Pope heads for Africa hoping to quell rising tide of evangelicism

Published on Monday 16 March 2009 20:58

A SURGE in worshipper numbers at the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Luanda has prompted the pastor to buy a £14,000 grand piano and six loudspeakers for those outside to listen to his sermons.

In mountainous Huambo province, home to the fastest-growing evangelical churches in Angola, dozens crowd inside the small tin hut that is Christ Vision Church, singing, "You are poor but God loves you".

Like other evangelical churches in Angola, these two have flourished since the end of civil war in 2002, raising fears among Catholics that their Church is losing ground. Pope Benedict XVI starts his first visit to Africa today to address the issue, speaking to the faithful in both Angola and Cameroon.

Just over half Angola's 16.5 million people are Catholic, but the number of diversified sects has jumped to 900 from just 50 in 1992 – the year the government abandoned Marxism.

The Pope's visit will officially celebrate 500 years of evangelisation in Angola and may boost the Catholic Church's bid to win more hearts and minds.

"The Catholic Church lacks passion. It's really not a very exciting place," said Joao, from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Luanda, before holding his hands in the air to ask God to expel the evil demons from his body.

Fatima Viegas, the head of Angola's national institute on religion, said: "Evangelical pastors are now going to provinces like Huambo that were hard to reach during the war.

"These churches have become very attractive to Angolans because their rituals are very intense and some of them promise an immediate end to suffering, in a country where the majority of the population is still poor."

A widespread belief in witchcraft has also been a problem for the Catholic Church in Angola.

Jonas Savimbi, who led the opposition party Unita in its war against the government, fought alongside a woman whose magic he believed would protect him from enemy fire.

Last year, police rescued 40 children who had been held in a house by two religious sects after being accused by their families of witchcraft. The sects' leaders were later arrested.

Jose Queiroz Alves, the Catholic archbishop of Huambo, said: "The increasing number of sects is a threat to everyone, including the Catholic Church, because more and more people are being lured to these churches with empty promises."

The Catholic Church saw huge growth in Africa over the past century – it now counts for nearly 20 per cent of the population – helped by Pope John Paul II's visits to 42 African countries.

While the Vatican is a deeply European institution, it, too, has changed. Pope John XXIII appointed the first African cardinal in 1960. There are now 16 cardinals from Africa, out of 192.

For Benedict, whose only previous stop in Africa was Kinshasa in 1987 as a cardinal, the continent presents major challenges and opportunities.

Africa produces priests at a higher rate than anywhere in the world but finds itself in competition with Islam in Cameroon, Nigeria and elsewhere, while evangelical churches are winning over young people, much as they are doing in Latin America.

Some priests and nuns working with Aids victims are questioning the Church's opposition to condoms, while the celibacy required of priests is a challenge when many cultures consider boys to become men only after they have fathered children.