Canticum Africae – The Case for the First Black Pope ⁰

On Saturday, April 26, 2025, the earth reclaimed a humble servant of God. Pope Francis, the great bridge-builder, the pilgrim of mercy, now rests with the Apostles. His passing leaves the Throne of Peter vacant at a moment when the Church stands, once again, at the crossroads of history. In the hush of the great cathedral, beneath the vaulted frescoed ceilings of the Sistine Chapel; incense rising like a prayer, a silent yearning stirs the Body of Christ. It is a yearning not for novelty, nor for mere symbolism, but for the full consummation of the Church’s universality – a universality long proclaimed, yet never fully embodied. The question before the College of Cardinals now in conclave, is not simply who shall wear the white vestments, but what kind of Church shall rise from this hour of reckoning. And to that sacred inquiry, Providence itself seems to whisper: it is time, it is fitting, it is just; that the next Vicar of Christ be chosen from Africa. The Church must be universal not only in name, but in soul. A pontificate rooted in African soil would remind a weary world that the Gospel is not a relic of the past but the beating heart of humanity’s future. The time has come; indeed, it is long overdue, for a Black Pope, an African Pontiff, to ascend the Throne of Peter. Not as an act of tokenism, nor as a sop to modern sensibilities, but as a recognition of a truth that has stood shimmering, quietly undeniable, across the ages: that Africa, cradle of faith, cradle of humanity, must now, too, be the cradle of leadership.

The Forgotten Cradle of the Faith

Africa is no stranger to the early light of Christianity. Long before the faith crossed the forests of Germania or the icy fields of Britain, the faith that built Rome once flourished in Alexandria, in Carthage, in Hippo and along the Nile. When Peter was yet securing the infant Church in Jerusalem, African theologians were already carving the foundations of Christian thought. Was it not in Africa that Saint Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, penned his Confessions and the City of God, shaping forever the heart of Christian philosophy? Was it not in Alexandria that the Catechetical School first taught the mysteries of faith and reason side by side? It was on African soil that saints like Augustine, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Athanasius – giants of orthodoxy -shaped the very doctrines that the Universal Church holds sacred today. Africa, ancient and enduring, is not a newcomer to the faith, but one of its first and noblest stewards. The Church’s early councils bore African blood and breath; her creeds, her understanding of Christ’s dual nature, were hammered on African anvils. Thus, the notion that Africa is a periphery to Catholicism is a fiction – a calumny against history itself.

Demographics as Destiny

Today, the face of Catholicism is no longer exclusively European. It is brown, and black, and golden. It beats with the drums of Lagos and the hymns of Nairobi.The largest Catholic seminary in the world is Bigard Memorial Seminary in Enugu, Nigeria, with a capacity of over 1,000 seminarians. According to the latest Vatican statistics, Africa is experiencing the most significant growth in the number of priests, although Europe maintains the highest total number, amid a continuing decline. The global distribution of Catholic priests, shows Europe with 157,577 (- 2,745 from 2022). The Americas -119,145, (-164); Asia – 72,911 (+1,160); Oceania – 4,438 (-69). With 53,659 priests, an increase of 1, 676, Africa now produces the highest number of priests in terms of growth rate. By 2050, according to Pew Research projections, Africa will house over 40% of the world’s Catholics. Priestly vocations are booming in Africa, while they wane across Europe and North America. The seminaries of Abidjan are full; the seminaries of Brussels and Milan are echoingly empty. Shall the mother church ignore where her lifeblood flows most freely? No organization, divine or human, can survive if it refuses to recognize where its heart beats strongest. In ecclesial terms, demography is not just destiny; it is revelation, a sacred whisper of the Holy Spirit, beckoning toward renewal.

