselves. Among the church members were notable figures including the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Bolgatanga, Rex Asanga, former MCE of Bolgatanga, Edward Ayagle, and former headmaster of the Bolgatanga Senior High School (Big Boss), Francis Avonsige.
A long wait ended by a hammer
A number of them, while waiting to see what would happen next, moved closer to the doors, read the placards and photographed them with their mobile phones.
The longer the wait lasted, the bigger the crowd became and the more tension grew. Later, a black car, driven by a middle-aged man, appeared on the premises and went past the crowd to the priest’s mission house behind the church building.
At 6:59 a.m. Rev. Fr. Peter Ayorogo, who has led the church as a priest for 24 years, stormed out of the mission house in a cassock. He apparently had been informed about the happening, and had taken a decision.
He walked at the pace of a very angry man towards the church building. A young man, believed to be a carpenter, walked closely behind him with a big hammer in his right hand and a red chisel in his left.
The priest seemed to have told the young man what to do with the hammer before they came out together from the mission house.
They stopped in front of one of the doors. The priest did not say anything. He only pointed at the padlock, stepped back, and the young man began to hit it. He hit it ten times, as a silent crowd watched from behind them, and the door gave way.
Confusion breaks out
The church has been seriously divided for a long time concerning how the priest has run the affairs of the church for 24 years.
This division has been in the public domain and it is a matter that has been before the Bishop of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese, Most Rev. Fr. Alfred Agyenta, for about four months.
While some of the church members want the priest removed, saying he has soiled his cassock with some grievous scandals, some are strongly backing him, saying he has not done anything wrong and deserves to remain in charge because he, according to them, has the interests of the church at heart.
After the padlock was broken and the door gave way, the waiting crowd walked in with mixed feelings and sat down. And the mass began.
In his opening remarks at the mass, the priest still looked furious as he pointed out that his detractors plotted the obstruction the church had just witnessed. That was expected. But a disruption nobody anticipated inside the church broke out soon afterwards.
About 15 minutes into the mass, some members of the church suddenly rose from their seats, went forward and began to say there would be no mass until their concerns were addressed and until the bishop arrived to address them.
Things turned chaotic as some of the congregants stood up in support of the priest and condemned the other group for disrupting the mass. The two sides raised their voices at each other as the priest, faced by eight altar boys, folded his arms with a sad look.
Tempers erupt again
This disruption went on for about five minutes, ending after those who were on the priest’s side convinced the protesting members it would be unfair to disturb a spiritual encounter for which people had prepared and journeyed from their homes.
The agitated members did not take part in the mass. They walked out and remained there, waiting for the bishop. But minutes later, they returned to the busy hall, holding some documents.
They asked the priest to explain to the church why he sacked the church’s catechist, Michael Nyaaba, the previous day and provide answers to some accusations contained in those documents in their hands.
In response, the priest said he fired the catechist because he discovered he had joined the opposing side of the divide against him. Tempers flared again from both sides.
Again, the faction supporting the priest forced the protesters out of the hall. The mass continued in strained silence, with the attention of the partakers divided throughout in a never-seen-before uneasy environment. The bishop did not appear there.
Causing financial loss to the church
While impatiently waiting outside for an opportunity to air their concerns before the entire church and get the results they wanted, the protesters handed copies of the documents to the newsmen present.
The documents were a petition highlighting some accusations levelled against the priest, payment vouchers and financial statements. Media Without Borders engaged the priest after the mass for his comments on the accusations.
The church members, in the petition, accused the priest of depositing about Gh¢20,000 (an equivalent of $1,274 today) that belonged to the church at the now-defunct Gold Coast Fund Management Company in 2019.
They said he deposited that money without consulting the church and could not withdraw it following the revocation of the company’s licence and collapse in 2019.
“The emphasis here is that he has caused a great financial loss to the rectorate due to his lack of consultation attitude,” the worshippers said in the petition.
In his response, the priest said he deposited the money at the investment banking firm to generate money for the construction of a hostel for the church.
He also said the money was not lost because the ministry of finance had released Gh¢700 million ($44, 596, 412) to be disbursed among customers whose funds were locked up in collapsed fund management companies.
Purchase of shipping container with church money
The priest is also alleged to have purchased a shipping container with the church’s Gh¢7,000 ($446) to run a drinking spot business in it.
Painted orange, the old structure is situated across the main gate of the Bolgatanga Technical University’s main campus in Sumbrungu.
It was made available by the government for warehousing of food items, but it has remained empty since it was placed in the area more than 10 years ago.
The worshippers said the priest purchased the container without recourse to the parish’s pastoral council and reasoned that the money should have been channeled into the church’s mission house project which, according to them, had been abandoned at the foundation level for lack of funding.
Narrating his side of the story, the priest admitted purchasing the container but said he did so in consultation with the church’s finance committee. While refuting the claim that he intended to sell beer in the container, he also said the church intended to operate a drinking spot under some trees on its premises.
“The church doesn’t forbid us having a drinking spot. There is one at the cathedral,” he said. “There is nothing wrong.”
