The Three African Popes (Part 1)
This Columnist has written about the African Popes of the Catholic in the Past. As I reflect on the possibility of an African Pope being named to succeed Pope Francis, I would like to extend my condolences at the passing of Pope Francis. He was a man of God who cared about the least of us, the poor, the prisoners and migrants. He visited countries all over the world—Africa, Asia and Latin America. Pope Francis gave examples of how Christians should live. He was a humble man. Certainly, there were concerns of the sex abuse scandal. The Catholic Church was under the microscope for this for many years. Going forward the new Pope will have to deal this crisis. But, in view of this I would like to recognize that there were three African Popes who served well and made positive contributions to the church. Their history needs to be told.
When Pope Francis selected the cardinals, he in included several African Popes. It you look at the Cardinals featured in the media, several of them are African they were selected by Pope Francis. The Cardinals will select the new Pope. In the year 2013 the question was: Could the Catholic church elect the first Black Pope? In consideration were two Cardinals of color. They were Cardinal Peter Turkson, aged 64 and Cardinal Francis Arinze, aged 80. Cardinal Turkson was from Ghana and Cardinal Arinze was from Nigeria. It was hard to predict during this time which of these Cardinals would be elected due to the secretive nature of the College of Cardinals. The question was deceiving, because there have already been three African Popes in the Catholic Church. Many people are not aware of this fact. They have been written about by scholars, who study the Catholic Church. This is history that has been hidden from the general public. The Catholic is one of the oldest continuously functioning institutions in the world.
Most people do not know that these African Popes ever existed. The response would be of course there is no history of African Popes. Author Millicent Browne stated the following in the Journal of Black Studies that “this is not surprising, considering the number of accomplishments in history that have been stolen or hidden from Blacks and attributed to members of the Caucasian race (1998).
Millions of people descend upon Rome, Italy during the death of a pope and the election of a new pope. On major Christian holidays, such as Easter or Christmas, the faithful look to Rome. In 2005, when Pope John Paul 11 died and when Pope Benedict was elected, four million people waited up to 30 hours to pay their respect to John Paul. There was continuous coverage by the media outlets from all around the world. The record shows documentation of 265 popes in the history of the Catholic Church. They have not all been holy. Dr. Thomas F. Noble, an authority on the history of the popes stated that some of the popes have been wicked, some holy, some efficient, and some very incompetent. There have been educated popes and some not very educated. Thirty popes claimed to be popes without any authority from any one. Even in modern society it is not unusual for some to claim that they have been sent from God.
Historically, the Catholic Church has been criticized due its silence during the enslavement of African people. Many accused the church of standing by and not doing anything when Africans were kidnapped, brutalized, and enslaved. It was not until Pope John Paul 11 apologized to Africans for the involvement of white Christians in the slave trade. He spoke on this topic on August 14, 1985. His audience was a group of Cameroonian intellectuals. He spoke about the importance of integrating the Christian message with African culture. He asked the Africans to pardon the church and Christians for the suffering of their people during enslavement.
The concept of the position of pope began with Peter. Peter was a fisherman named Simon. He was born in 4 B.C. Peter had a brother named Andrew. He met Jesus in 28 A.D. Jesus asked who did people say I am. Simon replied, Jesus, the son of the living God. Jesus replied that God alone had revealed this to Simon. He said, “you are Simon, the son of John. You will be called Cephas, which is rendered Peter (John 1:42).” In Matthew 16: 16-18 Jesus assigned Peter a leader’s role once again recognizing his identity. Jesus said, “You are Peter and upon this rock I shall build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. I will entrust to you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.”
Peter is considered the first pope in the Catholic Church. Peter was not perfect. He was the one who denied Christ but in the eyes of the Roman church, he became a leader and was exonerated. He first became a bishop and then a pope. Dr. Noble in his pub lication does mention the African popes. However, he does not call them African. If you see pictures of the popes, they all have features of Europeans. This is not unusual. The movies and media have done a great deal to distort images. For example, in the film about Hannibal, one of the greatest military generals in history, he was portrayed by a white actor named Victor Mature in a movie about his life.
Pope Benedict XV1 was elected on April 19, 2005. The office of the pope is called the Papacy. The popes also the head of the State of Vatican City in Rome, Italy. The popes in ancient times are listed in a publication called the Liber Pontificalis. It is com posed of a series of biographical entries that record the dates and important facts for each pope. It is the oldest and most detailed chronicle dating back to the early church.