Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle, the Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop of Cape Coast, has appealed to Ghanaians to, as a form of legacy to the memory of the late former president, Jerry John Rawlings, to forgive him.

He said that for all the things that seem like the ills and wrongs of the life of the former president, some of which directly and indirectly affected people, the country should now begin to fully let go of those hurts and embrace forgiveness.

“This is what the Lord laid on my heart as I reflected on the public life of Jerry John Rawlings and the service he rendered this nation and humanity as a whole. Jerry in his own way was always hungry and thirsting for righteousness. Jerry in his own way fought for the poor. He longed for the coming of the kingdom of Heaven. He worked for justice to be established for the underprivileged and he could not tolerate the slow pace at which this was coming to birth.

“I am again deeply convinced that finally, and at least, Jerry has come to the full truth he so hungered for. Jerry has now come to understand that which was driving him on an appreciate which was and how maybe unknowingly, he was an instrument in the hand of an omniscient God and how this all-powerful God was fulfilling history with Jerry as one of his divine instruments.

“Beloved, if there is any legacy that we can uphold of Jerry John Rawlings, let us first and foremost forgive him for what in our eyes, and estimations, seemed, seemingly, excesses in his life,” he admonished.

Archbishop Palmer-Buckle was speaking at the requiem mass organized in memory of the former president Jerry John Rawlings, who died at the age of 73 on November 12, 2020, at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.