The Pope to Africa: "Mvidi Mukulu"

A pilgrimage to a continent where Christianity is flourishing if

God has chosen you from among all people to help us," chanted a chorus of women over and over and over again in the Lingala dialect. A few feet away, tribesmen with arrow-pierced cheeks and clad in striped costumes performed a zebra dance. Others waved shining spears in greeting. Women of the Ekonda tribe, their breasts modestly covered for the occasion, swayed and sang to the rhythm of drums.

In the middle of the din at N'jili International Airport outside Kinshasa, the capital of Zaire, was Pope John Paul II. Occasionally mopping his brow with a handkerchief in the tropical humidity, he greeted President Mobutu Sese Seko and other dignitaries, then boarded an open Mercedes for the 15-mile motorcade into Kinshasa.

In 1972, the President had changed his name from Joseph Desire Mobutu, so it would seem less colonial and perhaps less Christian. But one could scarcely have discerned any political advantage in that from the joyous crowd of more than 1 million people packed along the entire route; their numbers and enthusiasm equaled the welcomes John Paul received in Mexico, Poland and the U.S. Many of the Zaireans wore T shirts that depicted a brown-skinned Pontiff. On his way, the Pope repeated "Mvidi Mukulu" ("God bless you" in Zaire).

It was only the second time in history that a Pope of Rome had set foot in the heart of Africa,* and Kinshasa was only the beginning. The Pope had been asked to visit 30 African nations. In the end, though, only a visit to six of them seemed possible, and that involved a demanding 11,250-mile, eleven-day tour by plane, car, boat, helicopter and LandRover, which will take John Paul to Zaire, Congo, Kenya, Ghana, Upper Volta and the Ivory Coast. The itinerary was confined to Africa's middle, south of the vast Sahara region, which is dominated by Islam, and well north of the agonizing problems of racist South Africa, in which the Roman Catholic Church in 1977 demanded on the basis of Christ's teachings "full citizen and human rights for all persons" regardless of race.

Even so, the Pope is scheduled to visit countries with a combined population of 71 million in a continent with 460 million inhabitants, 53 million of them Roman Catholics. Christianity as a whole in Africa is growing by 6 million people, or more than 5% a year, its largest numerical increase in history. It is estimated there will be 400 million Christians out of a total African population of 800 million by the end of this century.

John Paul calls Africa a continent "ripe for harvest." But like nearly everything else in Africa, Christianity, and especially Catholic Christianity, is marked by breathtaking contradictions, dramatic paradoxes, maddening diversity. Africa is a continent whose people speak more than 800 languages. They suffer from bloody national divisions, as well as unimaginable poverty and disease. Africa is a continent where some Catholics still go to the local witch doctor when their children fall sick and where a black priest has questioned the use of bread and wine in Communion because they are associated with wealthy white settlers.

A century ago, missionaries had hardly begun their work. Spiritual power lay in rites performed to propitiate thousands of tribal gods. Tribal religion is still strong, but it is gradually losing ground. In the past 25 years Africa has thrown off colonial rule, sometimes replacing it with cruelly oppressive independent governments. It is also the historic battleground between Islam and Christianity, the world's two most powerful monotheistic faiths.

There are an estimated 700 million Catholics around the globe today. Less than half inhabit Europe and North America. As the head of a universal church, John Paul more and more must; in working toward the future, keep the overwhelming potential power of Third World Catholicism in view. That may be why he spoke of his current trip as a "special pilgrimage to the heart of those men and those peoples who in notable measure have accepted the Gospel and . . . constitute the continuation of the Acts of the Apostles . . . from generation to generation, from century to century."

One of the astonishing things about the growth of Christianity in Africa is that it increased dramatically after colonialism ended. "One would have thought," says South Africa's Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, "that Christianity, having come with foreigners, would have been rejected when independence came and the church would have declined." In 1960 Africa was only about 30% Christian. In 1980 it is nearly half Christian.

