Johannesburg: Some say the next Pope should come from Africa. This is where Christianity is booming. More people in the world are becoming Catholics on the continent than anywhere else in the world, and millions of Africans remain proudly faithful to their faith despite persecution and death.
“Like in the past few years, the rise (in Catholic numbers) has been registered more than anything in Africa,” the Vatican said in October 2024, saying that 7,271,000 Africans joined the faith last year.
In 2023, the National Catholic Registry reported, “It was home to less than one million Catholics in 1910, and the Catholic population in Africa is currently 265 million.”
Fox News Digital understands that there are three major papavilles in Africa – “pope” candidates – Cardinal Fridlin Ambongo Beschung of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is 65 years old, while Cardinal Appia Turkson of Peter Kodow, 76, and Cardinal Robert Sara of Guinea, Ghana, is 80 years old.
Pope Francis died at the age of 88, according to the Vatican.
Cardinal Ambongo Besungu in Congo (AP Photo/Andrew Medicini)
“Is it time? Certainly, it’s the right time for Catholic Church leaders to come from Africa for reasons to capture the imagination of the world,” the biography of Greg Tobin, author of the novels Conclave and Council, and Pope John XXIII, Good Pope, told Fox News Digital.
He said, “The church has grown surprisingly rapidly over the past decades, in the face of the opposition of governments from many African countries, and the obvious persecution and violent opposition of many Christians and Catholics in the same country. Furthermore, bishop-appointed and raised leaders are generally highly educated in the West.”
Theologian and executive coach Jonathan Morris was also positive about the idea of a new pope coming from Africa, telling Fox News Digital:
The Catholic Bishop will attend the Mass for Peace in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on January 28th, 2024. (Alexisuguet/AFP via Getty Images)
Morris, a contributor to Fox News, said, “African churches are, on a whole, more conservative than European and American churches. But these Europeans and Americans don’t love being part of making history!”
This predominantly conservative approach from African pontiffs’ candidates is a positive factor among traditional Catholics, but many still don’t want a hard-line pope, Gregory Tobin said. Tobin is right on the topic as he is currently writing his new book, The Mysteries of the Concrave. Conclave is a meeting at the Vatican where the new Pope was selected. Tobin says, “The (African) churches and their leaders can come across as either vague or very stiff conservatives. This is a mixed bag that is the “turn-off” of the cardinal elector, seeking a clear theology and idyllic “style” that is higher defined by the person they elect. ”
African Catholic priests say Pope Francis refuses to congratulate same-sex couples
Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Kodow Appia Turkson is waiting to trade Pope Francis for Christmas greetings at Clementina Hall in Vatican City on December 21, 2013. (Franco Origlia/Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
Some analysts recommend that it is the right moment, with Pope from Africa, to reward Christians for their strength despite the often frightening persecution. It’s easy to become an openly Christian in Texas. However, in the DRC, where 95% of the population is Christian recently, no one has stopped Islamist rebels from pushing 70 Christians into the church.
In 2023, Fox News Digital was told that more than 52,000 Christians have been “slaughtered or hacked to be Christians” since 2009 in Nigeria since 2009.
However, Nigeria in 2023 has been shown to have been followed by a worshiper who attends Mass, the world’s most Catholic Mass for a long time. This reported that, according to the Center for Applied Research at Georgetown University’s Apostles Association (CARA), “reported the highest among adult self-identified Catholics in Nigeria, among 94% of adult Catholics, with Kenya at 73%.”
Greg Tobin offered his views on the preferred candidate. First, “While Cardinal Fridrin Ambongo Beshun, the Archbishop of Kinshasa, is not considered strong or consistent in his theological teachings, he is not considered an enemy of the voice of his country’s dictatorial leader.”
Pope Francis will be open to the public as he will lead a mass at the Martyr Stadium in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo on February 2, 2023. (Chris Milosi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
and “Peter Kodow Appia Turkson Cardinal from Ghana [from] Since 2020, he has served Pope Francis as head of a multi-group task force to monitor the widespread impact of the coronavirus pandemic on churches and Catholic institutions. Though Turkson is a viable choice that is favoured by Pope Francis and is widely respected, with a theologically “political” taste to the Western High Clergy, his visibility has been bleak in recent years. His election will be a major surprise along the same line as Bergolio (Pope Francis) was in 2013. ”
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Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea at the Centre will attend a prayer at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Victory in Dakar on December 4th, 2023. (Guy Peterson/AFP Getty Images)
“It’s a clear long shot as age, age and time have passed,” Tobin said, 80-year-old Guinea Cardinal Robert Sarah said.
Final Note: If the next Pope comes from Africa, he will not be the first. Originally from North Africa, Victor I was a clergyman between 189 and 199, followed by Miltiades and Zerasius I.
