LAGOS, April 1: As African Catholics prayed for the health of Pope John Paul on Friday, speculation mounted that the ailing pontiff could be succeeded by Africa’s first pope in more than 1,500 years. With church congregations rising across Africa, southern Asia and Latin America, observers see a global church that is increasingly orientated towards the south and away from its European heartland. In which case, some ask, is it time to think of marking this shift by naming an African pope, the first since Pope Gelasius I, who led the church between 492 and 496 when early Christians were struggling to convert a pagan Europe.
Step forward Cardinal Francis Arinze, the 72-year-old Prefect of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, one of John Paul II’s closest advisers, a staunch conservative and number four in the Vatican hierarchy. Nigerian Catholics were careful on Friday not to be distracted from their prayers for the good health of John Paul II by premature talk of a successor.
“We are praying for the Pope today, we are waiting for God’s will to be done,” said Father Felix Ajakaye, spokesman for Nigeria’s Catholic Secretariat. Aside from Francis Arinze, Cardinal Anthony Okogie is Nigeria’s second cardinal. Whereas Arinze has served in Rome as a senior officer of the Church for two decades, Okogie has remained at home as leader of a 20 million strong Catholic community and is not seen as is not seen as a likely candidate for pope.
However, he did fuel speculation about his colleague’s candidacy when, at a 1993 press conference to mark his promotion, he said: “I think in this (papal) election Nigeria will have a place of prominence.” Vatican experts say the choice for the job will depend on whether Italian cardinals are determined to win back a post they dominated for centuries until Poland’s Karol Wojtyla became John Paul II.
But if they decide to follow the logic of the church’s rapid rise in the developing world, then the white smoke might signal a black pope. In which case, few would be better placed than Arinze, a popular church diplomat.
By church estimates the number of Catholics in Africa has nearly doubled, from 50 to 90 million, in the past 20 years. More than two thirds of Catholics are now estimated to come from the “global south”. It is a trend that will continue, with attendances dropping in some parts of Europe and population growth in the poor countries outstripping the West’s, filling churches with youthful, energetic and conservative congregations.
Father Ajakaye said that the current Pope had been very popular in Nigeria — which he visited in 1982 and 1998 — and his style had contributed to rising church numbers. “He spoke in a way the people could understand. The Nigerian church has never been so vibrant,” he said.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the German churchman seen by many as John Paul II’s deputy has said electing an African pope would “would be a positive sign for the whole of Christendom.”
Weighing against the choice of an African, however, would be the electoral mathematics of the “Conclave”, the 120 or so cardinals aged under 80 who will meet in camera to decide whom the Holy Spirit has chosen as pope. Europe still accounts for 66 of the total number of cardinals, an outright majority, compared to only 13 from Africa.
But most of the cardinals were put in place by the current pope and share with him, and the majority of African believers, conservative views on barring women from the priesthood and condemning divorce, abortion and homosexuality. As Father Ajakaye said: “We now have two cardinals. There are 117 cardinals in the conclave. Any one of them is capable of being made pope.” —AFP
