Pope Leo’s choice to make Africa one of many early locations of his younger papacy indicators the continent’s significance in world Catholicism. His April 2026 go to displays each his private ties to Africa and the speedy rise of Christianity throughout the continent.
His 10-day itinerary to Algeria, Angola, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea can be traditionally important. In Algeria, as an illustration, Pope Leo will stroll within the footsteps of Augustine of Hippo (who lived across the yr 400), his non secular father, highlighting the African roots of Christianity.
However when the pope introduced his Africa journey in February 2026, few may have anticipated how quickly the worldwide safety panorama would deteriorate. There’s a actual threat that ongoing world crises, such because the battle in Iran, will dominate consideration, overshadowing each the importance of Pope Leo’s go to and the persistent, usually ignored, conflicts throughout Africa.
The final papal go to to Africa – by his predecessor, Pope Francis, in 2023 to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan – was equally meant to attract consideration to Africa’s enduring wars. Huge refugee settlements throughout the continent stand as stark reminders of lives suspended in uncertainty and struggling.
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I’m an African theologian and my work examines how modern Catholicism is altering. My analysis goes past monitoring the demographics of Christian growth. It asks how Christian communities, rooted in numerous cultures, are remodeling societies and cultures in keeping with the Gospel.
By selecting to go to Africa now, Pope Leo is making a transparent assertion: Africa issues. The Catholic church on the continent can seize this second to construct extra equal, non-patronising partnerships with church buildings within the world north, the place membership is declining.
Christianity’s African roots
Christianity just isn’t a latest import to Africa introduced by European missionaries. The continent has lengthy offered deep cultural, non secular and theological roots for Christianity. This consists of Joseph and Mary’s flight into Egypt when the lifetime of Jesus was threatened by Herod after his beginning, and the catechetical faculty of Alexandria, the world’s oldest centre of Christian larger studying.
Pope Leo’s go to provides a robust historic reminder of the continent’s foundational position in shaping the church, notably in its first 5 centuries.
Moreover, Africa is residence to the fastest-growing Catholic inhabitants, now estimated at 280 million Catholics, or 19.8% of the world’s Catholic inhabitants. In 2025 alone, the African Catholic church had 8.3 million new members.
Africa contributes considerably to the church’s world human capital. Nigeria, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo are among the many prime 10 “sending nations” within the missionary change from the worldwide south to the worldwide north.
Pope Paul VI was the primary fashionable pope to go to Africa, in 1969. He mentioned the time had come for Africa to have “an African Christianity“.
Many African Catholics see this speech as an invite to Africans to take duty for making Christianity actually Catholic and actually African.
Pope John Paul II later, in 1995, affirmed that the “hour of Africa” had come. Pope Benedict XVI, throughout his 2009 go to to Africa, described the continent as a “non secular lung” for a world in disaster.
These expressions sign a shared conviction: the church in Africa has come of age and stands as a serious non secular power within the modern growth of world Christianity.
Some challenges persist
Pope Leo is not any stranger to the continent. He visited a number of African nations throughout his two phrases as the worldwide head of the Order of St Augustine, headquartered in Rome.
Nonetheless, he’ll encounter a persistent and troubling paradox that marks each the church and wider society. The speedy development of Christianity has not persistently translated into higher lives for folks. If the church is to stay related, it should extra convincingly embody the Gospel’s transformative energy inside the lived realities of African societies.
It wants to deal with the fluid non secular creativeness of many African Christians who simply migrate from mainline Christian teams like Catholicism to Pentecostalism and African conventional faith. This implies the Catholic church wants a second of self-introspection to ask whether it is actually assembly the folks at their factors of want. Is it a church that bears the narratives and wounds of the folks?
With out addressing the deeper disaster of religion and the battle for survival in Africa by so many believers strolling in poverty, the church dangers turning into a supplier of charitable providers. It may as an alternative be a power for deeper social transformation, non secular and ethical conversion, and non secular renewal.
Learn extra: Is Pope Leo XIV liberal or conservative? Why these labels do not work for popes
Pope Leo’s go to additionally unfolds inside politically delicate contexts.
In Cameroon, the long-running battle in Anglophone areas and President Paul Biya’s lengthy rule have raised considerations. A papal go to could possibly be interpreted as legitimising energy constructions that many see as repressive. Biya’s a long time in energy have been related to electoral manipulation, repression of dissent and state seize.
Comparable tensions exist in Equatorial Guinea. President Teodoro Obiang has been in energy for 47 years. His rule has been marked by the suppression of the opposition in an oil-rich but deeply unequal nation.
The picture of two long-serving rulers standing with Pope Leo will likely be putting. It’s going to elevate questions. However it’ll additionally create a possibility for the pope to talk some laborious truths to leaders who’re destroying Africa.
Against this, Angola provides a extra hopeful narrative of post-conflict restoration. It demonstrates how collaboration between the church, state and civil society can yield gradual however significant progress.
Africa and the way forward for a listening church
For all that was mentioned about Pope Francis’ love for Africa, it stays putting that, by his dying in April 2025, no African cardinal headed a dicastery (a ministry-level division of the central administration of the Catholic church in Rome).
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Africans accounted for barely 12% of the Faculty of Cardinals. Its members are the closest advisors of the pope and select new popes.
Pope Leo has already begun to deal with this imbalance in key commissions and administrative constructions by appointing Africans to positions of actual affect.
Probably the most notable traits attributed to him is his capability to pay attention. In my opinion, this listening should confront three interrelated realities if the church in Africa is to change into a reputable agent of transformation.
Dependency: Parishes and pastoral programmes in Africa nonetheless depend upon monetary assist from Europe and North America. This can be a main impediment to the emergence of a mature and self-sustaining African Christianity. The church dangers reproducing asymmetrical energy dynamics that weaken human company and pastoral creativity.
Decolonisation: Inherited church constructions and theological frameworks ought to be interrogated. With out this, the church will not be rooted within the lived experiences and realities of African peoples.
Management: The disaster of management in Africa is mirrored inside the church. What is required is a transformational, humble and servant management grounded in accountability, transparency and shared duty. This implies larger inclusion of the voices and belongings of the laity, particularly of ladies.
Pope Leo’s go to is a key second for the Catholic Church in Africa. Will it stay a recipient of world Catholicism or assist form its future?
Stan Chu Ilo, Analysis Professor, World Christianity and African Research, DePaul College