San Francisco Frontiers - Africans eye a pope from among their own

"I wouldn't want to be that first black pope. I think he'll have a rough time," he said.

Now, after the death of Pope Francis, the west African clergyman's name is buzzing around the Vatican.

Turkson isn't the only potential African candidate as the Church prepares for a conclave to choose its next leader, and he wouldn't be the first pontiff from the continent: Pope Victor I, who reigned from 189-199, was from North Africa.

But as Africa's share of the Catholic population booms -- mirroring its growing share of the world population as the continent grows while Europe has greyed and secularised -- renewed attention has turned to whether the Church is ready for its first black pope.

"There has been this sense which has built up that the pope, if he is going to be a global authority, needs to come from the global church," said Miles Pattenden, a historian of Catholicism.

- Cardinals from Guinea, DR Congo -

Turkson was born into a humble family of 10 children and was Ghana's first clergyman to become a cardinal, in 2003.

In 2008, he served as a mediator on a peace council following close elections that threatened to erupt into violence and has worked in the upper levels of the Vatican's bureaucracy.

He has recently struck a more moderate tone on gay rights, pushing back against Ghanaian politicians who assert that same-sex practices aren't native to Africa. In 2023, he told the BBC that "LGBT people may not be criminalised because they've committed no crime."

That might be more palatable to some Church moderates than the rhetoric of Guinea's Robert Sarah, a traditionalist cardinal floated by conservatives who has compared abortion, "Islamic fanaticism" and homosexuality to Nazi ideology.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's Fridolin Ambongo, another cardinal in the mix, helped lead the push against blessing same-sex couples in Africa after Francis pushed the rest of the Church forward on the issue.

But for all of Francis's moderating rhetoric, he kept in place many of the Church's conservative teachings, including against same-sex marriage and abortion.

The tightrope he walked between rhetorical and actual reform might provide a path for African candidates who some critics worry are too conservative, said Cristina Traina, a religious studies professor at New York's Fordham University.

Pattenden noted there was no reason to predict the next pope would necessarily follow Francis's liberal streak.

- 'Discrimination' against Africans? -

The papacy of Francis, an Argentine, marked a major break from the Church's Europe-heavy leadership. His drive to make the Vatican's hierarchy reflect its membership means that African cardinals now make up 12 percent of the voting members of the conclave, versus eight percent during the last election.

"It would be almost impossible to imagine the world accepting an African pope without this transition of Pope Francis having been from Argentina," said Traina, even as Africa, which counts 20 percent of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, remains underrepresented in the conclave.

One Congolese priest, wishing to remain anonymous, told AFP that while the Church has come a long way, there's a reason there hasn't been an African pope in 1,500 years.

"Discrimination, even if it isn't obvious among our European brothers, is still a reality that we often don't talk about," he said.

- Economic justice -

An African pope could bring a fresh perspective to some of the Church's current issues.

Facing a priest shortage, some members of the Church in Africa have been vocal about re-examining the ban on married pastors, Traina said. Francis's message of social justice resonated firmly on a continent at the bottom of the global economic order and the front lines of climate change.

Ambongo, who served as a top advisor to Francis, is working on how the Church should handle converts who come from polygamous marriages.

"It has always been on our lips, how we wish to have an African pope," said Father Paul Maji, a priest in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

But, he added, he was not personally "sentimental" about where the next pontiff came from -- an opinion shared by Sylvain Badibanga, dean of the faculty of theology at the Catholic University of Congo.

"We shouldn't think 'it's our turn'," Badibanga said. "It's God's turn."

Turkson eventually came to a similar conclusion.

As his name circulated as a potential pontiff ahead of the 2013 conclave that ultimately chose Francis, he had warmed to the idea of becoming the first black pope -- "if it's the will of God."

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P.Thomas--SFF