In explanation, Tutu and others cite various factors, secular and spiritual. Tribal religion lost power as Africans began to cross tribal lines. Islam might have filled this void, but the much anticipated Muslim surge, funded by new Arab oil wealth, has yet to materialize in black Africa. More important, most experts agree, is the record of the Christian missionaries. According to one theory, the past stereotype that missionaries were deeply disliked and distrusted stemmed from colonists, not from Africans. Today missionaries are sometimes seized upon as political scapegoats and expelled by new nationalist leaders. But Africans are still surprised and touched by the willingness of missionaries to struggle in the hinterlands, helping to dig wells, teaching reading and writing, commanding life-giving sacks of grain during periods of famine, risking their lives trying to cure the sick.

Adds Bishop Tutu: "Our struggle for liberation and freedom in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa was led by people trained in Christian churches." Tutu believes the deepest reason for this lies in African character. Says he: "For the African, the spiritual realm is real, and something that is materialistic and atheistic like Marxism, whilst it may have a superficial attraction where there is a lot of oppression and injustice, cannot satisfy the deep longings of the African psyche."

In colonial times most missionaries tried to steer clear of direct politics, though it was Missionary David Livingstone who crusaded to close down the Arab slave trade in Zanzibar. But today Christian churches are deeply involved --partly because governments either attack them or need their help, partly because some missionaries are heavily radicalized and have rallied not only to preserve the right to worship but to protect black Africans from the new injustices visited on them by oppressive regimes, black and white.

The deepest challenge to the future of Christianity in Africa may not be politics, or the hostile rivalry of Islam. It could lie in the present explosion of religious growth and the sheer "Africanization" of Christianity that is already occurring. Since the Second Vatican Council, Catholicism has loosened up a good deal, permitting a non-Latin liturgy that may now be dressed up by all manner of music and even dance. Though the Vatican has not shifted on basic doctrine, since Vatican II there has been relaxation by lay Catholics in the West in the practice of birth control and public questioning of such things as celibacy of the clergy.

In Africa, birth control is no issue. The people barely practice it at all. Quite the contrary: in the words of one missionary, many an African's esteem is measured by how many children he has rather than by how many books he writes. But what is John Paul to do about a country like Zaire, where many priests are living with concubines? In some dioceses it is difficult to find a truly celibate priest to become bishop. Polygamy is also widely practiced, and there has been discussion about the possibility of admitting polygamous men to full membership in the church. But John Paul does not feel free to follow local customs on celibacy. During a chat with reporters on the flight to Kinshasa the Pope told TIME'S Wilton Wynn, "The situation is the same everywhere. The difficulties are as great for men everywhere. What counts is not the situation, but the dedication of the heart." Repeating the theme shortly after landing, he informed a group of priests that celibacy is the sign of their "total consecration" to God.

Catholics in Zaire are also "Africanizing" the liturgy in ways marked by high church attendance and great zeal. At a typical Mass the young priest dons a zebra's mane headdress while assistants, men and women alike, clap and shuffle around the altar to the throbbing of drums and an occasional shrill scream of religious ecstasy. The congregation swings, sings lustily and sways with the rhythms. "The Latin rite is too impersonal for Africans," the priest explains. "The Zaireans' Mass comes from the heart." Clergy were chilled a bit when John Paul insisted on a Latin rite for this week's major open-air Mass in Kinshasa.

But while the Catholic Church, and conventional Protestant churches too, struggle to hold the traditional line, thousands of African Independent Churches are growing up around the continent. They are thriving precisely because they are free from overseas restriction and remote form, and because they do not worry about ritual backsliding into tribal practices. Along with wild and colorful services, they usually emphasize healings and personalized visions and prophecies. Some, including the largest independent church of all, Zaire's Church of Jesus Christ on Earth by the Prophet Simon Kimbangu, more closely resemble orthodox Protestantism. The movement was founded in 1921. It prospered because the colonial Belgian government considered Kimbangu a troublemaker and martyred him by throwing him into prison, where he later died. Many of the independent churches are openly syncretistic, putting the merest Christian overlay upon witchcraft, sorcery and ancestor worship.

Out of such a popular mix might come a new African religion that in the coming decades could rival, or outstrip, the missionary-planted faiths. But the key to its progress--and its power for good --would not be the keys of St. Peter.

*In the only previous papal visit to Africa, Pope Paul VI spent three days in Uganda in 1969.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.