The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference have announced that they will have a memorial Mass for Archbishop Léon Kalenga Badikebele, a former postolic Nuncio to Ghana on August 5 2019 at the holy spirit cathedral at .

According to a statement released by the Apostolic Nunciature of Argentina, Archbishop Kalenga died in the afternoon of June 12 in Rome where he was undergoing treatment.

On June 15, 2019, the Holy Father Francis celebrated the Funeral Mass for Archbishop Léon Kalenga Badikebele at the Altar of the Cathedral in Saint Peter’s Basilica and delivered the homily at the funeral Mass for the former Papal Nuncio to Argentina and reflected on the theme of leave-taking.

“This is the pastor’s farewell, which Paul lived so strongly in Miletus. And today, let us think of all these things, and perhaps our brother Léon will tell us, and will tell his people, his people of Argentina, of Salvador, in many places where he went: “Now I commit you to God”. At the end he prays, “Now I commit you to God” (v. 32), and kneeling, with his priests, the Holy Father prayed”.

The former Congolese prelate was born on July 17, 1956 in Kamina, Haut-Lomami in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  He was ordained priest for the Catholic Diocese of Luebo on September 5, 1982.

In 1988 he joined the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy and on February 27, 1990 joined the diplomatic service of the Holy See. He has served in various capacities in Haiti, Guatemala, Zambia, Brazil, Egypt, Zimbabwe and Japan.

On March 1, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Titular Archbishop of Magnetum and Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana.

He was ordained bishop in May 1, 2008.  He also served as the Apostolic Nuncio to El Salvador and Belize from 2013 before he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Argentina on March 17, 2018.

The Archbishop died aged 62 years.

BY : Edith Mensah // Radio Angelus