Suspected diversion of church resources for personal project
The church, according to the congregants, should have been elevated to a parish status but has remained a rectorate because its mission house is not roomy enough to accommodate more priests.
They said the priest had abandoned the multistorey mission house project, which the church started more than a decade ago but is still at the foundation level, and was building a house for himself in the same area.
The worshippers said they suspected the priest was putting up that personal house project with resources solicited on behalf of the church because that house and the abandoned church mission house shared similar structural plans.
Responding to this, the priest said he owned the house in question but the land where the house was being built was bought by his brother.
“As diocesan priests, we can own property. I even told the bishop that since I’m going to America and I’m going to stay for three years, I’m working. In America a priest is paid.
“So, when I’m paid, I’m going to develop the place so that when I retire I would have a place to live. And that is the pay I brought to develop the place,” he stated.
He further stated that the mission house project stalled because the construction started as a voluntary work but later turned into a venture for which “the youth themselves” were making some financial demands he could not meet.
A strange Gh¢40,000
The protesters also mentioned that the priest returned from a trip to the United States of America in September, 2023, with an unexplained Gh¢40,000.
They claimed the money was spent in a few months on projects which the church, including the finance council, had no idea about.
They said the finance council also could not tell how the money found its way into the church’s bank account.
When asked about this, the priest told the author of this story the money was part of what he was paid while he worked as a priest in the United States of America for the three years he mentioned earlier.
He said he provided a shed for the church’s outstation at Dazungo, a suburb of Sumbrungu, and purchased some building materials to erect a structure from the Gh¢40,000 for an outstation at Zorebisi, another suburb of Sumbrungu.
Missing pure water factory proceeds
The church, the protesters revealed, has been running a sachet water factory since 2015 but its proceeds cannot be accounted for.
They said the situation changed for the better when Rev. Fr. Samuel Atinga, the head of the Bolgatanga deanery, stood in as the priest of the rectorate while Rev. Fr. Ayorogo was away in the United States of America from 2020 to 2023.
“Rev. Fr. Atinga established the office of the accountant which introduced some level of sanity in the church’s financial operations but started suffering a threat upon the resumption of office by Rev. Fr. Peter Ayorogo,” the statement said.
But Rev. Fr. Ayorogo said the factory was doing well under his care until two members of the church established the same businesses in the vicinity purposely to rival the one owned by the church.
Alleged plan to open a drinking spot
The priest is said to have planned to open a bar on the church’s land without consulting the chairman of the pastoral council.
“Opening a drinking spot is a misplaced priority. We think as a church that is celebrating synodality, we should not tolerate this kind of leadership, autocracy.
“If we must let him know, we as parishioners of the rectorate, do not need a drinking spot. We need a mission house to accommodate more priests, a standard structure for worship and a catechist residence among others,” said the statement.
The priest, in his response to this claim, said he had a plan to establish a drinking spot for the church but rebutted the assertion that the pastoral council was excluded from the plan.
Closure of Sunday School
The protesting church members said the church’s Sunday School programme for children had been closed down since the last quarter of 2023.
They claimed it was closed down after the priest complained that the Sunday School teachers, instead of using the Catholic methodology, were applying the “halleluiah and the charismatic” approach to teach the children. They argued that the reason given for shutting it down was not only false but also weak.
They said the children, as a result of the closure of their worship centre, had turned into a distraction to the adults during mass proceedings. And of concern to the protesters was a reported move by the church leadership to, rather than calling the teachers to order and organising a training programme for them, to engage new teachers.
Responding to that claim, a source on the parish council said nobody had cancelled Sunday School. He explained that the church used to have teachers for the children but lost those teachers to the pursuit of higher education.
He said the church leadership, to demonstrate its commitment to the Sunday School, had at some point in the past announced the children had no teachers and encouraged people to voluntarily fill those vacancies. But nobody showed interest. The children currently do not have teachers.
Spiritual decline
The protesters also claimed that the rectorate was losing numbers because the things the members wished to see were missing.
One of the major things they mentioned was a grotto. At present, the rectorate is grottoless.
But the priest told this media outlet that he had initiated some important projects to support the growth of the church.
He mentioned a sachet water production factory, a hostel, a youth centre, relocation of the church from an old block to its current structure, a washroom block and a mission house as his initiatives.
Asked by this writer why he sacked the catechist, he said: “He’s betrayed me”.
“He was the genesis of this whole thing. And people have told me what he says in drinking bars that I must leave and if I leave I will not take a pesewa out except my two cars”.
When approached, the catechist told Media Without Borders the priest only acted on a lie he heard from a retired catechist (name withheld because it was impossible to immediately reach him) who had vowed to get rid of him from his position.
A member of the church, Gilbert Akanzeele, voiced his view in an interview with this writer that the dissatisfied members resorted to the open protests witnessed on Sunday because their engagement with the bishop had not been fruitful yet.
Media Without Borders could not reach the bishop for comment. He did not answer the telephone call placed to his number and did not respond to a message forwarded to him before press time.
A video of the disruption is embedded below:
The next video shows how the priest got one of the padlocks broken:
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
