Why an African Pope won’t be a Catholic Reformer

Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana

As the College of Cardinals begins the process of selecting a new Pope, the Catholic Church finds itself at a crossroads. Vatican City is marred in scandal, the child sex abuse crisis still hasn’t been definitively resolved, and Church membership continues to decline in the Western world. Now, with the Papacy vacant in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s sudden resignation, the Cardinals will have to choose a leader who can guide the Church through a period of extended unrest. Some Church experts have suggested that the Cardinals need to pick a strict traditionalist who will defend the Church’s core principles in a time of turmoil, while others have stated that it’s time for a progressive reformer to restructure Catholicism for the 21st century.

Western media pundits, particularly ones in the United States, have suggested that the Vatican can usher in a period of change by choosing a Pope from the developing world. For centuries, the papacy has been dominated by European men. By choosing a Third World Pope, they argue, the Vatican can show the world that they want to break from tradition by giving the rest of the Catholic World a greater say in the Church’s authoritative body. They’ve been particularly enamored with the prospect of an African Pope, thinking that he will enact dramatic social and clerical reforms that will reshape Catholicism as we know it.

But this line of reasoning is seriously flawed. There are major misconceptions about the Catholic Church in Africa that are spreading like wildfire among Western reformists. The most prominent one seems to be that, since the majority of African Americans are supportive of liberal reforms, African Catholics must also think along those same lines. Nothing could be further from the truth. African Catholics, unlike American Catholics, tend to fully accept the Vatican’s teaching authority with no questions asked. Additionally, many of Africa’s Cardinals and Bishops are even more conservative and dogmatic than their European counterparts. They resolutely support the current status quo, and they have directed combative and scolding diatribes towards Western Catholics on more than one occasion.

Take, for example, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, a reported papal frontrunner. Over the last few weeks, Turkson has been hyped up as a change agent who will reform Catholic social teaching and definitively end the sex abuse scandal. But his words and teachings paint a much grimmer picture. Turkson, who was appointed as president of the Vatican’s “Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace” in 2009, is steadfastly loyal to the Church’s current authoritative body. Even though he is all too familiar with Africa’s AIDS epidemic, he has rejected modern birth control methods. He has even said that condoms perpetuate the AIDS crisis, since many African men don’t know how to use them properly. But, instead of teaching people how to use them, Turkson asserts that abstinence is the only feasible way to avoid AIDS without sinning, and that financial donations should be directed towards treatment options rather than preventative measures.

Turkson has also turned a blind eye to discrimination against gays in Africa, even insinuating that their persecution at the hands of fundamentalist Africans may be their own fault. When U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon admonished Africa for its general treatment of the LGBT community in a 2012 speech, Turkson said that African attitudes towards homosexuality shouldn’t be questioned because they are rooted in cultural and religious traditions. He also bluntly said that “when you’re talking about what’s called ‘an alternative lifestyle’, are those human rights?”.

Turkson’s willful ignorance towards Africa’s discrimination problem also extends to child sex abuse. He has brushed off questions about the child sex abuse scandal’s prevalence in Africa by once again asserting that African cultural and religious traditions “have protected [the] population against this tendency”. That is a flat out lie. Child abuse is a troubling and widespread problem in Africa. In South Africa, the so-called “rape capital of the world”, 41% of rapes are committed against children. In Zimbabwe, child abuse has increased a staggering 42% in recent years. A “virgin cleansing myth”, which says that an AIDS-infected man can cure himself by having sex with a virgin, has legitimized child rape in the eyes of some ignorant and uneducated Africans. And the U.S. State Department has identified 7 African nations as hotbeds for human trafficking, which forces an untold number of minors into sex slavery every year. So when Turkson says that child abuse can’t penetrate the African church, he is displaying a demeanor of arrogance and stupidity that puts him in the same category with the Cardinals and Bishops that have covered up for pedophile priests over the last half century.

Cardinal Turkson’s strict conservatism isn’t the exception in the African Church, it’s the rule. Time and time again, African Cardinals have ignored many of the problems that plague their continent and their religion. They’ve instead opted to defend archaic teachings and traditions with a surprising fervor, while attacking Western Catholics for supposedly perverting Christ’s teachings.

 Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, another prominent face in African Catholicism, joined Turkson in condemning Ban Ki-Moon’s homosexuality speech, calling it “stupid” and saying that it was part of the U.N.’s agenda to impose a “European mentality” on the African continent. On another occasion, Sarah said that the West was trying to destroy African culture, and that “[Africa] must protect itself from the contamination of intellectual cynicism in the West.”

Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria, a key advisor to Pope John Paul II, angered many American Catholics during an impassioned speech at Georgetown University’s 2003 commencement ceremony. In that speech, he accused supporters of contraception, abortion, gay rights, and divorce of destroying the traditional family structure. His speech led a few students and faculty members to walk out, and one student accused Arinze of not understanding “American Catholicism”.

Anthony Okogie, another Nigerian Cardinal, skewered the American Catholic church when he said that “those people there [in the United States]…they don’t value anything anymore. And how do you want priests to come from a place like that?” Okogie also criticized American Catholics who have called for an end to priestly celibacy, saying that such ideas are part of the “American model”, and that African priests who want to marry or have a girlfriend have “something wrong with [their heads]”.

If the College of Cardinals elects a Pope from Africa, it won’t be an indication that the Church is ready to enact 21st century reforms. It will indicate that the Church is prepared to march forward in the Third World with all of its stale ideological facets intact. While Church membership has dwindled in the United States and Europe, it has grown exponentially in Africa. From 2005-2010, Catholicism in Africa grew by 21%. Additionally, 16% of the world’s Catholics can be found in Africa, and that number is expected to grow in the coming decades. Catholicism in the United States and Europe, on the other hand, will continue to decline.

So, if reformers believe that the answer to the Church’s problems can be found in Africa, they are kidding themselves. The African Cardinals do not question Vatican teachings, and they are hostile towards those who question papal authority. In order to find a Pope that will support social and clerical changes, Catholics would be wise to look to another part of the world.

Or, perhaps, it would be wiser for them to stop supporting the current Vatican authority structure altogether.