The III Pan-African Catholic Congress revealed five surprising gifts that show how Africa can help reinvent the Church’s mission and prophetic witness for the 21st century.
In a recent The Conversation essay, Carlos Lopes described the “structural exhaustion” of the current international order—a set of global arrangements once considered permanent, now visibly fraying. Geopolitical rivalries, economic inequality, climate disruption, and the erosion of multilateral trust are undermining the very frameworks that governed global affairs for decades. In this flux, he argues, lies opportunity: the chance for the Global South to play a decisive role in shaping new rules, rather than simply adapting to old ones.
A similar structural exhaustion is now evident in world Catholicism. For centuries, the Church appeared as a fixed and stable presence, a moral anchor that weathered the storms of politics and history. Yet beneath the familiar rituals and structures, fault lines are widening. Across many societies, theological debates have become entrenched, membership is shrinking, and the connection between religious devotion and social commitment has weakened. In some places, the Church’s public witness has grown hesitant; in others, it has become disconnected from the moral crises and aspirations shaping daily life.
This is not simply a matter of secularization or cultural change. It is a deeper moment of institutional fatigue—an erosion of credibility, a loss of social traction, and a tendency to look backwards rather than forwards. Just as in geopolitics, the question is not whether the old order can be restored—it cannot—but whether a new vision can emerge.
For Africa, this is more than a question of survival. It is an historic opportunity to help lead the reinvention of the Church’s global mission. The choice is clear: either remain a passive inheritor of tired structures shaped in different contexts, or craft a new ecclesial imagination—rooted in Africa’s vitality, fervent embrace of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, communal resilience, and ethos—that can speak credibly to the challenges of our age.
The just concluded III Pan-African Catholic Jubilee Congress in Abidjan was a vivid sign that this new imagination is possible. Across a week of worship, theological dialogue, and strategic planning, the gathering revealed five surprising gifts: unexpected sources of hope that point toward a renewed future for the Church in Africa, and through Africa, for the global Catholic family.
1. A political theology that challenges political leaders in Africa
The first was the forceful message from Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo on the need for the emergence of African political theology. He argued that theology cannot remain in the clouds, divorced from the lived realities of governance failures, wars, forced migration, and structural poverty. In the African context, where political decisions directly shape the survival and dignity of millions, political theology becomes not an academic luxury but a pastoral necessity. It is a call to form consciences, confront injustice, and inspire new models of leadership grounded in the common good.
2. A “Church of the Sheaves”
The second gift came from Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu, who called the African Church to become a “Church of the Sheaves”—a community that not only gathers the rich harvest of faith, vocations, and spiritual wisdom found in Africa, but also shares it generously with the world. At a time when many regions face empty seminaries, shrinking parishes, and declining missionary presence, Africa is in a position to offer pastoral workers, innovative ministries, and vibrant faith communities to the universal Church. This is not about triumphalism but about reciprocity—bringing Africa’s gifts to the global table. But in order to do this, Cardinal Bessi of Abidjan reminded the assembly that the definition of a theologian is one who listens to God and to the cries of the people. The Congress participants listened to many stories of faith and suffering from the peripheries of life—the many young people trafficked in our continent to the Middle East and Europe, women who long for greater participation in mainstream leadership in the Church, and the sick among us who have no access to optimal healthcare.
3. The witness of African youth
The third gift was the undeniable energy and creativity of African young people. Far from being a distant hope, they are already a present force, leading projects that integrate Gospel conviction with concrete social transformation—whether in education, environmental stewardship, entrepreneurship, or peacebuilding. Their witness defies the stereotype of disengaged youth; it reveals a generation eager to inherit the Church’s mission by reshaping it for the needs of their communities. The Congress was energized by the creative dynamism and prophetic witness of many young people from 14 African countries.
4. A united vision for the future
The fourth gift was the rare and inspiring unity among African bishops, theologians, pastoral agents, and social leaders around the Vision for 2050 launched by the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM). This roadmap, grounded in the “12 pillars of hope,” moves beyond vague aspirations to concrete priorities: evangelization, peacebuilding, ecological conversion, integral development, and the formation of missionary disciples. That such a diverse and vast continent could embrace a shared direction speaks to a strong focused and prophetic African ecclesial leadership.
5. Platforms to tell Africa’s own story
The fifth gift was the creation of new African-led platforms to shape the Catholic narrative from within the continent. VoiceAfrique, a pan-African online hub for Catholic news and analysis, aims to present African perspectives to the world, while the African Catholic Press (AFRICAP) will publish innovative research rooted in the peripheries, mining Africa’s vast intellectual and spiritual resources. Among its priorities is the recovery of the histories of African women whose witness has been central to the Church’s mission but often absent from official records. These platforms are not mere communication tools; they are instruments of self-definition and global engagement as well as tools for evangelization of Africa and the world through the dissemination of research and publications by African theologians, church leaders, and pastoral agents.
These five gifts point to a simple but demanding truth: Africa’s moment is now. But as in the shifting geopolitical order, there is a danger that this opportunity could be squandered by merely adapting inherited frameworks from other contexts. Lopes warns that the Global South cannot simply slot itself into yesterday’s power arrangements; it must design its own. The African Church faces the same challenge.
Renewal will not come from preserving the remnants of Christendom—a model tied to cultural assumptions and political privileges that no longer hold. Nor will it come from recycling ideas and structures that fail to address Africa’s unique realities. What is needed is a deliberate cultivation of a new ecclesial imagination: a Church whose authority flows from humble service, whose relevance is measured by her ability to reconcile divisions, accompany the marginalized, and animate communities with hope through the practices of synodal conversations, the African palaver, co-responsibility, and ecclesial inclusion of all, especially the poor and an ability to listen to the cries of the earth and those who are lamenting in the Church today.
Such an imagination must be grounded in Africa’s gifts: the depth of her spirituality, the resilience of her communities, the creativity of her youth, and the solidarity that flows from Ubuntu and other indigenous moral traditions. It must embrace both local rootedness and global responsibility—able to speak to Africa’s wounds and hopes while contributing to the universal Church’s mission.
The III Pan-African Catholic Congress did not just talk about this possibility; it embodied it. The liturgies, testimonies, strategic sessions, challenging presentations, open discussions on all topics of importance to the Church in Africa, and public commitments revealed that reinvention is not a distant aspiration, but a work already begun. Yet the work is fragile. It will demand courage to abandon forms that no longer bear fruit, discipline to keep mission ahead of maintenance, and boldness to put the gifts of the African Church at the service of the global Body of Christ.
In moments of structural exhaustion, there is always a temptation to retreat—to preserve what is familiar though new forms of ecclesial restorationism, even when it has no more relevance to the spiritual and cultural imagination of today. But the more demanding path is the one the Congress pointed toward: to become artisans of hope, shaping something new, deeply African and profoundly Catholic.
For Christians, hope is never an abstraction; it has a face—Jesus Christ. The final statement of the Congress affirmed this with clarity: The footprints of God in Africa trace the path toward a flourishing future shaped by an African Church confident in her gifts. This is a Church that invests in her own assets, renews her structures for mission, and acts with prophetic courage—building enduring structures of hope on the strength and creativity of God’s people, especially her vibrant and growing youth, the Church of now.
1 comment