Pope Leo XIV honored the memory of Algeria’s Christian martyrs Monday evening, telling the country’s tiny Catholic community that the blood of those who died for their faith remains “a living seed that never ceases to bear fruit.”
African Catholics
Analysis: Running the Numbers, Africa Isn’t the Catholic Future — It’s the Present
While news agencies and Catholic social media denizens these days gorge themselves on the Vatican’s mounting “Battle of the Books,” seeing who can craft the most sensational headlines or tweets about several controversial new volumes making the rounds, other outfits are, thankfully, still concerned with things that actually matter.
U.S. Catholic Bishops Call for More Support for African Continent
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has renewed a longstanding pledge of solidarity with Africa, highlighting a blossoming Catholic population and the need for the U.S. government to provide the continent with more support.
Eastern Africa Bishops Explore Consequences of Climate Change on Daily Life
Eastern Africa Catholic bishops acknowledged that the climate crisis is real and that it is causing adverse effects on people throughout the region.
Sisters Debunk Myths, Educate Africans to Get COVID-19 Vaccine
Religious sisters in the West African nation of more than 31 million people have been working hard to debunk COVID-19 vaccine myths that are rampant, ranging from denial that the virus exists to various false side effects.
Families in South Sudan Benefit From Church Aid Following Floods
Forty-year-old Chol Garang and his wife Anok Deng, 33, sit on a woven mat outside their new home in Malakal, South Sudan’s second largest city, waiting for rice donated by the church to cook for their children.
Local Nigerian Catholics Honor Holy Family’s Flight to Egypt
The Nigerian Igbo community celebrated its annual remembrance of the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt with a Mass and fellowship Feb. 23 at St. Fortunata Church, East New York.
Kenyan Nun Uses Law Degree to Navigate Church Through African Society
Sister Leonida Katunge wears two hats – or habits, rather – spending her days alternating between teaching courses in liturgy and practicing law in her homeland of Kenya.
Africans Warn Numerical Growth Has to be Matched by ‘Tools of Liberation’
A major African summit concluded on Dec. 9 with a warning that despite the continent enjoying the Catholic Church’s highest growth rate, unless theology and pastoral practice is “translated into tools of liberation” then “the growth of the Church will only be in number.”
Experts Say Pope’s Metaphor of a ‘Field Hospital’ has Special Punch for Africa
According to a range of scholars at a Pan-African Congress on Theology, Pastoral Life, and Society, the pope’s metaphor for the Church as a “field hospital” provides particular resonance for the African continent – and, they say, must guide pastoral practice in the realms of education, liturgy, and the laity.