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What ‘Drag Nuns’ Get Right About Catholic Faith

By Kaya Oakes

In the Venn diagram of sports and religion, there is no easy overlap. Early in May, the professional baseball team the Los Angeles Dodgers announced that they would be giving a community service award to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of “drag nuns” who began ministering to people with AIDS decades ago, and who continue to work with the LGBTQ+ community today.

The reaction from conservatives was operatic in scale, with everyone from Sen. Marco Rubio (R.-Fla) to Bishop Robert Barron decrying the invitation. Barron went so far as to refer to the Sisters as an “anti-Catholic hate group.” In other cases, conservatives called the decision “disrespectful” to Catholic nuns. But when the Dodgers rescinded the invitation on May 17, the outrage from liberals was equally strong. Openly gay California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D.-Calif.) praised the Sisters’ “lifesaving work,” and pressure against the Dodgers’ disinvitation was so widespread that team management issued an apology and reinvited the Sisters to the stadium.

As Pride month begins, it’s worth reflecting on some facts about Catholic history that have been lost in the finger pointing. Historically, there have been many Catholics who have pushed back against gender norms. But like modern conservatives who focus on the outrageous aspects of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence while ignoring the group’s tireless work caring for the sick, homeless, and poor, the Catholic hierarchy has also attempted to mute the stories of gender-nonconforming people throughout its history. And in doing so, the church hierarchy has often ignored the acts of mercy so central to Catholic teaching.

In the year 1429, prompted by a voice from God, Joan of Arc rode into battle in men’s armor. After aiding France in achieving multiple military victories, Joan was captured and put on trial for heresy and blasphemy. Among her supposed crimes was dressing like a man. At her trial, she was offered a dress to wear, but she replied that she preferred men’s clothing, because “it pleases God that I wear it.”

Julian of Norwich, a medieval mystic, referred to Jesus as “our precious mother,” and in case anyone missed the message, went even further, saying “God is also our mother.” Saints Euphrosyne, Anastasia the Patrician, Hildegund and others disguised themselves as men to enter monasteries. One of St. Francis’ closest friends was a woman he called “Brother Jacoba,” saints of many gender s were wed in “mystical marriages” to Christ, and some believe it was Mary Magdalene, the first to greet the risen Christ, who really led the church in the days after Easter.

A 17th century carving of St. Wilgefortis in the Museum of the Diocese Graz-Seckau in Graz, Austria.

But for those who are appalled by the sight of “drag nuns” in full beards and makeup, the most revealing story from Catholic history might be the medieval tale of St. Wilgefortis. The daughter of a king, Wilgefortis was promised in marriage to a man she didn’t want, and in answer to her prayers for liberation, God caused her to sprout a miraculous beard. Not only was this enough to repel her suitor, but it has also made her into a contemporary heroic figure for queer Catholics and women trying to kick off the shackles of misogyny and homophobia alike. Scholars sometimes arguethat these gender-nonconforming Catholics were more myth than reality, but regardless of the historical veracity, they remain beloved examples of courage and vocation, of living out a call to be their authentic selves while living a life of service.

Strikingly, “call” is the same word many members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence use to describe their own vocations. There is an 18-month process of becoming a Sister, including doing charitable work in the community, which they call a “mission.” Sister June Cleavage told the LA Times: “You don’t come to this organization without understanding, without compassion and without having fought these kinds of battles before on a smaller scale.” And many of the Sisters have emphasized they are not anti-Catholic. In poking fun at the church, they believe they are helping to call out its hypocrisy; the Catholic Church has exhibited plenty of that — especially in terms of how it deals with gender.

But while many are rushing to defend Catholic nuns from the Sisters’ parody, the voices of Catholic sisters have been largely overlooked in this conversation. And Catholic sisters’ views on the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, as it turns out, are much more nuanced than those of Catholic leadership who claim the Sisters are dangerous.

