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The Pope is back safely from his visit to four African countries. Little was said about the danger to him when in Bamenda in Cameroon in the midst of a civil war, or Equatorial Guinea where Putin’s Africa Corps (the old Wagner Group) look after its murderous President. During his visit to Nigeria in 2003, President George W. Bush travelled protected in his heavily armoured Cadillac, The Beast. The airport café might have been mistaken for a Secret Service refectory at the Department of Homeland Security there were so many protection officers waiting. The popemobile looks very vulnerable on visits by comparison. In five visits, Pope Francis visited ten African countries before his death, and Leo will probably do much the same. Accompanying journalists know that 20% of the world’s Catholics live in Africa and the inequality and poverty in their different countries, hence papal attention, but few of them have much idea of what Church life is like when huge crowds aren’t attending huge stadiums for masses or thronging the streets as the popemobile drives past. Though Leo’s emphasis of his Augustinian heritage in his Algeria visit to Annaba (Hippo) where St. Augustine had been bishop, was distinctive. His focus on Christian-Muslim dialogue was more expected. There was no public mention of Algiers great missionary bishop, Cardinal Charles Lavigerie – probably because of his anti-Muslim statements in the late 19th century. It was a missed opportunity to praise the work of the Society of the Missionaries of Africa, the White Fathers, while at the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa. They surely deserved it. Having lived in Malawi and Nigeria, done research in Rwanda and spent 1978- 1989 in and out of southern Africa, I can say with some confidence that ‘Africa’ names the continent but describes little else. The Sahara might as well be a vast sand ocean dividing two continents. In sub-Saharan Africa, cultures in different States are just as different as those between Germany and Spain and Norway. More so when Islam is considered. Politics similarly, from tyranny and military dictatorships to struggling democracies. Yet there is something recognizable as the ‘African Church’. What is it exactly? The first thing that comes to mind is liturgy. A significant number of African Catholics express joy and hope in their worship - in a very attractive way. Unlike Europeans, but like Muslims in prayer, they are at ease expressing worship with their bodies rather than just standing, kneeling and sitting down. We seem to have got rid of prostration on Good Friday, or it may just be the clergy are too old to get up again unaided. At midnight mass in Lome in the mid-1970s, I sat next to a Togolese lady wearing a fabulous Kente dress and spectacular headgear. In the heat, and after what seemed a very long time before we were through the sermon and intercessions, I heard considerable noise outside the cathedral. Tuning in with my Nigerian antenna, it sounded to me like a protest. I quietly asked her if it was a riot. No, she said, it’s the offertory procession. And it was. Drums and dancing, a swaying line of women appeared. Then there is the blessing of the fire at the Easter Vigil. In the UK, it is usually an anxious scene with the priest trying to light a few bits of wood in a bucket while the congregation freezes, and the lighting of the paschal candle seems temporarily in jeopardy. I remember going to Limbe Cathedral, Blantyre, Malawi one Easter Saturday evening and seeing a huge bonfire from about three miles distant. And the Poor Clares down the road used to celebrate a danced mass. In Zimbabwe, there was considerable thought given to christianising traditional transition rights, for puberty and ceremonies for the dead. In the 1970s there was full expectation in parts of central Africa that ordination of viri probati, men of proven Christian virtue, would soon take place. Missionaries were training them and their wives with this in mind in Likulesi, Malawi. This, of course, proved an inculturation too far. In the 1980s. this openness carried over into politics. During the struggle against apartheid for example, there was something very moving in seeing the Red Flag go up behind Archbishop Denis Hurley during a funeral for a prominent ANC member. He would have preferred not but his presence said something about where the local Church’s heart lay culturally. Christians and Communists were at the heart of resistance. The Bishops Conference was open to everyone from the Grail to black miners. I remember a lively but respectful debate at one of them over Marxism between Cardinal Owen McCann of Cape Town with two miners in full underground gear. Since the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci in early 17th century China dialogued and adapted to Confucianism, politics and culture has remained a bone of contention in evangelisation. Even some modest forms of inculturation to African cultures did not have universal approval. Some bishops, a little