Succession hints as Pope picks new
African cardinals

The elevation of three African Catholic archbishops to cardinals now raises the number of Africans eligible to elect a Pope to 18 putting them in a pole position to determine Pope Francis’ successor.

On Sunday, Pope Francis promoted Tanzania’s archbishop Protase Rugambwa, Stephen Brislin (Cape Town, South Africa) and Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla (Juba, South Sudan) to cardinals
The three were among 21 cardinals appointed by Pope Francis last weekend in what insiders say could be a choreographed plan to determine his succession.

The appointments were made barely two weeks after Pope Francis named his theological right hand man, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández of Argentina, to the same post once held by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, as the Vatican’s doctrinal czar.

By naming Fernández to the post of Dicastery of the Doctrine, Francis essentially has brought a key member of his “kitchen cabinet” into his administration, giving him the formal powers that many observers believed he already wielded behind the scenes.

It also sets up Fernández to be a major force in the pope’s looming Synods of Bishops on synodality, set for this October and October 2024.

The appointments also come barely three months before the 86 year old pontiff chairs a crucial assembly, the Synod on Synodality, at the Vatican in October that is scheduled to debate and reach consensus on some of the controversies engulfing the church such as the role of women, celibacy, LGBTQ, solemnisation of same-sex marriages and the role of the laity in liturgy and church affairs.

Vatican observers say Pope Francis, a liberal who has previously expressed possibilities of stepping down on health grounds like his predecessor Benedict XVI, could be keen to protect the reforms he has initiated by ensuring that his like minded liberals form the majority in the Conclave, the body of cardinals that elect a Pope.

Other African cardinals, besides the three newly appointed, legible to participate in the Conclave include Kenya’s John Cardinal Njue, Nzapalainga Dieudonné (Central African Republic), Peter Ebere Okpaleke (Nigeria), Fridolin Besungu Ambongo (DRC), Antoine Kmabanda (Rwanda), Desire Tsarahazana (Madagascar), Lopez Romero (Morocco), Arlindo Gomes Furtado (Cape Verde), Peter Kadwo Appiah Turkson (Ghana), Berhaneyesus Demerew Souraphiel (Ethiopia), Jean-Pierre Kutwa (Ivory Coast), Robert Sarah (Guinea), Philippe Nakellentuba Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso), Polycarp Pengo (Tanzania), John Olorunfemi Onaiykan (Nigeria) and Jean Zerbo (Mali).

Only cardinals below 80 years are allowed to participate in the election, meaning that Kenya’s Cardinal Njue, presently 79, would be eligible if the poll was to be held any time from next year.

It was highlighted in January that none of the continent’s cardinals hold major offices within the institution.

Francis made the announcement July 9 during the Angelus. The new cardinals who will be installed on September 30 come from across the globe, with the Holy Father saying the lineup “expresses the universality of the Church that continues to announce the merciful love of God to all men of the earth.”
Only three of the 21 new cardinals are above 75 years, meaning the 18 may have been chosen with the pope’s succession in mind.

Following his appointment, Brislin of Cape Town said he was “surprised” at the elevation and noted that he was “confused and bewildered.”

In an audio message shared with the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Brislin said: “I have been taken by surprise, and, to be honest, I feel quite confused and bewildered at the moment.”
He expressed the wish to walk in the footsteps of other South African Cardinals such as Cardinals Owen McCann and Wilfrid Napier, whom he said “always gave extreme service not only to the Church in Southern Africa but also to society itself and for the good of the country.”

Born September 24, 1956 in Welkom, Brislin received his priestly ordination on November 19, 1983.
He was consecrated as the Bishop of Kroonstad, South Africa, by Pope Benedict on January 28, 2007. He was installed as Archbishop of Cape Town on February 7, 2010, on the Solemnity of Our Lady of the Flight into Egypt, the patronal feast of the Archdiocese of Cape Town.

From 2013 to 2019, he was the President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Before his elevation, Archbishop Ameyu of Juba in South Sudan had made headlines when he faced stiff resistance when he was transferred to the country’s only metropolitan seat.

On December 12, 2019, Ameyu was appointed by Pope Francis to head the Juba archdiocese. A group of three priests and five laymen from the Archdiocese of Juba, claiming to be indigenous and representing “the majority of concerned people of the Archdiocese,” wrote a protest letter stating that Ameyu “will not be accepted to serve as Archbishop of Juba under any circumstance.”

They accused the prelate of conspiring with some government officials and some Juba priests to promote himself as archbishop for personal reasons, charging that Ameyu had influenced a Vatican diplomat to push through the appointment and that the cleric had sired at least six children.

He denied the allegations. By elevating him to the rank of cardinal, Francis seems to have reconfirmed his faith in his choice.

Born in Ido in Sudan on January 10, 1964, Ameyu received his priestly ordination in 1991. After carrying out pastoral work in Khartoum, he studied at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome from 1993 to 1997, obtaining a doctorate in dogmatic theology. He then taught at the seminary of Juba, South Sudan, eventually becoming its rector.

On January 3, 2019, Pope Francis named him bishop of Torit, a diocese that had been vacant for five years since the passing of Bishop Akio Johnson Mutek in 2013. He was named the archbishop of Juba by Pope Francis on December 12 the same year and he took office on March 22, 2020.

And welcoming the appointment of archbishop Rugambwa as cardinal, the Secretary General of the Tanzania Episcopal Conference, Bishop Charles Kitima, said the appointment is “a blessing for our nation.”
The new Tanzanian cardinal was born on May 31, 1960, in Bunena, Tanzania. He was ordained a priest by Saint John Paul II on September 2, 1990, for the diocese of Rulenge-Ngara. He received his doctorate in pastoral theology in 1998 from Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University.

From 2000 to 2002, Rugambwa served as the Rulenge-Ngara diocese’s vicar general. He worked as a representative of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples from 2002 to 2008.
He was named bishop of the Kigoma diocese in Tanzania on January 18, 2008. In June 2012, he was given the personal title of archbishop and appointed adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and president of the Pontifical Mission Societies. He was named secretary of the same congregation on November 9, 2017.

Pope Francis designated him Coadjutor Archbishop of Tabora (Tanzania) on April 13, 2023.