Will the next Pope be African – BBC News in Serbian

If the growth of the Catholic Church is the only indicator from where the next Pope will come from, then it is almost certain to be the next to be African.

Africa has a Catholic population with the greatest growth in the world, making more than half of its global growth.

The most recent data of the Vatican show that it is 2022. Almost 20 percent of world Catholics lived on this continent.

This was a growth of 0.32 percent compared to the previous year, the largest in any region.

Comparisons, Europe has undergone 0.08 percent in the same period.

And between 1910. and 2010. year, the number of Catholics there fell by more than 63 percent, according to the US research center PJU.

This region, which once thought to the heart of Christianity, became one of the most sedient in the world.

And while the Catholic Church remains influential in Latin America, she began to lose advantage over evangelical Christianity in many countries there.

Study from 2022. The Latinobarometer conducted in 18 countries in the region showed that the number of people identified as Catholics decreased with 70 percent from 2010. year at 57 percent from 2020. years.

So, when the cardinals that vote for the next pope will meet in the Vatican to choose the successor of Pope Francis, will this be the candidates influence their decision?

Father Stan Ilo Ilo, Nigerian Catholic priest and assistant professor at the Depol University, thinks that it is.

« I think it would be great to have African Pope, » he says, claiming that the leadership of the Church should better reflect the composition of the world congregation.

Pope Francis increased the percentage of cardinals from sub-Saharan Africa, which will vote for his successor with 9 percent when 2013 was elected. At 12 per cent of 2022. Years.

But the father of Ilo says it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will vote for someone from Africa.

He says that the cardinals will choose someone who already has a well-built profile will be: « someone who already has an influential voice ».

« The challenge is that you have no more members of the African priesthood that keeps an important position in the Vatican, and this is a problem.

« If you think about African cardinals that are potential peps, who is highlighted in world Catholicism today? The answer is: no one. »

This, explains the father of Ilo, in contrast with 2013. year when the Cardinal from Ghana Peter Turks was a strong favory of Francis Arinze was a potential candidate in the conclawa that led to the election of Pope Benedict Sixteen.

« As this point for the African continent and the Catholic Church remains something that surprises many of us, bearing in mind the openness of Pope Francis to Africa, » he says.

Choice ‘per key’

Although at least three Papa came in history from Africa, the last – Pope Gelasia and – died more than 1,500 years ago.

It’s extremely time for the new ones, many claim.

But some African Catholics think that it is put too great to the emphasis on where the next Pope could be.

As Father Paulinus Ikéchukva Father, a professor at Nottram University, who is also a Catholic priest born in Nigeria.

« I’ve never been from those who think that you’re just because you’re coming from Africa, or because you come from Europe, therefore the main candidate, » he tells me.

« No matter where you come from, as soon as you choose, everyone’s problems becoming your problem. You only have one worry, whatever these people are people, regardless of how much they are, in what kind of context they are. »

The most important thing is, he says, that the Pope « must be the main theologic of the Church. »

He thinks that « Pope must be someone who knows the tradition very well » and who can use it to point people.

Father says that he discovered that the question of whether the next Pope should be from Africa fills dissatisfaction « due to the connotation of the ‘po key’.

« It’s like people say, ‘Alright, so the number of Africans is on the rise, then we wouldn’t give them a pope. »

According to his opinion, it would have to be done to ensure that issues affected by believers in Africa are taken seriously among those who are in a position in the Vatican.

Occasionally, he says, he feels like « that Africans are not important or as if their faith is experienced as a little less valuable, or false, or should not be taken seriously. »

« When the Africans gain the impression that their problems are not on the agenda as they should, then people start wondering, maybe we can make others hear or see us if we have their own main man there, » he adds.

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Racism in the church?

Like the father of Ilo, and he believes that despite the increase in the number of cardinals from the African continent, they do not hold the right power in the church.

« I do not diminish the quality of the cardinals appointed by Pope Franja, » he explains.

« When you already name them, do you give them weight? Give these people that you name the authority, entrust them to work and allow them to do it, » it wonderes.

And Ilo ILO and the File point to a problem that could disturb the efforts he invested by Pope Francis to make the leadership of the Church representative.

« There is still that question of racism in the church we never say.

« It could be underpour someone, because no matter how good he is choosing for the Pope or what he does, he will just be experienced as african Pope, » says the father of his father.

See: The church that « connects people with God and Alcohol »

By the end of 2022. year, Pope FRANCE chose almost two-thirds of the cardinal to choose his heir – a little less than most necessary to choose a new Pope.

This means that whatever was chosen, they are a great chance that with Pope Francis will share emphasis on helping poor and disenfranchised.

It is an approach that ILO ILO calls the attitude of « poor in the first place », with an emphasis on that this is a « church that listens, a more advanced church, a scrunch church. »

It is something he wants to see in anyone who would lead the church in the coming period.

Surprise element

But there is another key factor that makes it difficult to anticipate who will be selected, I want ILO.

« Catholics believe that God, the Holy Spirit, helps the choice of church leader, » he says.

This means that there could be an unexpected outcome, just as it was 2013. year when the Pope FRANCE was selected.

« He was not among those who anyone could predict, » Ilo believed.

I ask him what he thinks is more important – that the next pope shares his predecessor for the church or to be from Africa?

« I’ll answer as a good priest, » he tells me laughing.

« I’ll pray that God gave us a pope to continue Francs’ way and I will pray to come from Africa. »

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