too Romanised, banned drums in church as a pagan atrocity. Such attitudes could knock on to the African diaspora. The Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 2002 to 2008, now 93, used be a popular invitee of the Nigerian community at St. Ignatius’, Stamford Hill, London. There was one snag though, in full Prefectoral dudgeon, he let it be known that he would not come if there were girls on the altar during his mass. The young Jesuit dealing with the visit was having none of it and boldly negotiated. Like all good negotiations a compromise was reached: the girls could be on the altar as long as they didn’t move. Although I knew Arinze, travelled with him and enjoyed his company, I never told him this was the ruling for women in the Strip-Clubs of the 1950s. Treatment of, and attitudes towards, women, Sisters, homosexuals, in several African countries has remained a disturbing bone of contention. Though bishops holding views contrary to the dominant European values have remained on the whole loyal to the papacy. The Anglican Church has not experienced the same loyalty to Canterbury. Popes are luckier. Popes must find it very difficult having to go through formal receptions by brutal dictators. Yet they seem to enjoy visits to African countries. It is perhaps because they encounter there an infectious joy and hope, reflecting their own, expressed in the liturgies over which they preside, as well as the sense of a Church perhaps not often dramatically militant these days but still vibrant and growing.
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“[Leo] wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican….Leo should get his act together as Pope, use common sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a politician”. Donald Trump 12 April 2026. As neither a cardinal nor a catholic, someone believing a fantasy of this kind that you are personally responsible for the appointment of a particular Pope would normally suggest a level of narcissism indicating mental illness. That is unless you are deliberately trying to create such an impression. Which of these applies to Donald Trump is a dilemma posed for those who have to deal with the the President of the United States. The celebrated American political scientist Timothy Synder, now wisely a professor in Toronto, believes we should think more in the direction of Trump performing, rather than being, a full-blown uncontrolled narcissistic sociopath. You ask yourself is the accompanying mocked-up picture of Trump dressed as a Christ-like figure lighting the world and healing a sick man 'only' intended as some kind of blasphemous joke? After this ramble against Pope Leo, I’m not so sure. Trump’s other persona, the foul-mouthed Mafia boss, perhaps came in useful for property dealing in New York’s school of knocks. It is increasingly the role adopted in what passes for Trump’s diplomacy. Fall into line, pay your protection money or we burn down your restaurant. Quite persuasive when taking over territory - at least in movies. Trump’s Truth Social ramble last Sunday, was something of an outburst foretold. But had the Pope been Filipino, he would also have been reacting to the wars around the world, criticizing warmongers and calling for peace. An American Pope could not ignore an American war thwarting diplomatic negotiations that were making progress, chosen and justified with the misuse of Christian scriptures, and prayer. And it is hardly news that the Holy Land is in the Middle East and Christians are suffering alongside everyone else. In one way, this is a comforting sign that the regime thinks American Catholics may heed the Pope’s words. Also, whilst the Trump minions are playing at their version of Christian Nationalism, Vice-President Vance cannot handle his relations with the Church in the same way as JFK, strict separation of State and Church. As the number one contender for the 2028 Presidential elections perhaps Vance and his Catholicism is deliberately being put on the line by Trump. Vance has to do two incompatible things things. Pretend Trump has a reasonable position, appealing to at least some element of the Maga masses, and not further alienate a Catholic constituency that might vote for him at some point for President. In the event he took the chance to demonstrate before the Maga masses in Georgia his ignorance of just war theory and to lecture the Augustinian Pope on being careful with his theology. St. Augustine, of course, elaborated the evaluation of the conditions for a just war. These developments pose the Pope and the American hierarchy a growing problem. US Catholics are not immune to MAGA mythology. There is the question of the balance between the imperatives of truth and the quest for a healthy unity. The Pope is, of course, simply making timely theological interventions marked by his Augustinian formation. And by comparison, he is far less American in his pastoral experience than John Paul II was Polish in his. Pope Leo has no intention of engaging in dialogue with Trump though he ‘doubled-down’ in his