NEWS FEATURE: Building the Catholic Church in Africa

c. 1999 Religion News Service BENIN CITY, Nigeria _ As rows of wooden ceiling fans whirred uselessly against the 90-degree heat, Catholics danced in the church aisles, swaying slowly but methodically toward collection boxes for a typical third offering. Women in bright red, green and blue African robes released crumpled bills into already overflowing wooden […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

BENIN CITY, Nigeria _ As rows of wooden ceiling fans whirred uselessly against the 90-degree heat, Catholics danced in the church aisles, swaying slowly but methodically toward collection boxes for a typical third offering.

Women in bright red, green and blue African robes released crumpled bills into already overflowing wooden boxes, singing and clapping to the beat of drums, gourds and electric guitars.


Without marble, stained glass or elaborate wood carvings, the two-story, tan stucco Holy Cross Cathedral is ordinary by Western standards. Even the piles of deflated pastel-colored Nigerian currency on this Sunday morning amounted to little more than a few hundred U.S. dollars.

But at a time when Catholicism is showing some signs of spiritual bankruptcy in the West, some believe one of the faith’s strongest assets is the African church.

With traditional forms of devotion considered passe by many in America and Western Europe and the number of candidates for religious life in continued decline, traditionalists in the church look increasingly to Africa for salvation. Liberal church observers say such expectations are foolish, but, they acknowledge, something mysterious and wonderful is going on in a place long considered mission territory.

Whether it is because of civil strife and grinding poverty, a yearning to join hands with the Western world or simply the power of faith, an unprecedented spiritual revolution has captured the soul of Africa.

“The fastest growth ever in the history of Christianity is happening in Africa,” said the Rev. Peter Schineller, a Jesuit lecturer and missionary who has spent 14 years in Nigeria. “It’s unheard of in church history.”

In the past 30 years, the Catholic Church has seen its ranks triple to more than 110 million in Africa, and the continent now accounts for 10 percent of the church’s worldwide population.

These and other impressive statistics _ including the world’s largest class of prospective priests _ are proof of vitality. But the African church also faces serious challenges as it enters the next century.


Islam is the other powerhouse religion in Africa with 300 million members. The relationship between the two faiths _ a violent one in some parts of Africa _ is a key concern of Pope John Paul II and other members of the Catholic hierarchy.

Then there is the explosion of Pentecostalism, a trend that threatens Catholic dominance in Latin America as well and has helped make Christianity the majority faith in Africa. The continent is home to an estimated 350 million Christians in all.

Regardless of these challenges, the growth of Catholicism and its starkly different feel in Africa comes at a significant time in church history. Its explosive numbers are beginning to influence the broader church, as devoted missionary priests and nuns from Africa arrive in America and Western Europe to shore up what they view as an erosion of the faith.

Africa’s seminaries and convents are producing the largest class of young priests and nuns in the world, and their traditional beliefs are being heard worldwide.

“The faith was brought to us by the early missionaries, and we want that faith to grow,” said Raphael Imoni, a Nigerian seminarian scheduled to be ordained to the priesthood this year. “If that means going abroad to revitalize the faith in Europe and the United States, we will do that. We hear about signs of a dying church in America; the loss of mystery, a loss of God.”

These attitudes buoy church traditionalists in the West, who since the reform-minded Second Vatican Council ended in 1965 have bemoaned a series of changes. “I think Catholicism in Africa can have nothing but an invigorating effect on the faithful here,” said the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a leading conservative Catholic in the United States.


In Nigeria, home to one in five sub-Saharan Africans and at least 13 million Catholics, worship looks much the way it did in the United States four decades ago.

Women cover their heads at Mass, and worshippers kneel at the altar rail for communion. Priests sit for hours hearing confessions from congregants who patiently say the rosary while waiting their turn. Dissent against Vatican edicts, common in liberal Western democracies, is nonexistent.

“We don’t tolerate this optional lifestyle of gays and lesbians and same-sex marriages. Here they are considered downright abominations,” said Archbishop Gabrielle Ganaka of the northern Nigerian Diocese of Jos. “We note with shock and dismay what is happening in America.”

Many Westerners shake their heads at such remarks, assuring themselves that the spark of progressive reform eventually will hit the younger African church. These liberals argue that the Africans are products of conservative missionaries as well as a Vatican hierarchy that wants to turn back the clock on reform.”It’s always a mistake for any local church to point a finger of blame or criticism at another church,” said the Rev. Richard McBrien, a liberal theologian at the University of Notre Dame. “Circumstances differ. I’m not impressed by the criticisms that emanate from segments of the African church about the erosion of the faith in America. They are parroting the line some in the Vatican have been using regularly in the last 20 years.”

He and other liberals say there is plenty of life in the U.S. church, pointing to an active laity and packed churches. (About 25 percent of America’s 60 million Catholics attend weekly Mass, and most experts agree that the U.S. church is more vital than its Western Europe counterpart.)

“My personal feeling is that it’s terrific whenever the church is growing, but you can’t compare national circumstances,” said Thomas W. Roberts, managing editor of the liberal National Catholic Reporter. “To suggest that somehow the American church is on its way out because it lacks these full seminaries is just a misnomer and a wish for an age that won’t be duplicated.”


Others in the West are hopeful that the unprecedented growth in Africa will spur deeper devotion in places where daily Mass and weekly confession have become a thing of the past.

“Certainly the Africans have something to contribute to the spirituality of the universal church,” said Bishop William J. McCormack, national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which provides financial support to seminaries in the developing world. “Their joy and expressiveness, their sense of family and community in the church will benefit us all.”

Despite their conservative bent, the Africans have firmly embraced changes in the liturgy ushered in by the Second Vatican Council. Services are alive with African dance and song, featuring hymns sung in hundreds of languages across the continent.

This process of claiming the liturgy as their own, known in church terms as inculturation, is one reason experts believe that Christianity has caught fire in Africa. Experts say this flexibility has allowed Christianity to catch up and surpass Islam, which has maintained its Arabic feel.

“The church has told us to embrace inculturation, worship God in our own language and take pride in who we are,” said the Rev. John Ofei, who heads the Justice, Development and Peace Commission for the Nigerian Catholic Secretariat.

`The institutional church and paraphernalia look foreign,” added Lamin Sanneh, a professor of mission studies at Yale University, who was born in Gambia. “But Christian worship, prayer and scripture can very easily assume local cultural form.”


Many Nigerians view the sudden explosion of Christianity in Africa after centuries of virtual dormancy as the mysterious workings of God. But others agree there are deep, accompanying sociological forces at work.

Widespread poverty and social injustice have undoubtedly have pushed some to the church, for example. But beyond that is the fundamental change that has literally altered the face of Nigeria’s Catholic Church in recent decades.

When Africans began breaking their colonial bonds in the 1960s, the Catholic hierarchy was made up largely of white missionary priests often identified with colonial masters. Today, most parish priests, nuns and bishops are Africans schooled in local seminaries or convents.

“Catholicism can no longer be called a white man’s religion,” said

the Rev. Matthew Hassan-Kukah, general secretary of the Catholic Church in Nigeria. “Indigenous priests know the area. They know the language, and they understand the kind of things people were afraid of when they were dealing with white missionaries.”

Experts say the changes started to build on one another, snowballing into tremendous and rapid growth.

Nigerian church members said they aren’t yet satisfied with the church’s position and have renewed their efforts at evangelization, seeking converts in the marketplace and door to door.


IR END CHAMBERS

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