In America magazine, Sister Jo’Ann De Quattro, a member of the Catholic order the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, said the Dodgers made a mistake in disinviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence because they engage in works of mercy. “It’s about trying to embrace people who might be different from us, because Jesus said, ‘Come to the table,’” she told journalist Michael O’Loughlin. “Not, ‘You don’t deserve a place at the table.’”

Sister Jeanne Grammick, the founder of Catholic LGBTQ+ support group New Ways Ministry, echoed this, saying in a statement that “there is a hierarchy of values in this situation. The choice of clothing, even if offensive to some, can never trump the works of mercy.”

As a Catholic born and raised in the Bay Area, for me, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have always been a welcome sign of hard work, acceptance, and tolerance. In the ’90s, when Catholics largely turned their backs on people with AIDS, the Sisters rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Today, when queer kids turn up in the Bay Area having been rejected by their families and churches, the Sisters are there for them. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence marched with me and my friends at ACT UP rallies in the worst days of the AIDS epidemic; I once saw a Sister in full drag garb picking up trash in a park while rich techies tossed garbage onto the grass.

Of course, Catholic nuns have done this kind of work on the margins for centuries — and they have also been the subject of the church’s critique. In 2012, Cardinal William Levada accused U.S. nuns of disobedience and espousing “radical feminist themes” and subjected the nuns to a multi-year investigation supported by recently deceased Pope Benedict XVI. Women and gender-variant people, it seems, will always make the church uncomfortable. But we are often also the ones who hold the church accountable.

Meanwhile, the male hierarchy of the church is driving people away at unprecedented rates. Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of the archdiocese of San Francisco, where the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were founded, has doused the homeless with water to stop them from sleeping outside of the city’s cathedral; excommunicated politician Nancy Pelosi (D – Calif.) because of her support for abortion rights; called trans people a “threat” to the church; and tried and failed to force Catholic school teachers to sign a “morality clause” that would have, in part, effectively forbidden them from coming out at school. The Catholic church in the U.S. is hemorrhaging members, with younger Catholics the most likely to say that the church’s attitude toward LGBTQ+ people is a primary reason they leave.

It’s too soon to tell if this kerfuffle will push even more Catholics out of the church. But what it reveals about the lack of mercy many Catholics have in their hearts should be far more shocking than the sight of anyone dressed like an old-fashioned nun with a beard.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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In rare move, Vatican official chastised Texas Bishop Strickland at conference

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland

by Religion News Service

If Texas Bishop Joseph E. Strickland is known outside of his diocese for anything, it’s for controversy.

The conservative firebrand, who oversees the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, has sparked backlash from critics for everything from voicing support for priests who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to offering a prayer at a “Jericho March” event in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. More recently, Strickland challenged Pope Francis, announcing on his Twitter feed that he believes the pontiff is “undermining the Deposit of Faith.” His efforts have inspired some detractors to call for Strickland’s resignation, while others have urged Vatican intervention.

But according to multiple sources, Strickland has already been on the receiving end of the Vatican’s ire for more than a year: He was chastised by a representative of the Holy See in 2021, they say — a move that simultaneously signals the potential for formal Vatican disciplinary action and exemplifies the difficulty of reining in a controversial cleric.

“(Strickland) doesn’t really care,” Barber said of the alleged encounter. “It’s the truth that sets us free. If he goes down because he’s speaking the truth, oh well.”

A separate source who is familiar with the meeting but who chose to remain anonymous, as they have not been given permission to discuss the matter publicly, told Religion News Service the incident took place in November 2021 at the annual USCCB meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. The source said the nuncio specifically confronted Strickland about his Twitter feed, which had garnered controversy at the time for, among other things, posts that opposed the three major COVID-19 vaccines distributed in the U.S. at the time.

Asked about the encounter via email this week, Strickland said he would “prefer not to comment.”

The nuncio’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

For his part, Barber told RNS he did not wish to speak further about the incident and would not name the source of his information. Instead, he criticized Pope Francis, accusing him of being ambiguous about important moral questions and calling the pontiff a “disaster for the Catholic Church.”

