Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos, Nigeria, congratulated the country’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, for the “courageous and wise decision” to sign into law a new set of anti-gay restrictions in January. The laws included a 14-year sentence for anyone involved in a same-sex union and criminal sanctions against public displays of affection between people of the same sex. The Uganda Episcopal Conference has not released an official statement about a law signed by President Yoweri Museveni in February obligating the reporting of gay and lesbian people to the police and imposing a possible life sentence for homosexual activity.

The Southern Cross, a publication headed by bishops from South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland, responded to the punitive legislation with an editorial opposing the “deep-seated sense of homophobia” on the continent. The writers stated that Nigeria’s new law was contrary to the Catechism’s mandate to treat gay people with respect and called on the hierarchy to “sound the alarm at the advance throughout Africa of draconian legislation aimed at criminalizing homosexuals.”

When asked about Uganda’s law while at a human rights conference in Bratislava, Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, affirmed, “Homosexuals are not criminals.”