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Cardinal Peter Turkson, one of those in line to become the next Pope, and first Black leader of the Catholic church, is blaming gays for abuse charges plaguing the religion. In an interview with CNN, the Ghanaian Cardinal said that s-x scandals between priests and children don’t happen in Africa. “Africa traditional systems kind of protect or have its population against this tendency,” he said.

With Pope Benedict XVI announcing the he would resign from his post this month, Turkson has topped several lists as a successor, and further explained gay culture in Africa with journalist Christiane Amanpour. “Because in several communities, in several cultures in Africa homosexuality or for that matter any affair between two sexes of the same kind are not countenanced in our society.”

Although gays may not be as open in the West African country and throughout the diaspora, that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. The website VibeGhana.com called for the country to lift its ban on gays, writing in part that the current government “cannot hide now when prominent members of the government are gays and are holding sensitive positions.”

Despite homosexuality being illegal in Ghana, Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur is rumored to be gay.

In January of 2011 a man named Joseph Kwabena Owusu-Sekyere told Ghana’s The Daily Guide newspaper that he was in a relationship with Amiisah-Arthur. The politician has denied the story, calling Owusu-Sekyere’s claims “libelous,” and “absolutely not true.”

According to Amissah-Arthur, he hasn’t even seen Owusu-Sekyere in “40 something years,” but admitted to giving him money in the past.

Photo: CNN