Strickland would hardly be the first cleric in U.S. history to be reprimanded by the Holy See. In the 1980s, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — headed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who went on to become Pope Benedict XVI — launched an investigation into Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, an outspoken liberal cleric and critic of nuclear power, who oversaw the Archdiocese of Seattle at the time. The Holy See ultimately appointed an auxiliary bishop to the region who shared authority with Hunthausen.

But it’s highly unusual for the public to learn about less formal admonishments doled out to bishops by Vatican officials behind closed doors. What’s more, Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University and an expert on U.S. Catholicism, said a nuncio privately dressing-down a U.S. bishop at a conference is particularly rare, and showcases the delicate situation facing modern popes when it comes to cowing outspoken, media-savvy clerics who buck the party line.

Strickland has become a popular figure in right-wing Catholic circles for his criticism of President Joe Biden and oppositional stance against COVID-19 vaccines, which includes expressing support for priests who have challenged their own bishops by refusing to get vaccinated. (Strickland’s position contrasts sharply with that of Pope Francis, who has advocated repeatedly for the use of vaccines, even calling them an “act of love.”) In addition to the Terry and Jesse Show, Strickland has appeared on a number of conservative and far-right Catholic websites, ranging from EWTN to Church Militant.

Church Militant also organized a protest outside the same November 2021 USCCB meeting where the nuncio is alleged to have confronted Strickland. Speakers at the event, where some participants waved anti-Biden “Let’s go Brandon” flags, praised Strickland from the stage. He also posed for photographs with staffers from Church Militant, an outlet that has railed against other bishops using language critics have decried as homophobic and racist.

Church officials wishing to curtail Strickland’s influence could take dramatic steps like they did with Hunthausen, Faggioli said, but “there’s no measure that can deprive him of the access to these various blogs or influencers” the bishop often utilizes to amplify his message.

“I believe that the fear is that, if he’s removed, his visibility will be amplified,” Faggioli said.

What’s more, if the alleged scolding was meant to cow Strickland, Faggioli said, it doesn’t appear to have had much of an effect. Since the 2021 meeting, the Texas bishop has been embroiled in multiple controversies over challenging the authority or rhetoric of church officials — be it his fellow bishops or the pope. And while Strickland’s much-maligned tweet about Pope Francis earlier this month was an attempt to distance himself from a podcaster who questioned whether Francis is, in fact, the pope, his effort still resulted in controversy.

“I don’t know how much that dressing down worked,” Faggioli said.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence ‘outraged’ by getting boot from Dodgers on Pride Night

— The LGBTQ advocacy group defended itself a day after the Dodgers disinvited them from Pride Night, while politicians and groups condemned the team.

The Dodgers’ June 16 Pride Night is now mired in controversy.

By Jim Buzinski

A day after the Los Angeles Dodgers disinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their upcoming Pride Night after a leading anti-gay bigot and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio complained, the Sisters expressed “outrage and deep offense” at the team’s decision. At the same time, state politicians and LGBTQ organizations and supporters condemned the Dodgers’ action.

The events in the last 24 hours have become a PR headache from the Dodgers, with fans on social media expressing outrage and a Congressman urging a boycott of the June 16 Pride game, historically the largest one in sports (Disclosure: Outsports is a partner in the event). The media focus has centered on the Dodgers caving to anti-LGBTQ forces, not the kind of attention a team wants as it seeks to promote an event around inclusiveness.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the San Francisco Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence issued their first detailed comments about being disinvited from receiving the team’s Community Hero Award:

The San Francisco Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence a leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns in San Francisco, Calif., today expressed their deep offense and outrage at the Los Angeles Dodgers’ recent decision to retract their offer of a Community Hero Award, to be presented to the Los Angeles Sisters, following criticism from religious conservatives.