response to journalists’ questions on the plane to Algeria on Monday. “I do not think the message of the Gospel should be abused in the way some people are doing”, he told them. “I will continue to speak out loudly against war, to try to promote peace, multilateral dialogue between states in order to seek the right solutions to problems.... The message of the Gospel is the message of the Church, blessed are the peacemakers. I do not see my role as that of a politician”, a point he made several times. It is some commentary on the life of a modern Pope when a visit to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea, with their multiple problems, coincides with verbal abuse from the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. May be return safely. A speech last Thursday in Bamenda , a war zone in Cameroon, gave Pope Leo another opportunity to 'double down' on his message. ""Blessed are the peacemakers!" he said. "But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth." President Biya would not have liked his equally pointed further comment: "The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters." If there had been suspicions Leo was the soft, more diplomatic option after Francis, here was a fearless voice saying what had to be said. The gloves have come off. In response, Trump hasn’t changed his tune but his language. He told journalists on Thursday he was “all about the Gospel”. He wants the Pope to speak out. But remarkably for the man who pulled out of the 2015 international agreement, being honoured by the Iranian government, that had ended any pursuit they might have had of developing a nuclear bomb, he claimed that the Pope said Iran can have a nuclear weapon. As usual a completely false claim as the CNN anchor interviewing him pointed out. He had a right to disagree with him. Indeed he does but some conception of truth might help too. Maybe the message will get through to the White House that the successor to Peter preaches the Gospel and speaks to a global Church, not only to a particular country. It's in the job description and scarcely esoteric knowledge. But there is one thing for which we should be grateful to Trump this week: with some 20% of the American population identifying as Catholics (some 75 million), and with even only 1% of these voting in the midterm elections reacting angrily to Sunday’s outburst with traditional loyalty to the papacy, changing their vote from Republican to Democrat as a result, he has just handed over the Senate and Congress to the Democrats. There is a danger in this time of peril, general sense of helplessness, and fear of diversity, in seeking sanctuary in groups of comforting sameness. It may be in ethnic identities seeking recognition, small political movements, or finding solace in religious piety. Each of these options offer more rewards than generalised apathy. They may in their different ways counteract secular promotion of individualism. But none separately is able to bring about radical changes, resist fundamental injustices and domination by the powerful wealthy minorities contributing to Britain’s decline.
Democracies are supposed to govern on behalf of the people. But real power lies in oligarchies of wealth who control economic life; the top ten richest in the UK are together worth at least £200 billion while 4.5 million children are living in poverty. Possibilities for redistribution are limited. The market closes off means for seeking the common good and progressive economic change by raising the cost of borrowing to punishing levels. Nobody seriously tackles the off-shore tax havens. Faith in the ability of governing political Parties to bring about change for the better is waning. And the superpowers deploying their vast military power have the last word. It doesn’t have to be like this. Achieving change requires diversity, strong structured networks, alliances of different active organisations. But potential change-makers plough separate furrows not understanding each other very well or working together effectively. Respected Popes and the Catholic Church worldwide are able to draw public attention to the need for radical change beyond its membership. But, at least in theory, Popes ‘don’t do politics’ and UK political Parties ‘don’t do God’. Or to be more precise those on the Left striving for social and economic change ‘don’t do God’. Hubris is to think that describing, understanding, the life of the Catholic Church is easy. Ditto for the world of politics. People who go to Party Conferences, attend constituency meetings, knock on doors, distribute electoral leaflets, stay up all night as election results come through, to differing degrees know what political life and culture is like and have visions of changes it might achieve. But in our secular culture, most of those politically active or are politicians have negligible knowledge of Catholicism, or any other religious beliefs, and most who have leading roles in the Church have negligible experience of how politics works. When each address the world, and often when