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Calls for an African Pope reveal vibrancy of Church overseas


Cardinal Turkson points to Ghana

Cardinal Turkson points to Ghana

The Conclave meets this week in Rome to elect the next leader of the Catholic Church. There has been much speculation in the British press that an African could be chosen. If Cardinal Turkson of Ghana or Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze were to be successful, it would mean a meteoric rise from humble beginnings for either man, and for the Church, it would be the first African in 1,500 years to sit on the throne of St Peter.

The popularity of the two Cardinals in the mainstream press says something about the place of Africa in the current zeitgeist, but it also points to the impact of the Church on this continent, and in the developing world in general. Of the Catholic Church’s 1.5 billion members, 68% are now living in the developing world. In Africa the numbers of Catholics rise, in their millions, every year.

The Church continues to grow at a rapid rate in Kenya because priests have responded to the needs of the poor, says Bishop Anthony Muheria of Kitui, Kenya.

“The problems and challenges of poverty have made the Church in Kenya not only seek to address the issues of teaching the Gospel values of evangelisation, but to see as inevitable and necessary, its engagement in the social welfare and well-being of all”, he said. “We owe a lot to the missionaries who came to evangelise our country because they saw this reality very early on, setting up, almost as standard, a school and a hospital next to every mission they established.”

In Kenya over 40% of health facilities are now run by faith-based organisations (25% of which are funded by the Catholic Church). In Bishop Muheria’s diocese, 30,000 orphans and vulnerable children are being supported by Catholic services and thousands are being educated in Catholic schools.

Dr Mark Faulkner, senior teaching fellow at SOAS, University of London, agrees with the Bishop that social welfare programmes run by the Church have impacted positively on its membership, but he also attributes the growing numbers of Catholics to population growth on the continent as whole. “African people tend to have large families”, he says, “so one reason for the growth of the Catholic Church in Africa is the large number of Catholics being baptised into the faith as babies. ”

Yet this is not the full picture, as the National Director of Missio in Zambia, Fr Bernard Makadani, explains: “Of the 40,000 baptisms in Zambia in 2011 over half of these were adult baptisms. Zambians are choosing to convert to the faith because the Church offers hope and spiritual guidance for the community. The priest here in Africa is a man for all people. He suffers and celebrates with the people and helps and serves them. Our churches are full and vibrant because people love being part of the family of God.”

In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI, at the Second Special Assembly for Africa, described Africa as a “spiritual lung for a humanity that appears to be in a crisis of faith and hope.” It remains to be seen whether the Cardinals in Rome will elect an African to the papacy, but what is clear, is that while Catholicism, and in particular vocations to the priesthood, are waning in Europe, the African Church continues to grow in strength and energy every year.

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