The Dodgers capitulated in response to hateful and misleading information from people outside their community, who target not only the LGBTQQ++ community but also women’s autonomy over their bodies, people and communities of color, and other faiths and nationalities.

Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote, condemned the Sisters as a “blatantly perverted, sexual and disgusting anti-Catholic hate-group.” This is simply not true. The Sisters began in 1979 in response to the AIDS crisis, when gay men, who their faiths and families had abandoned because of their orientation, were sick and dying. The Sisters were among the first to raise money to help care for people with AIDS and to create and distribute safer-sex information.

In the decades since the Sisters have grown with chapters across the world. They are a 501(C)3 charitable organization that annually raises thousands of dollars to distribute to organizations supporting marginalized communities. They support other groups, including several mainstream churches, in their work. Sisters are regularly called upon to minister to the sick, the dying, and the mourning

Our ministry is real. We promulgate universal joy, expiate stigmatic guilt, and our use of religious trappings is a response to those faiths whose members would condemn us and seek to strip away the rights of marginalized communities,” said Sister Rosie Partridge, abbess of the San Francisco Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

The Sisters are not anti-Catholic, but an organization based on love, acceptance, and celebrating human diversity. To be condemned by representatives of the Catholic Church is particularly ironic, given that organization’s long history of condoning and concealing the sexual abuse of children. It’s a statistical fact that children are at less risk in the company of drag queens than clergy. Yet, the LGBTQQ++ communities are consistently targeted by the right, because it is easier to foment fear of the unfamiliar than to take a hard look at very real threats ranging from gun violence to global warming.

The San Francisco Sisters call on the LGBTQQ+ community and its allies to express their disappointment with the Dodgers by contacting them at fanfeedback@ladodgers.com or 866-DODGERS, option 9.

Do not let people who hate us all decide that some parts of our community are more tolerable than others, that some shall be seated at the table while others are locked out. We all stand on the shoulders of brave souls who endured much to get us this far and we owe it to them, and those yet to come, to condemn the voices of haters at every turn. The struggle continues, but we look forward to a better, more inclusive world where human diversity is seen as an advantage, not something to fear.

Meanwhile, state politicians and groups weighed in against the decision.

  • The Los Angeles LGBT Center, the region’s largest, pulled its participation from the event and called on the team to reverse its decision, saying:

“We call on the Dodgers to reconsider their decision, honor the Sisters, and bring the true spirit of Pride back to Dodgers Stadium. If the decision is not reversed, we strongly encourage the Dodgers to cancel Pride Night. Any organization that turns its back on LGBTQ+ people at this damning and dangerous inflection point in our nation’s history should not be hoisting a rainbow flag or hosting a ‘Pride Night.’ We want the Dodgers ally ship to be consistent with our experience partnering with them over the past many years. The people of Los Angeles County have consistently and overwhelmingly shown up for LGBTQ+ equality. If one of our most beloved institutions — the Dodgers — refuses to stand by us at this moment, we are terrified of what will come next. Los Angeles is a leader — not a follower. We call on the Dodgers to set an example.”

  • California State Sen. President pro tempore Toni Atkins tweeted: “Capitulating to demands from anti-LGBTQ officials in other states to remove the @LADragNuns from Pride Night is a shameful decision by the @Dodgers. I stand with the @LADragNuns — we will not give in to politicians who seek to silence our #LGBTQ+ community.”
  • The ACLU of Southern California pulled out from Pride Night, tweeting: “The Dodgers, which broke the color line in baseball in 1947 by signing Jackie Robinson, were champions of inclusion. Seventy-six years later, they take a giant step backward banning a long-standing drag charity. In unity with @SFSisters, we will not participate in Pride Night.”
  • U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, the openly gay former mayor of Long Beach, called for a boycott, saying, “This is shameful and you will not divide and separate our community. I hope we all boycott your ‘pride night’ and protest this cowardly decision.”
  • California State Sen. Scott Wiener from San Francisco, who is gay, got in a sports dig in his statement condemning the Dodgers: “In the past month, right wing mobs demanded that Anheuser Busch stop featuring a trans woman in an ad & that the Dodgers kick drag queens out of its Pride celebration. Both Anheuser Busch & the Dodgers caved. The danger to our community grows by the day. We expect more from our sports teams — even the Dodgers.”

