As leaders across the globe continue pouring out their tributes following the death of Pope Francis, who passed away on Monday, 21st of April, 2025, there have been speculations in some section of the media on whether an African or Asian will emerge as the next Pontiff.
As an Argentine, the late Francis is the first non-European to head the church since 741AD, when a Syrian, Gregory III, ended his reign. Now that the church has broken a mould that had remained intact for almost 13 centuries, there is inevitably speculation that his successor might be from Africa or Asia. Peter Turkson, a Ghanaian, was widely tipped for the papacy at the last conclave, but his star has since dimmed.
The two continents accounted for 31% of a global Catholic population of almost 1.4bn at the end of 2022, according to the Vatican. But these figures understate the continents’ importance because they do not include China, where there are perhaps an additional 12m Catholics.
Moreover, they record the number of baptised Catholics thought to be alive but take no account of those who have since abandoned their faith: in Europe and North America, which nominally contain a further 27% of the worldwide flock, secularisation and disillusion with clerical-abuse scandals have prompted large numbers of Catholics to abandon their faith or their allegiance to Rome. The same is increasingly true in South and Central America, which accounts for 41% of the total. It is, however, not true for Africa, the continent where the Catholic flock is growing fastest: between 2013 and 2022, it grew by 22%, Over the same period the number of Catholics in Asia (excluding China) increased by 13%.
In 2023 researchers at Georgetown University in Washington looked at attendance at mass in 36 countries. Though only two African ones were included, they were ranked first and second: 94% of Catholics in Nigeria and 76% in Kenya said they went to mass at least once a week. A second yardstick, at least for men, is the number studying for the priesthood. The Vatican’s figures show that over the ten years to the end of 2022, that number dropped on every continent except Africa, where it rose by 24%. The Bigard Memorial Seminary at Enugu in Nigeria is thought to be the world’s largest training school for Catholic priests, with more than 700 seminarians.
In 2023 researchers at Georgetown University in Washington looked at attendance at mass in 36 countries. Though only two African ones were included, they were ranked first and second: 94% of Catholics in Nigeria and 76% in Kenya said they went to mass at least once a week. A second yardstick, at least for men, is the number studying for the priesthood. The Vatican’s figures show that over the ten years to the end of 2022, that number dropped on every continent except Africa, where it rose by 24%. The Bigard Memorial Seminary at Enugu in Nigeria is thought to be the world’s largest training school for Catholic priests, with more than 700 seminarians.
Other powerful arguments also strengthen the case for an African pontiff. But formidable obstacles rise up, too. The first, usually discussed sotto voce, is “safeguarding”, a term that those in and around the Vatican prefer over “sexual abuse”. It is feared that the scandals that have already rocked the church to its core in Europe, North America and parts of South and Central America could start to erupt in Africa during the next papacy.
That is not the only such risk. On a continent where a man without a woman often courts social disapproval, some priests take a female partner early in their careers and sometimes father children, only to dispense with both partner and offspring if promoted. A pontiff who was discovered after his elevation to have followed that path would cause immense embarrassment to the church.
The other factors all have to do with the character and composition of the next conclave. After the forthcoming consistory, there will be 140 so-called cardinal-electors. Of these, all but 30 will have been appointed by the ruling pontiff, who has mostly favoured men with a similarly broad-minded outlook to his own. The African cardinals may simply be too forcefully conservative for them, though some would doubtless appeal to the more traditionalist cardinals in America’s deeply divided Catholic church. Back in the 1990s, Pope Saint John Paul II complained privately that African prelates were too reticent in their dealings with him. Francis is unlikely to share that view: two of the most blatant challenges to his authority have come from African cardinals.
Robert Sarah of Guinea, whom Francis put in charge of the Vatican department that polices liturgy, hurled down the first gauntlet. One of the most visible changes introduced by the reforming Second Vatican Council in the 1960s was to make priests and bishops say mass facing their congregations. But in 2016 Cardinal Sarah told them they should revert to the earlier practice of facing away. Six days later, he was reprimanded by the pope and the Vatican issued a statement claiming his words had been “incorrectly interpreted”.
The second rebellion was more broad-based and forced Francis into a mortifying U-turn. Last year, the Vatican’s chief theologian published a document authorising the blessing of same-sex couples, so long as it was not done as part of a liturgical ritual, let alone a gay marriage. The document caused an uproar in Africa. The head of the continent’s bishops, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Congo, flew to Rome and browbeat Francis into endorsing an opt-out for Africa. It was a rare, if not unprecedented, declaration that one area of the notionally universal church did not have to follow the Vatican’s guidance on a specific issue.
A further reason for doubting that the next pope will come from Africa stems from Francis’s policy of choosing cardinals from unlikely places, often in countries where other faiths are dominant, to show that no part of his church is forgotten. He has conferred the scarlet biretta, the four-pointed headgear of cardinals, on the bishops of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, Ekwulobia in Nigeria, Huehuetenango in Guatemala, Tonga and Stockholm.
A final consideration is that although the cardinal-electors do not always vote for papal candidates from their own neighbourhood, Africa’s representation in the next conclave will not reflect the importance of Africa. The continent’s Catholics account for a fifth of the total. Yet, after the consistory, Africa will have only 18 cardinal-electors able to cast 13% of the votes. In sharp contrast, Asia, which has barely half as many Catholics, will soon have 18% of the clout. Largely because of Francis’s appointments, it is likely to have a bigger say in who becomes the next pope than even Latin America. “It is as if he were pointing us in that direction,” said a Vatican official.
Until recently, the bookmakers’ favourite was Luis Antonio Tagle, a much-liked cardinal from the Philippines who headed the Vatican department responsible for most of the poor. But his chances suffered in 2022, when Francis removed him as president of the Catholic church’s global charity, Caritas Internationalis, along with the organisation’s entire leadership. The Vatican cited failures of “management and procedures, seriously prejudicing team spirit and staff morale”.
Asia, like Africa, is a growth area for the Catholic church. In Georgetown University’s ranking of attendance at mass, Lebanon (69%) and the Philippines (56%) placed third and fourth. Although the number of Asian candidates for the priesthood fell by 9% from 2013 to 2022, this was less than the dizzying 31% drop in Europe.