As Christians across the globe enter the sacred season of Lent, Pope Leo XIV has issued a compelling message urging the faithful to rediscover the transformative power of listening, fasting, and communal conversion. His reflection, titled “Listening and Fasting: Lent as a Time of Conversion”, frames Lent not merely as a ritual obligation but as a spiritual reset—an invitation to…
“Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return. Repent and believe the Gospel.” The liturgy of Ash Wednesday places before the Church a truth that is at once sobering and profoundly liberating. “Remember that you are dust.” Humanity is dust—finite, vulnerable, radically dependent on God. Yet this incompleteness is not a defect in our humanity. It is…
The Church in Africa is one of the most vibrant and rapidly growing communities in global Catholicism today. The Pontifical Yearbook, in its 2024 edition, reports that Africa accounts for 20% of the world’s Catholics and is characterised by a highly dynamic spread of the Catholic Church. From the Second Vatican Council to the Synods on Africa (1994 and 2009),…
The recent attack and capture of President Maduro of Venezuela by American law enforcement and military, and the first consistory of the world’s cardinals convoked by Pope Leo, show two contrasting approaches to leadership that I wish to analyze in this essay. In the last eight months or so, people have begun to draw a sharp contrast between the two…
“Gen Z” (Generation Zoomer), a term borrowed from the practice of using zoom, refers to people born between 1997 and 2012. This generation saw the massive expansion of the Internet, a gigantic information warehouse, and the dizzying rise and global spread of different social media platforms. Their period of growing up also included the Great Recession (late 2007–mid-2009) and the…
Pope Leo XIV’s first Apostolic Exhortation, Dilexi Te (“I Have Loved You”), was issued at a decisive hour for Africa and for the world. It comes as our continent stands at once wounded and hopeful — home to one of the fastest-growing Christian populations on earth, yet still carrying the heaviest burdens of poverty, hunger, human trafficking, and displacement, amidst…
On October 1st, 2025, Pope Leo XIV warned a global audience that “God will ask us if we have cared for our common home.” The Pope was speaking at the Raising Hope Conference, an international gathering on climate justice organized by the Laudato Si’ Movement to mark the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark ecological encyclical. How has Pope Leo…
On September 8, Pope Leo will mark four months in office. I write this editorial as both a tribute to Pope Leo and a plea for Africa. It is already clear that Pope Leo has shown himself to be a steady hand at the helm—no missteps, only poise, purpose, and a calm clarity of vision. It was never going to…
Today, September 1st, marks the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, a moment for us to reflect on the state of our planet and our role in its future. This year, we are living in a world where forests become battlefields, and the very air and water are weaponized by greed and conflict. This is the stark…
❝ Out of Africa can rise a hope capable of reawakening the whole Church” — Stan Chu Ilo In a recent essay, Carlos Lopes warned of the “structural exhaustion” of the global order. Once-stable arrangements like free trade, multilateral institutions, and geopolitical balance are visibly fraying. Rising protectionism, populist nationalism, climate disruption, and deepening inequality have shaken the rules that…