My take

This whole controversy started with a letter from Sen. Marco Rubio to MLB Commissioner Rob Manford. Rubio represents Florida, literally on the opposite side of the country from Dodger Stadium, so it’s unclear why the Dodgers would give a damn about what Rubio says about anything. What pressure Manford might have put on the team is unknown.

Then longtime anti-gay bigot Bill “Gay Marriage is the Work of the Devil” Donohue of the Catholic League, an advocacy group that is not part of the church, weighed in to condemn the Sisters’ inclusion. No one who cares a whit about LGBTQ people should listen to a thing Donohue says. It’d be like someone organizing a Black History Month exhibit listen to input from the KKK.

The Dodgers’ biggest mistake was their knee-jerk reaction to the letter and caving in so quickly. Then game is not for a month, plenty of time to give the matter serious thought before reaching any decision. They then made it worse with a statement that threw the Sisters under the bus with zero acknowledgement to the heroic work they have done for 40 years, saying the decision was made because of the “strong feelings of people who have been offended.” So the standard is now anyone with “strong feelings” rule the day?

What happens next?

Damn if I know, but my guess is that more groups pull out as the word spreads. As for ticket sales, the Dodgers have the best attendance in baseball and the June 16 is against the hated San Francisco Giants so Dodger Stadium will be packed, though whether the team will match the 18,000 in specific Pride Night tickets from a year ago is unknown.

This whole thing is sad and infuriating because the Dodgers have been a pioneer for sports teams in addressing LGBTQ inclusion and that should be applauded. Yet they threw a lot of good will away when catering to the most extreme elements in society, people trying to reverse decades of progress at a time when LGBTQ people need all the allies we can get.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Pope in Hungary urges Europe to unite to end war next door

Pope Francis, left, is greeted by Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the square of “Sándor” Palace in Budapest, Friday, April 28, 2023. The Pontiff is in Hungary for a three-day pastoral visit.

By Nicole Winfield and Justin Spike

Pope Francis on Friday blasted the “adolescent belligerence” that brought war back to Europe and said the continent must recover its founding spirit of peaceful unity to confront Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Francis outlined his vision for the future of Europe as he began a three-day visit to Hungary. In a carefully calibrated speech, he demanded that the European Union approve safe and legal ways for migrants to enter and for the Hungarian government not to hold Europe “hostage” to populist demands.

Francis didn’t mince words when he addressed President Katalin Novak and Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orban, whose lukewarm support for Ukraine has rankled other EU countries. The pontiff recalled the lofty ideals behind the bloc’s founding and lamented that rising nationalism and “adolescent belligerence” had replaced them.

“We seem to be witnessing the sorry sunset of that choral dream of peace, as the solists of war now take over,” Francis said. “At this historical juncture, Europe is crucial. … It is called to take up its proper role, which is to unite those far apart, to welcome those other peoples and refuse to consider anyone an eternal enemy.”

Hungarian officials said the pope’s visit, his second to Budapest in as many years, was designed primarily to let him minister to the country’s Catholic community. But with the war in neighboring Ukraine and Orban butting heads with other EU nations over rule of law issues and LGBTQ+ rights, Francis’ words and deeds in the heart of Europe carried strong political undertones.

He has repeatedly called for a peaceful resolution to the war and expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian people, although his trip to Hungary brought Francis the nearest he’s gotten to the front line of the fighting.

The pope plans to meet Saturday with some of the 35,000 Ukrainian refugees who remain in Hungary. Nearly 2.5 million refugees entered the country early on in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Orban has called for a cease-fire. But the nationalist prime minister has refused to supply Kyiv with weapons and threatened to veto EU sanctions against Moscow while maintaining Hungary’s strong dependence on Russian energy. His government also said it would not arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the subject of an international arrest warrant on war crimes charges, if he came to Hungary.

