{"id":47835,"date":"2025-04-21T12:47:40","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T16:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/africa-remembers-pope-who-spoke-for-the-continent\/21\/04\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-04-21T12:47:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T16:47:40","slug":"africa-remembers-pope-who-spoke-for-the-continent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/africa-remembers-pope-who-spoke-for-the-continent\/21\/04\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa remembers Pope who spoke for the continent"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Millions of African Catholics, as well as the continent’s leaders, are mourning a man who they felt spoke for Africa.<\/p>\n
Home to nearly a fifth of the Church’s followers, or 272 million people, Africa is becoming increasingly important in the Catholic world, and observers say Pope Francis did a lot to raise the profile of the continent within the institution.<\/p>\n
Heads of state reflected the sentiments of many describing how the late Pope spoke out for the marginalised.<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu called him a “tireless champion of the poor” and his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted his “world view of inclusion [and] equality”.<\/p>\n
The Vatican says that over the past year, seven million Africans have converted to Catholicism, making the continent one of the fastest-growing regions for the Church.<\/p>\n
“This Pope has made a lot of efforts to make our faith inclusive… I remember him with joy,” Ghanaian Catholic Aba Amissah Quainoo told the BBC in the capital, Accra.<\/p>\n
“He was really loved by all because of his stance on the poor and the marginalised,” Rev George Obeng Appah added.<\/p>\n
At the Holy Family Basilica in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Rosemary Muthui said worshippers there will remember the Pope as a man who brought change to the Church, especially in promoting equality.<\/p>\n
“His love for the African Church was great, and we will miss him,” she told the BBC.<\/p>\n
She said she met him when he went to Kenya a decade ago on the first of his five visits to the continent which took in 10 African countries in all.<\/p>\n
His last in 2023 was to South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
In the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, Kitsita Ndongo Rachel did not hesitate when she broke protocol to personally meet the Pope.<\/p>\n
“My heart was beating, I was less than 100 metres away. I slipped between the security agents; knelt down and asked the Pope for his blessing,” the journalist remembers.<\/p>\n
“He blessed me, and he blessed my rosary.”<\/p>\n\n