Migration has transformed Church in North Africa, cardinal says

October 23, 2024

» Continue to this story on L'Osservatore Romano (Italian)

CWN Editor's Note: Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, SDB, of Rabat, Morocco, said that migration from sub-Saharan Africa has transformed the life of the Church in his nation and nearby countries.

“After the departure of European Christians [following the end of the colonial era], the churches of our nations were emptied,” the prelate said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper. “With the arrival of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, they have filled up again, with one characteristic: they have become very young churches; the average age of our Christians today is 35 years old.”

He added:

Over the past 30 years, our communities have changed spectacularly. They have become more joyful, more enthusiastic. We have recovered the catechumenate of adults, we have reopened communities in cities from which they had disappeared ... Every year, we baptize 40 adults while the young people who receive the sacrament of confirmation are about a hundred.

Earlier in the synod, Cardinal López publicly criticized Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Africa’s leading prelate, for issuing a continental statement critical of Fiducia Supplicans, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s declaration on the pastoral meaning of blessings.

López, a Salesian, was ordained to the priesthood in 1979 and ministered in Paraguay, Bolivia, and his native Spain. The priest was a Salesian provincial in Spain when Pope Francis named him archbishop of Rabat, Morocco—a former Spanish colony—in December 2017. He was consecrated in 2018, and the Pope named him a cardinal the following year.

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