While sharing his hopes for Europe, Francis appeared to call out the country’s growing isolation.

“I think of a Europe that is not hostage to its parts, neither falling prey to self-referential forms of populism nor resorting to a fluid, if not vapid, supra-nationalism that loses sight of the life of its peoples,” the pope said.

Novak, for her part, praised Francis as a man of peace and asked him to confer with “Kyiv and Moscow, to Washington, Brussels, Budapest and to anyone without whom there can be no peace. Here, in Budapest, we ask you to act personally for a just peace as soon as possible!”

Francis has expressed appreciation for Hungary’s recent welcome of Ukrainian refugees, but his views on the moral imperative to welcome all people fleeing conflict, poverty and climate change contrast with Orban’s hard line on migration. In 2015-2016, Hungary built a razor wire fence on the border with Serbia to stop people from entering – .

Francis said time was up for Europe’s “excuses and delay” in responding to the hundreds of thousands of migrants who risk their lives trying to reach the continent each year. He called for the EU to agree on “secure and legal corridors” that would provide a safer route.

Europe must come up with “shared mechanisms to confront an epochal challenge that cannot be faced by pushing back, but must be welcomed to prepare a future that, unless it is shared, will not exist,” the pope said.

The 86-year-old pontiff, who walks with difficulty because of bad knee ligaments, is testing his frail health with his latest trip. He spent four days in the hospital last month with bronchitis. Hungarian officials had hoped Francis would travel around the country, but the Vatican opted to keep him in Budapest, where he spent seven hours in 2021 to close out a church congress.

The visit comes as the European Union’s legislature continues to put pressure on Hungary to counter what EU lawmakers consider a deterioration in the rule of law and democratic principles, including media freedom and LGBTQ+ rights.

The four biggest groups in the European Parliament have called on the bloc’s executive commission to withhold pandemic recovery funds for Hungary until liberal democracy principles are met.

Francis didn’t wade in directly to the dispute, but he quoted the Hungarian Constitution and the founder of the Hungarian state, St. Stephen, in calling for the country to remain open toward others, another apparent reference to Orban’s nativist rhetoric.

On LGBTQ+ rights, the pope and the Hungarian government’s policies were not totally at odds. Catholic doctrine forbids gay marriage, though Francis has backed legal protections for people in same-sex unions.

He also has long ministered to gay and transgender Catholics while condemning “gender ideology” as an alleged form of the West’s ideological colonization of the developing world.

Hungary outlaws same-sex marriage, and the government has prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children. The government has also outlawed the depiction of homosexuality or divergent gender identities to minors in media content.

Francis repeated his condemnation of “gender ideology” Friday along with what he described as “the so-called right to abortion.” He praised Hungary for promoting family values.

“How much better it would be to build a Europe centered on the human person and on its peoples, with effective polices for natality and the family – policies that are pursued attentively in this country,” he said.

Francis’ arrival was met with a quiet welcome, with small groups of people cheering his motorcade as it entered the city center. Zoltan Gozner, a religious education teacher from Esztergom, north of Budapest, took his class to a place on the motorcade’s route so students could see it.

>“Hungary is still a Christian country, and we are a guardian of this faith,” he said.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Pope’s African pilgrimage

— Does the continent represent the future of Catholicism?

By

As milestones go, the recent sight of three leading men of God together in Africa was quite something — a rare chance for Christian leaders to spread the word and challenge rivals for hearts and minds.

Pope Francis and the Vatican media machine might have led the way, but alongside him went Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields. They shared the Papal plane on the way home with the kind of bonhomie and mutual understanding that highlights the importance of Africa in the contest to be the world’s leading faith.

