❝ By following in St. Augustine’s footsteps to Africa, Pope Leo hopes to deepen the dialogue between Christianity and Islam, which lies at the very heart of his papal mission: to build bridges among peoples, cultures, civilizations, religions, races, and nations.” — Stan Chu Ilo On his return flight to Rome after a deeply symbolic and pastorally courageous journey to…
When Nigeria’s senior national team coach, Éric Chelle, accused DR Congo of practicing “voodoo” during the penalty shootout that ended Nigeria’s 2026 World Cup dream, many dismissed it as another episode of African football drama. But embedded in that accusation is a deeper and more troubling story about the strange, persistent entanglement between fear and ritual manipulation in the beautiful…
The recent story of Father John K. Ojuok, a Kenyan priest serving in the Diocese of Ogdensburg in upstate New York, is a small local news item that reveals a much larger crisis. Fr. Ojuok, who had been ministering legally in the United States on an R-1 religious worker visa, travelled home to Kenya in September to visit his mother…
One of the earliest disappointments I experienced as a newly ordained priest was that the first three sick people I anointed never recovered. They all died. I was then serving in a rural community in Eastern Nigeria where many had no access to good healthcare. The visit of a priest was not only for spiritual healing but also, in faith,…
The U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect this past weekend offers a brief and fragile respite. For many Gazans, it is a pause long overdue: families returning to the ruins of neighbourhoods flattened by rockets and bombardment found dust and silence where kitchens, schools, and lives once were. In the silence, Gaza has revealed itself as…
On October 3, 2025, Madagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina took to Facebook Live with an extraordinary claim. After a week of protests led mostly by Gen Z activists filling the streets of Antananarivo and other cities, Rajoelina dismissed the movement as a coup attempt orchestrated by shadowy forces. He accused “a fringe of the opposition” and unnamed “foreign agencies” of paying…
A recent BBC investigation tore open a wound that has long bled in silence: young African women deceived with promises of education or job opportunity, only to be trafficked into darkness, sex slavery, and domestic violence. They leave home as daughters, chasing dreams of light, only to arrive in foreign lands as commodities. What bleeds here is not only the…
The III Pan-African Catholic Congress revealed five surprising gifts that show how Africa can help reinvent the Church’s mission and prophetic witness for the 21st century. ❝ “The footprints of God in Africa trace the path toward a flourishing future shaped by an African Church confident in her gifts. This is a Church that invests in her own assets, renews…
Stan Chu Ilo, Reporting from the Kigali Convention Centre, – August 1, 2025 Kigali — In a powerful address delivered at the opening of the 20th Plenary Assembly of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) in Kigali, Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, issued an urgent appeal for the…
Reporting from the Kigali Convention Center – July 31, 2025 Kigali — At the Regina Pacis Church in Kigali, under the gaze of Mary, Queen of Peace, the 20th Plenary Assembly of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) opened with a solemn Mass presided over by Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of…