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Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - Web posted at 8:05:40 GMT Continent repays Catholics' faith DAVE CLARKLAGOS - Africa's Roman Catholics marked John Paul II's quarter-century as pope this past week with some satisfaction, as their church continues to grow despite stiff competition from a rash of new Protestant missions. |
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The continent that was once the hunting ground of European missionaries now exports priests to the West, and when the current pope dies an African will be one of the leading candidates to replace him. Atheism is virtually unknown in Africa, but as conversions continue and the number of African Catholics hits 140 million -- 17 percent of the continent's population -- the church is also facing new challenges. In places such as Lagos, the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria's teeming hub, a rapidly mushrooming industry of Pentecostalist ministries is luring away worshippers with slick marketing and the promise of riches on earth. As he prepared to set off for Rome to be installed as a cardinal by the Pope, Lagos' Archbishop Anthony Okogie made no attempt to hide his anger at the interlopers, whom he accuses of milking worshippers for cash. "The biggest problem facing the African church is marginalisation," he told reporters last week, warning of the rise of independent churches. "Just because someone can read and write, he has a vision and sets up a church, then starts behaving like he's got a direct line to heaven. "When you pray to God, the man is praying with you but his mind is not there. His mind is in your pocket". Monsignor Robert Sarah, secretary of the church's Congregation for Evangelisation of the Peoples, told AFP in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, that he shared some of Okogie's misgivings about the rise of materialism. But he saw the decline in belief as much more of a challenge in the West than in Africa, where the church continues to grow. "In Africa, young people are still very sensitive to all that is spiritual. They want to know God, and faith," he said. "Even the number of priests and nuns is showing a real increase". On the other side of the continent, in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Father Emmanuel Anthony Ngugi said that while "a few people" had switched to the newcomers their numbers have been made up by fresh converts. "There is freedom to worship," he told AFP. "But the bottom line is that the Catholic Church is the trunk of the tree and other groups are branches". As 83-year-old John Paul II marked 25 years as the Vicar of Rome on October 15, African priests gave him much of the credit for helping them nurture their growing flock. "The Pope's visits allowed Catholic Congolese to come together and to (focus on) religion, because in John Paul II they saw religion made concrete," said one priest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has Africa's biggest Catholic community. The much-travelled Pope has criss-crossed Africa; drawing huge crowds in Muslim Morocco, consecrating the world's largest church in Yamoussoukro and beatifying Nigeria's first saint-in-waiting. Africa's enthusiasm for the church is also slowly being rewarded by a rise in profile for its churchmen. Last week, three more were nominated for what will probably be John Paul II's last intake of new cardinals. When the ailing pontiff dies, the conclave of cardinals that meets behind closed doors in the Sistine Chapel to choose a successor will have a credible African candidate in Nigeria's Cardinal Francis Arinze. As Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Arinze is the Vatican's fourth most senior official, and as a former leader of the Pope's inter-faith mission he has had a high profile. Arinze will have stiff competition but, African churchmen say, he is viewed as a strong candidate in John Paul II's conservative mould, and would be an inspiration to the Church's fastest-growing continent of believers. - Nampa-AFP |
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