There they were, the three of them, in the war zone of South Sudan, the Christian stronghold that broke away from the Muslim north amid terrible conflict. Today that newest of countries represents a small but symbolically important piece of the continent’s religious jigsaw that will see Christianity grow by more than 40 per cent, the hierarchy believes, by 2050, and so ensure their faith will continue to stay just ahead of Islam in global per centages.

Some walked for days just to see and hear him

Ahead of that historic appearance of a Christian triumvirate, Pope Francis had spent days in Congo, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country, home to more than 100 million, half of them Catholic, and the crucible of a conflict that has claimed more than five million lives, displacing millions more. It was a grim sign of the continuing murder and mayhem that the Pope had to cancel a trip to Eastern Congo, the epicentre of the war, because of fighting near the regional capital of Goma.

At his main mass in the capital, Kinshasa, more than a million Catholics joined him, some having walked for days just to see and hear him. Everywhere he went, thousands lined the streets and overpasses to glimpse the man many Congolese call simply “Our Father.” Francis, deeply moved, found the voice that has eluded him in recent times.

“This country, so immense and full of life, this diaphragm of Africa, struck by such violence like a blow to the stomach, has seemed for some time to be gasping for breath,” he told followers, clearly energised by the sight of so many worshippers. “But you are a diamond, believe in yourselves, and your future.”

The numbers do tell. According to the Vatican’s news agency, Africa accounts for 265 million members of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics — 20 per cent, and growing fast. The Anglican church is smaller but with significant followers in those countries with a footprint of the British empire: Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa (think the late Desmond Tutu)

“Africa offers Christianity such opportunity, born out of tragedy and suffering maybe, but such potential,” to quote one of the Pope’s advisers, noting that the Pontiff insisted on making the trip despite poor health of late and being now wheelchair-bound. “Francis, better than anyone, knows where we have lost ground, and where we need to work.”

It is ironic to consider it but, yes, the Argentinian Pope does indeed know where Catholicism has seen the faithful flee elsewhere. In Latin America, once the vanguard of his own Jesuit mission and home to the largest Catholic country on the planet, Brazil, Church leaders acknowledge that tens of millions have been lost to rivals, especially the Evangelical and Pentecostal faiths.

Even in the Pope’s beloved Argentina, you can see the exodus and not just in the major cities, Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Rosario. In the foothills of the Andes, in conservative, rural Mendoza, the Catholic church is often half-empty. In contrast the Evangelical arena, often a large, multi-purpose room on the main street, or a schoolroom not used on the weekends, can be packed to overflowing — with the devout outside in sizable numbers.

“Ours is Christianity that speaks to people’s needs, and people’s lives,” says Evangelical minister Jose Hernandez in Mendoza, pinpointing how Rome’s hard line on “social issues” (code for contraception, abortion, and the role of women in the Church) especially during the long years of the Polish Pope, John Paul the Second, opened the floodgates. “Ordinary people have flocked to us.”

The religious battle for Africa has been joined

Fascinatingly, the attempts of Pope Francis to soften the conservative line of his predecessors — taking for example such a relaxed view of homosexuality (“who am I to judge?” he says, “they are children of God too”) — has produced blowback, the likes of which Christianity may not have seen before. Such appeasement seems to have come too late for his Church in Latin America — and in Africa, his open voice on gay life is the seed of clear dispute between his Vatican and some fiercely traditional Bishops, let alone communities, on the ground in the likes of Congo and South Sudan.

“The Pope can have his view on homosexuality, and we have ours,” said one Catholic Bishop in attendance as the Pope celebrated that mega-mass in Kinshasa. “It is a sin.” Justin Welby and the Anglican church heard likewise in South Sudan from their flock. “Better to have two wives than to be gay or lesbian,” according to one Protestant Archbishop there.

The religious battle for Africa has been joined, and Christianity, losing out elsewhere in the Global South, sees the continent as the go-to arena tomorrow. So much so that inside the Vatican — where I was once a young correspondent back in the day when they dared to elect a Pole as Pope — they say the next Pontiff could well be an African.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!