Will Africa be a Christian Continent by century's end?

[Xavier]

Philip Jenkins' describes some figures of Christianity's global growth, in particular in Africa. You have Islamist organizations that lament Christianity grows by building schools and hospitals, charities and universities, while Islamist groups like Boko Haram do so by terrorism. Today, Christianity dominates in South Africa, while Islam has its influence in NorthAfrica. If current trends continue, the last remnants of paganism and Islamism can be stamped out by the end of the century. There should be more than 500 million Catholics in Africa in the next 30 years. Again, the most important thing for Catholics - like the enemies of the Church knew so well - is to get our men in Rome, to turn the tide in favor of restoration for the universal Church. The African Bishops will do anything Rome asks. So if Rome is restored, the Church will be restored, and Christianity can continue to expand. Among other motives of credibility and notes of divine guidance by which the Church is marked, Vatican I notes "Her astonishing propagation, Her inexhaustible fertility in every good work, Her Catholic unity and unconquerable stability" and this is another example of it.



"In 1900, the whole of Africa had just a couple of million Catholics, but that number grew to 130 million by the end of the century, and today it approaches 200 million. If current trends continue, as they show every sign of doing, then by the 2040s there will be some 460 million African Catholics. Incredibly, that number would be greater than the total world population of Catholics as it stood in 1950." See link Source

Like Mark Twain and many others before and after him, many are ready to pronounce on the imminent demise of the Roman Catholic Church. "Back in the 1890s, Mark Twain sagely observed that: "In this world we have seen the Roman Catholic power dying ... for many centuries. Many a time we have gotten all ready for the funeral and found it postponed again"

[drummerboy]

French is also set to take over Mandarin's place as one of the most spoken languages, due to Africa's population expansion.

[longstrangetrip5]

maybe the poorer countries appreciate Jesus and His Church better than the rich ones do. I have always thought that priests live too comfortable a life and I think that is why they become luke warm about Jesus and what He said

[Greg]

If it does get ready for married priests.

Polygamous married priests.

It's gonna happen.

[Kaesekopf]

Your posts are filled with naivete, Xavier.

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[John Lamb]

Cast contempt on the Africans if you like, but remember that our ancestors were barbarians at some point. It's not naive to think that Africans will build a great Christian civilisation, any more than it was naive to believe that Franks and Goths would have. What do you think was the average IQ of a 5th century Gothic tribe?

[Kaesekopf]

Cast contempt on the Africans if you like, but remember that our ancestors were barbarians at some point. It's not naive to think that Africans will build a great Christian civilisation, any more than it was naive to believe that Franks and Goths would have. What do you think was the average IQ of a 5th century Gothic tribe?

[Greg]

Now they are pretty dim and useless. In 1500 years who knows?  By that stage I would think humans will be genetically engineered, so there won't be a natural progression anyway.

[Vetus Ordo]

It's more likely Africa will be colonized again, if anything else.

[Kaesekopf]

It's more likely Africa will be colonized again, if anything else.

This time by the Chinese, who seem to have no qualms about it

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[Greg]

I reckon there will a war out here with China versus other asian nations.  Their is a massive land grab going on at the moment. The Japanese are everywhere in Saigon, buying up properties buildings. They have whole districts that are Japanese and other districts that are cclearly Chinese Chinese money

[Bonaventure]

No, but they'll produce a de jure World Cup champion, instead of a de facto one.

[Xavier]