The Gifts of the African Church

Today, while secularism nibbles at the roots of faith elsewhere, the African Church blooms with astonishing vitality. It is in the crowded cathedrals of Kinshasa, the vibrant parishes of Nairobi, and the humble chapels of rural Nigeria that the fervor of early Christianity finds its modern echo. Vocations are rising, pews are filled, and hope is alive. Africa offers the Church not merely numbers, but conviction -the deep, muscular faith that the Gospel demands in every age. African Catholicism is not merely growing; it is flourishing with a vibrancy, a sacramentality, and a communal spirituality that many Western parishes have lost. Where Western secularism advances like a cold, sterile tide, African Catholicism remains rich in ritual, in song, in the thick texture of life lived with God. Moreover, African theologians are offering the Church fresh wisdom – voices who understand suffering and resurrection not as abstractions, but as lived realities. Consider the profound witness of Nigerian Catholics who attend mass even under threat of terrorist bombs. Consider the Congolese priests who walk barefoot into villages abandoned by governments but not by grace. Is it not fitting, is it not providential, that from a land so intimately acquainted with the cross should come he who must wear the Fisherman’s Ring?

Obstacles, Real and Perceived

Yes, there are challenges. Skeptics will whisper about “inexperience,” about “cultural divides,” about Africa’s supposed “unreadiness” for the burdens of Peter’s Chair. But these are the same tired arguments once raised against non-Italian Popes, against John Paul II from Poland, against Francis from Argentina. Each time, the Spirit confounded the cautious. Moreover, African cardinals are among the most learned, multilingual, and diplomatically seasoned leaders within the College. Cardinal Peter Turkson (Ghana), Cardinal Robert Sarah (Guinea), Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besengu (DR Congo),and others have long been voices of theological depth and global perspective. If anything, it is precisely an African Pope who knows both suffering and hope, who could speak most authentically to a fractured world. He would understand migration not as a policy debate, but as a brother’s burden. He would see climate change not as an abstract theory, but as a personal lament for the fields and rivers of his youth.

The soul of the Church hangs now in a delicate balance, between a weary past and the fierce winds of an uncertain future. And so, we plead: Lift your eyes toward the rising sun. Look to Africa. Africa – that ancient land baptized by the blood of martyrs long before many parts of Europe knew His name. Africa – where the faith blooms not from nostalgia, but from living waters that spring from the thirsty earth. Africa – where the Gospel is not a weary ritual but a blazing fire that ignites hearts from Lagos to Luanda, from Yaoundé to Dar es Salaam. The Church in Africa sings while others grow silent. She multiplies while others dwindle. She weeps with the poor, wrestles with injustice, dreams new dreams beneath suffering skies. In Africa, the Church is young and vibrant, as the Christ she serves is forever young, forever alive.

The Poetic Fulfillment of Catholic Universality

Imagine then, and Picture it: white smoke curls into the Roman sky. Saint Peter’s Square holds its breath as the announcement is made:”Habemus Papam!”And from the Loggia of Blessings steps forth a Shepherd with skin kissed by the African sun, eyes burning with the fire of Pentecost. Imagine the millions of black boys and girls across the world, from Harlem to Harare, from Soweto to São Paulo, who would see themselves, perhaps for the first time, in the Vicar of Christ. Imagine the world seeing, not a rupture, but the beautiful continuity of a Church finally, fully Catholic: universal, whole, complete. This is not about politics. It is about providence. The Holy Spirit, ever restless, is moving again across the waters. Will the Church, ancient and ever new, listen?

The Throne of Peter cries out for a shepherd who understands both Calvary and Pentecost. A Pope who knows exile and hope, scars and resurrection. A Pope whose very life tells the story of a Church not retreating, but marching forward with joy. Africa offers you such men: Wise as the desert fathers, joyful as the first believers, tested as gold in the furnace of trial. Electing a Pope from Africa would not be a novelty; it would be a return – a return to the universal heart of the Church that beats in every language, every tribe, and every nation under heaven. And it would be a prophecy: that the Church is not dying; she is moving. That the Spirit has not abandoned us; He has gone ahead to Galilee, to Nairobi, to Kinshasa, to Abidjan, to Kampala. Therefore, O Princes of the Church do not seek merely to preserve what was. Dare to proclaim what can be. Breathe deep the Spirit that once shattered the barriers of Babel. Follow not the compass of caution, but the bright and burning star of Providence. The time for a Black Pope is not a political slogan. It is the flowering of history’s long-buried seed. It is time to let Africa give back to Rome the gift she once so freely gave: faith, resilience, and a leadership born not of conquest, but of the Cross.

The hour has come. The call is clear. Africa awaits. Christ awaits.

In filial hope,

By Valerian Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai