WHERE WILL THE NEW POPE OF ROME COME FROM

Where will the new Pope of Rome to succeed Pope Benedict XVI come from? Will he be from Latin America, Africa or Asia? This question surfaced when Pope John-Paul died. It was posed by American and European writers I will not cite to substantiate what I have said as the answers are well documented on the Internet. The point many were trying to make was that it was high time a Holy Father of  Rome were from a third world nation state particularly from the continent of Africa or Latin America where Christianity was blossoming as never before. I may sympathize with them but a true Christian does not look at the color, shape of nose, foot, derriere,  political inclination or even gender of whoever is carrying the words of God. Consequently, to a true Christian, it is out of question to contemplate on the origin of the Pope of Rome or that it cannot be from Africa because of gerrymandering of the European cardinals at Rome. Their Christian followers are dwindling yet when it comes to voting, they have more votes than Latin America with more Christians and Africa. What should be understood is that word of God from any preacher of any color still carries the same weight as the authentic Bible, the words of God. 

Well, to Europeans or rightly Caucasians, the color of man has ever been their problem and this had never been the case with Africans.  Europeans taught Africans the color of man's skin. Perhaps psychologists could venture into this domain but biologically speaking, there is no difference between a white and a black or yellow person.  However, the color question had and is still that of some Europeans, Caucasians, a fact partly implanted by enslavement of Africans in the past without which many Europeans and Arabs would not have been able to carry out slavery and slave trade. Do not ask me if Africans were never slavers and slave dealers. On a grande scale Africans were not inherently slavers and slave dealers. They did not pigeonholed man based on his color. The Europeans were the first to start categorizing men based on the color of their skin and to give certain colors 100% and others naught. They had no clue on the effect of climate on man's complexion.  Classifying man was their psychological way to enfeeble men from Africa in the 15th century. They gave the men of Africa a low percentage, even equating them to animals so as to use them for the creation of their wealth without remorse. They were nervous, naive and had not known the history of  man in the world. The moment they understood,  their definition of man and  interpretation of his color took a different outlook. The past is being forgotten or completely abandoned in some quarters. If you go to some part of the world and ask what slavery and slave trade were some children will not know what you are talking about. Today Chinese, East Indians and Africans living in what used to be exclusively Caucasian homelands are powerful and command respect not out of sympathy but because of their intellectual vivacity and wealth. That was the sort of equality of mankind the African American, Martin  Luther King Jr. had preached and even died for.

If the first man and woman were Africans who eventually moved and permeated the other parts of the world from the continent of Africa, a known fact, it is therefore cultures and climatic factors that would make those who are in diaspora to be different from the parent-man in the home of the origin of man, Africa. Owing to a lack of knowledge which many still do not have today or claim to lack, man was classified or is still classified based on his color in some countries instead of his intellect, which Europeans of the past defined themselves based on pseudo-scientific knowledge. They did not know that  colors and shapes of man were determined by climatic factors. With their shoddy definition of color, without knowing the origin, the people who discriminate based on color remained in darkness worst than they were in the Dark Ages.  Again, they believed that an African was lower in the color echelon they set for themselves and therefore was not a perfect man as a Caucasian. They were wrong and many with level-heads have admitted the errors or the past. Which color of the spectrum is superior? The Caucasians who were supposed to be advanced in sciences brought all sorts of ruses to substantiate their theory of the inferiority of the black man.  We know that it was wrong as rudimentary sciences or most sciences we use now to improve our lives originated then in Africa but hitherto others still want to hang on to those degenerate jetsam.

They were to realized that they were awry and gave the black man his rightful place on earth, hence slavery, colonialism, apartheid and to some extent neocolonialism were dropped and Africans, Asians and East Indians welcome into the club of manly men, let us call it the civilized man. But were they never civilized? Others apologized for the past enslavement and others do think that it was the work of their fore-parents they had nothing to do with. This is not a revelation from me: The white man is the son of a black man. To those who did not believe in that, they will still say bunkum to this statement and would consider an African Bishop of Rome as a maverick or a novelty. I have this question for them: Is  President Barack Obama a maverick or a competent US president? Was he elected by whites out of sympathy or his competence? Was Mr. Koffi Anan the first African Secretary General of the U.N.O. a maverick? Is Ban Ki Moon an Asian after him not doing a good job?  What has the color of his skin or his continent of origin got to do with his performance? Europeans and may be Chinese might be the ones to look at an African Bishop of Rome as a maverick because of the past history. They have to live with modernity and to say out loudly that lots of mistakes were made in the pass that need to be corrected and Africans begged forgiveness.

To Africans who even know that Christianity, that part of Jewish tradition propagated by Jesus Christ originated from Africa (Jews originated from Africa and they could not have been Africans and emigrated to Asia and elsewhere, Promise-land without their Africanness.) Africans do not have any problem accepting Christianity coming back to them in sundry forms and shapes handled by eloquent Caucasian preachers. Africans owe a lot to them and I am acknowledging their contribution in industrialization, and Evangelization of modern Africa. 

The questions is if Caucasians, Europeans would have accepted Christianity if its harbingers were pure, full-blooded Africans? That is hypothetical. I see Europeans would have accepted it as Christianity was not part and parcel of their culture before Saints Peter and Paul established it in Rome. The Romans spread it to other parts of the Roman Empire and eventually to Africa, and to America, and Asia by European missionaries. So, nominating an African or Latino or Asian should not be a hard nut to be cracked.  Whether Europeans who had ever dominated the Vatican want it of not, a Holy Father in the 21st century must come from Africa. Why? Do we not see many Africans from the continent of Africa as ministers now in Europe and North America?  When they preach I see European and North American Christians in these continents listening to them open-mouthed as it was the turn of Europeans in the past and sparingly today in Africa.

It should be made clear that Africans Bishops of Rome had been before and if an African Cardinal is elected the Pope of Rome by the cardinals who are now congregating at Rome to receive blessing from Pope Benedict XVI, it will not be the first and the last time in the history of the Catholic Church. It should not be surprising to many as the announcement of Pope Benedict XVI to step down instead of dying in his office. Why should it be surprising?  Perhaps to Europeans and others and not to Africans!

A true believer or Catholic will not go to church or leave his  church because the color of his or her preacher is different from his or hers or is culturally different from the one who had been before. Therefore, the faith of many true believers will not be shaken by the choice of any Cardinal, particularly one from Africa. If others choose to, then they may not have had the words of Jesus Christ truly strongly implanted in their faith.  

Again many Africans know that Europeans, Indians and Chinese are their children and have ever been glad when preachers have ever been coming from their regions to Africa. Africans do not have problems with people of other parts of the world be they of any color. The reverse is sometimes true as witnessed by outbursts during sports by some Caucasian players or spectators and many who would still use the derogatory n... word to refer to African Americans who made the Caucasian a rich man he is in American today.  On the whole Africans do not discriminate. They are the ones who are opening up to let in Chinese, Indians and Europeans in droves to come in and settle amicably. Did they open their doors or are they opening the doors of their countries for Africans to come in and settle without strain?  Instead discrimination was and occasionally is by other races whom I have mentioned above who are still anchored  to racism that was instituted in the past when Europeans of days of darkness were using Africans as cartels for their economic advancement. In those days it was imponderable for Queen Elizabeth I of England to equate an African to a European when Africans as cargoes, brought money to the British economy or to almost all of North America that was literally a British possession. If Africans were considered as not noble savages or true human beings, it would have been unthinkable for Europeans to buy and sell them.

Further if an African is elected Holy Father of Rome it may change Europeans and others' thinking towards African and it might give him the full grandeur that he had had before it was taken away by slavery, colonialism, apartheid and others alien evils. Will that be the case? Will people not want to impose on him the idea of gay marriages, adoption of children by homosexuals, priests getting married, priestesses being ordained, termination of babies or fetuses as human rights and many others? Having the rein of the Papacy may be exciting but challenging.

We understand in developed countries many are leaving the Catholic Church and staying at home or joining other churches because the Catholic Church is stoic, nor flexible and not moving with the present thinking. Is it? It does.  Should Christians be moving along with certain contemporary world's way of reasoning or follow what its Founder, Jesus Christ instituted?  Will many just accept an African Pope as a will of God? If it is a European priest as had ever been, to me, it is still the will of God. Being a Christian as I am, I will accept whoever God will guide his cardinals to choose as I accepted Jesus Christ usually portrayed in the image of a Caucasian without complaining. The question is, will Europeans or Caucasians accept a dark-skinned Holy Father of Rome without flinching in their faith as Africans and other non-European races have been doing?  From my perspective, God's representative has no color, race or should come from a particular continent. From what we learned above, he has ever been an African and will continue to be an African be he black or white or yellow the three prototype of God's children on earth. 

Viban Viban Ngo, PhD.