1. Much credit for the expansion, or rather explosion, of Christianity in 20th century Africa must go to His Grace Marcel +Lefebvre, who was leading prelate of the whole continent. After that time also, missions from France and foreign countries continued, and now the Church in Africa is relatively very strong, and has millions of conversions every year. Also, from +ABL, and from Apostolic men like him, some people here should reflect on whether their approach to Catholic Christians of a different race from their own is really influenced by the Gospel, or by some form of naturalist eugenics. This is how Fr. Lasance describes the people of Africa, then laboring very much under the influence of generations of a disastrous paganism, when describing the universality of the Catholic Church. "At two the zealous missionaries of Australia are murmuring with haste, eager for the coming of Our Lords: "Introibo ad altare Dei." And all the spicy islands of the East catch the sweet sounds, one after another, till at four in the afternoon China proves there are many souls who are worthy of the name of celestial by their rapt devotion at the early rite. Then in Tibet there is many a modest chapel where the missionary distributes the Bread of Life to a crowd of hungry souls. At six the altars of Hindustan, where St. Francis Xavier ministered, are arrayed with their flowers and lamps and the sacred vessels, and unwearied priests are hastening to fortify their souls before him Who is their life and their strength. At nine in Siberia, where many a poor Catholic exile from Poland has no other solace from his woes but the foot of the altar and the Bread of Heaven. During the hours when New York is gay with parties and balls and theatrical amusements, the holiest of rites is going on in the Indian Ocean and among the sable tribes of Africa, whose souls are so dear to the Saviour Who once died for all. At eleven in Jerusalem, the Holy City over which Jesus wept, where He wrought so many miracles, where He suffered and offered Himself a sacrifice for the whole world." This is how truly Apostolic men of the past thought and wrote, and we should see to it our intellectual influences are the same as theirs.

http://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/marcel-lefebvre-missionary-africa-3096 +ABL developed missions and "oversaw the Catholic Church in 18 African countries. By 1959, his territory of apostolic work had expanded to 12 archdioceses, 36 dioceses, and 13 Italian Apostolic Prefectures"

2. Beside barbaric forms of paganism that are now being extinguished, the other religion in Africa is the vile sect of Mahomet. Before Mohammedan invasions, much of Africa was Christian. Africa gave many Saints to the Church in the early ages. St. Augustine was African, as was St. Mary of Egypt.  "At the beginning of the fifth century, two hundred years before Muhammad appeared, there were seven-hundred Catholic bishops in Africa.[14] Two hundred of them attended the Council of Carthage in 535 AD. By the middle of the 900s there were forty left. By 1050, as a result of 'peaceful coexistence,' there were only five left. In 1076 there were two. We learn this from a letter that Pope Gregory VII, 'Hildebrand,' wrote to Cyriacus, Archbishop of Carthage in June 1076. As three bishops are needed for the valid consecration of another bishop Gregory asked him to send a suitable priest to Rome who could be consecrated assistant bishop, so that he [Cyriacus] and Servandus, bishop of Buzea in Mauritania, and the new bishop could consecrate other bishops for the African Catholics.[15]" https://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Stenhouse/crusades.01.htm

3. http://www.virtueonline.org/six-million-african-muslims-convert-christianity-each-year Here's a Muslim lamenting on some reasons why Christianity thrives while Islamism flounders. Islamism and paganism must both be eradicated before Africa can wholly embrace the light of the Gospel and experience all the salt and leaven of the Gospel and of the Church.

Katani starts off describing the overall problem:

Islam used to represent, as you previously mentioned, Africa's main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa. So in the section of Africa that we are talking about, the non Arab section, the number of Muslims does not exceed 150 million people. When we realize that the entire population of Africa is one billion people, we see that the number of Muslims has diminished greatly from what it was in the beginning of the last century. On the other hand, the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to 329 million 882 thousand (329,882,000). Let us round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000.

As to how that happened, well there are now 1.5 million churches whose congregations account for 46 million people. In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Ever year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed.

From what I have heard from reliable sources, six million may be too low. Reliable accounts say that one hundred thousand Africans convert to Christianity per day, though not all of them come from Islam. Then Katani says Muslims should build schools before mosques, in order to build the worshipper (Muslim) before the building. Why? To stop the the dangerous "Christian missionary octopus"

This happens often! The wealthy Arab builds a mosque for himself or one of his parents of his friend, but my dear sir, building a mosque comes as a second stage. In America, the price of building an Islamic school is 5 million dollars. In Africa, 50 thousand dollars are enough to build a very reasonably sized school. I say this and I take full responsibility for it; building a school comes before building a mosque. Build the worshiper before you build the mosque. Take for example yourself; you go to the mosque five times a day and if you added all that time it would equal an hour or maybe two hours if you include the Friday prayer. However, if I ask you how long you stayed at school, you will reply that you spent years in middle school and years in high school. Likewise the African goes to the mosque, but if we built him a school where he could spend most of his time, and provided specialized educators we could at least stop this dangerous Christian missionary octopus.

[Greg]

Believe it or not I have to go to Botswana and Kenya to sell them some AI.

Not looking forward to it.

[mikemac]

Let's hope they haven't read what you have written in this forum.