Fans of the Raise Money Right project are probably more familiar than most with the people of Ghana.  Since 2005 CRS Fair Trade has been sharing the story of Divine chocolate, a company owned in part by cocoa farmers.   Just like President Obama is doing this week, I have had the honor of visiting the West Africa nation to learn about economic progress and the success of democracy.   A couple of years back, a CRS delegation even visited a stop on President Obama’s itinerary: a castle that served as transit point for slaves headed to the Americas.

Photo by CRS

This group of students and adults–who had used Fair Trade chocolate as a fun, tasty tool for awareness and education back home–were humbled and chastened by the grim tour of a place where human beings had been treated as property, forced in squalid cells while waiting for transport to a life of enslavement.   Even two years after the trip, I recall the empty and shameful feelings that the brief time of glimpsing slave trade relics stirred in me.

I wonder what President Obama’s reactions—both personal and political—will be to his time in Ghana, and I am curious about the response of his hosts.  Apparently the arrival of our first African-American president is being much anticipated by the people of Ghana, who are rolling out quite a welcome mat of festivities.  I also suspect Pope Benedict, who is meeting with Obama before the trip to Africa, is looking forward to their conversation just days after his encyclical on charity and truth has been published.

While I am no expert on diplomatic or theological discussions, based on my time in Ghana and my experience with Fair Trade, I suggest a few passages from Chapter Two of the encyclical to get the conversation between Pope Benedict XVI and President Obama started:

•    In anticipation of Obama’s time in a former British colony: “Paul VI hoped to see the journey towards autonomy [and decolonization] unfold freely and in peace. More than forty years later, we must acknowledge how difficult this journey has been, both because of new forms of colonialism and continued dependence on old and new foreign powers, and because of grave irresponsibility within the very countries that have achieved independence.”
•    Regarding strategies to confront the global economic crisis:  “It is important to distinguish between short- and long-term economic or sociological considerations. Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers, or abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country’s international competitiveness, hinder the achievement of lasting development. Moreover, the human consequences of current tendencies towards a short-term economy — sometimes very short-term — need to be carefully evaluated. This requires further and deeper reflection on the meaning of the economy and its goals, as well as a profound and far-sighted revision of the current model of development, so as to correct its dysfunctions and deviations.”
•    Learning lessons of development: “The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination.  It is important, moreover, to emphasize that solidarity with poor countries in the process of development can point towards a solution of the current global crisis, as politicians and directors of international institutions have begun to sense in recent times. Through support for economically poor countries by means of financial plans inspired by solidarity ….not only can true economic growth be generated, but a contribution can be made towards sustaining the productive capacities of rich countries that risk being compromised by the crisis.”