The New York Times is asking that question this morning:
When Pope Francis presided over a Mass that incorporated elements of Congolese tradition in St. Peter’s Basilica in 2019, it was seen as a sign of his enduring commitment to Roman Catholics across Africa.
When he visited African migrants in southern Italy and later kissed the feet of South Sudan’s two competing warlords, his actions drew more attention to his focus on a continent where the number of Catholics is growing faster than anywhere else in the world.
“Being from Latin America, he felt for our predicaments as a third-world continent struggling in a world controlled from far away,” said Cardinal John Onaiyekan, the former archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria, who voted in the 2013 conclave that elected Francis.
As Cardinal Onaiyekan and his peers prepare to meet in the Sistine Chapel next week to elect the new pope after Francis’ death, the question of how Africa’s rising Catholic population might shape the next papacy and the church’s future has become more timely than ever.
Africa produces the highest number of seminarians in the world. Of the 135 cardinals who will name the next pope, 18 are from Africa.
About a fifth of Africa’s population, roughly 280 million people, are Catholic. Nearly a fifth of all Catholics are Africans, and that balance is changing: According to the Vatican, more than half of the 13 million people who joined the church in 2022 were in Africa.
Africa produces the highest number of seminarians in the world. Of the 135 cardinals who will name the next pope, 18 are from Africa.
Francis’ legacy in Africa is mixed, with some crediting him for adapting church teachings to African customs and others saying his messages at times felt out of touch with the diverse and strongly held beliefs that animate many African societies.
On same-sex marriage and divorce, Francis’ blessing of same-sex couples faced a strong rebuke from African bishops and many Catholics in countries where homosexuality remains criminalized, stigmatized or taboo. The resistance from African bishops highlighted their growing influence within the church, observers say.
… The election of an African pope would most likely usher in an era of conservatism, in line with the traditional views of many African Catholics.
On many topics, however, African Catholics said Francis had preached values close to their hearts, including a more respectful relationship to nature, interreligious dialogue with Islam and the importance of incorporating local traditions into one’s faith.
Even on homosexuality, many said Francis’ approach was one of subtlety that resonated in Africa and made the church’s doctrine more appealing on a continent with the world’s highest share of young people.
Read it all (gift article)
Meanwhile, John Allen at Crux offered this analysis two years ago, looking at the overwhelming devotion in the continent:
Let’s start with Nigeria. Getting accurate religious headcounts there is notoriously difficult, given how religious affiliation is heavily politicized in the world’s largest mixed Muslim/Christian nation. Estimates of the Catholic population range from 20 million all the way to 45 million or higher, but for our purposes, let’s use the Vatican number of 32.5 million.
If 94 percent of those folks attend Mass once a week, that translates to 30.5 million Catholics.
By way of contrast, the five largest Catholic countries in western Europe are Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Portugal. Using the percentages in the WVS data, collectively they have about 30.4 million Catholics who show up every Sunday.
In other words, Nigeria alone has roughly the same number of regularly practicing Catholics as all of western Europe.
… Nigeria, Kenya and Congo together would represent a vast pool of 80 million weekly Mass-goers, which would be about one-quarter larger than the total for all of Europe and North America combined.
Here’s another interesting term of comparison.
The two largest Catholic countries in the world are Brazil and Mexico, with Catholic populations of 123 million and 97 million respectively. Yet Mexico has a Mass attendance rate of 47 percent and Brazil just 8, which means that together, they see about 55.4 million Catholics showing up for church every Sunday.
Nigeria and Congo together, meanwhile, generate 68 million weekly Mass-goers. In other words, Africa’s two largest Catholic nations outperform the two biggest in Latin America by about 20 percent.
