Dear Editor,

Cardinals from around the world are currently at the Vatican to select their new pope. There is nervous expectation, particularly on the African continent, that the next pope might reflect the diversity of its religious landscape.

On September 20, 1998, a segment of the CBS news programme 60 Minutes focused on who might succeed Pope John Paul I as head of the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Francis Arinze, an African from Nigeria, was described as having a reasonable chance of becoming the next pope.

It is instructive to note that among the 266 popes of the Catholic Church there have been three who were of African origin. The first was Pope Victor I, who served in the late second century and was the 14th pope in AD 189. He died a martyr of the faith in 199. The second was Pope Miltiades who served from 311-314 AD. The third was Pope Gelasius I (492-96), of whom Joseph Stanislaus Brusher, in his book, Popes Through the Ages, wrote: “Although a great writer, Gelasius made his strongest impression as a man of holiness…He was outstanding for his sense of justice and above all for his charity to the poor.”

The literature of the episcopates is rife with praise for these three popes, there was nothing that would suggest controversy of their ethnic identity. These three men were selected, they served with distinction, and this would be just unthinkable in today’s climate.

Hopefully, the biologically indefensible construct of race will not influence the collective decisions of the papal conclave assembled in the Sistine Chapel to elect the 267th successor to Pope Francis, who died on April 21, 2025.

The existential question is: Would today’s Catholics exit the church en masse if the papal conclave were to select an African Pope?

Barrington A Morrison

barringtonmorr@gmail.com