Sunyani, July 30, 2026 — Under the vaulted quiet of Christ the King Cathedral, the Diocese of Sunyani gathered this morning to do what the Church alone knows how to do well: to stand before mystery and call it hope.

Rev. Fr. Joseph Aboagye-Tawiah, who died on July 17 at 72, was borne to his rest amid a full assembly of the presbyterate and religious of the Diocese. Most Rev. Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi, Bishop of Sunyani and Most Rev. Dominic Nyarko, Bishop of Techiman, joined Most Rev. Peter Atuahene, Bishop of Goaso, the Principal Celebrant, in a Mass with the particular solemnity reserved for a priest returning to the God who first called him.

It fell to Rev. Msgr. Richard Kofi Kyeremeh who preached with the unflinching candour of a man who has buried enough of his brothers to know that eulogy is not the Church’s business; truth wedded to mercy is. He did not smooth over the late Fr. Tawiah’s contested legacy, the pen that had wounded as often as it had provoked thought. He named it plainly, then set it beside the Lazarus Gospel and let Christ have the last word: ” I am the resurrection and the life.”

Forgiveness, Monsignor reminded the Cathedral, is not amnesia. It is the harder, holier act of surrendering judgment to Hands more capable of it than ours.

The Diocese has laid its son down. Rome does not canonize at graveside, only prays. So, in that spirit: eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.

Fr. Peh