they speak to each other, they usually speak with two different purposes in mind, under different constraints, what can be said and done, what cannot, and what needs saying and doing. Yet, they share a common purpose, the vast majority of those who are politically active seek to make a better world as do committed Catholics. Catholicism and the politics of the Left both share concern for the poor and the vulnerable as key moral motivations for action. If this isn’t apparent, more and better work needs to be done to communicate Catholic Social Teaching; too many Catholics aren’t aware of it nor understand the demands of a ‘preferential option for the poor’. Some theology faculties do have outreach. Professor Anna Rowlands at Durham University for example runs sessions for Members of Parliament, and St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, engages with those working for social justice. A number of misconceptions and stereotypes need to be overcome. Catholics do not fall necessarily into neat binary categories such as left and right wing, traditional and progressive. You can be what is called socially conservative, but economically radical. Views on beginning and end of life, on some forms of identity politics, come as a surprise to those who might only have noticed a Catholic’s Left economic positions. Ash Sarkar’s Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War, Bloomsbury, 2026, is a comprehensive exposition of the cluster of political positions she considers represent today’s Left concerns – with a whole worried chapter, for example, on feminist caveats about trans-identity access campaigns. The book’s central theme is how social media, Press, Radio and Television promote an identity and culture based politics, “steering resentment towards culture and identity”, playing on victimhood and “subjective experience”, diverting politics from society-wide action to counter poverty and from effective resistance to injustice. She highlights the widespread, interracial, and violent civil unrest in Britain 2011, how after it the White Working Class came to be viewed as the latest symbol of social decline, from “salt of the earth to scum of the earth” as Sarkar puts it. What was once a hope for peaceful ‘mass action’, opposing government policies that leave poverty a permanent fixture, turns into a compulsion for monitoring “what people say”, policing “the boundaries of our own moral purity” – conducted increasingly and powerfully on-line. Sarkar’s thoughts on escaping the “digital mouse-trap” chime with Christian thinking and particularly Pope Leo’s concerns. “Nobody was made a better person by spending time on-line”, she writes, but by “relationships built through purpose, trust and experiences…community with other people as the highest source of good”. Listening last month to former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, launch his latest book Solidarity: the Work of Recognition Bloomsbury, 2026, was a ‘lightbulb’ moment in the midst of his famous intellectual obscurity. He spoke of recognizing difference, “shared vulnerability”, of the need for “rebalancing as collective beings”, and “reciprocal engagement” in which “each acquires a history in which the other is constitutive”. He and Sarkar were advocating much the same thing: solidarity as shared, structured, political activity for justice, peace and the common good – political with however small a “p”. Though within Rowan Williams’ theological framework, (I hope this is what he meant) , solidarity is our God-given natural mode of being in society, presumably disrupted by sin, so meaning restoring relationships to which we need to return to discover true communion. This raises the question of what is to be done to combat different forms of injustice, what resistance looks like in a world permeated by distraction, inadvertent misinformation, as well as calculated disinformation. The Czech author Vaclav Havel in a 1978 essay The Power of the Powerless memorably spoke of “living in truth”. He saw Communist States were held together by lies. “If the main pillar of the system is living a lie”, he wrote from prison to his wife, “ then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth”. He believed small acts of truth-telling mattered. So, of course, does Pope Leo. In November 1989, after 41 years in power, the Communist Government in Czechoslovakia collapsed in 11 days after a popular uprising. Vaclav Havel became President. Things can change in unforeseen ways. Sarkar’s message to the political Left is also unexpected: we must not “make sameness the condition of solidarity”. Anyone who supported the struggle against apartheid would endorse that. Resistance to the regime brought together many diverse religious and political groupings. Catholics might also ponder her other not-so-small truth: “We can’t achieve anything while minoritising ourselves”. With 1.43 billion believers globally, this comes as sensible advice for the Church in this country as well as for the Left. |
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