Is Africa Becoming the Heart of the Church? Archbishop Nwachukwu on the Future of Catholicism

A Vatican archbishop on tribalism, migration, and why the West needs the faith it once exported.

As Christianity declines across much of the West, it is expanding rapidly in Africa—reshaping not only the demographics of the Church, but its future leadership, priorities, and voice.

In this conversation, Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu offers a clear-eyed account of that shift, arguing that the Church is entering a new phase: no longer defined by Western missionary outreach, but by a global return.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why blaming colonialism is not enough—and how tribalism has become its modern counterpart

• The Church as the only force capable of healing ethnic division and forming the human mind

• How Pope Leo’s upcoming visit to Africa speaks not just to the continent, but to Europe and the world

• The deeper spiritual crisis behind war, violence, and what he calls the “selfie” culture of modern humanity

• What Western Christians must learn from a Church that is growing, vibrant, and confident

This is a conversation about power, responsibility, and a renewal in a rapidly changing global Church.

Transcript

Intro: Fortunatus Nwachukwu is a Nigerian archbishop serving at the Vatican in the Dicastery for Evangelization, where he helps oversee its mission in some of the fastest-growing parts of the Church. A biblical scholar and former Vatican diplomat, he has served across Africa and Europe, including at the Holy See’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva and in the Secretariat of State of the Vatican. Now, he stands at a unique crossroads—watching the center of gravity of Christianity shift. In this conversation with Catholic News Service, filmed at the Palazzo Propaganda Fide ahead of Pope Leo’s April 2026 visit to four African countries, we turn to the questions shaping the Church’s future—and what the West can learn from a Christianity that is still alive and expanding. And we ask: as Catholicism in the West shows signs of decline, is Africa becoming the heart of the Church?

Robert Duncan: Archbishop Nwachukwu, thank you for sitting down with Catholic News Service.

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Thank you for having me.

Robert Duncan: Well, I’m at your house today. I’m in your offices.

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Well, it’s a pleasure having you here.

Robert Duncan: I want to talk a little bit about the future of Catholicism and how Africa plays a role in that. People say that the global South is where the Church is growing. Do you see that Africa and the Church in Africa is going to play an important role in the Church’s future? And what would that look like?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: I think the Church in Africa is already playing an important role. We must bear in mind that the Church in Africa has grown from being a receiving church and is gradually becoming a giving church. And that is why we are talking of what I call the Church of the Sheaves. Because if you remember in Psalm 126, the Psalm that speaks of the return of the exiles of Zion, in verse 6, we read, they go out, they go out full of tears, carrying seed for the sowing. They come back, they come back full of songs, carrying their sheaves. My interpretation, our reading is currently that those who went out in tears, carrying seed for the sowing, were the missionaries that came from the West, going to the mission countries, not only in Africa. They left at a time when we did not have the current means of communication or transportation. So most of them, at their departure, did not think they would come back. So their going was like a dying. And one can only imagine the amount of tears that flowed as they bade farewell to their beloved, to their loved ones. And so they fit perfectly. The text of the Psalms, Psalm 126, verse 6, they go out, they go out full of tears. But they did not go empty handed. They were carrying the seed of the Gospel. So carrying seed for the sowing. They are the missionaries that went out and they sowed the seeds. And the seeds they sowed have germinated, produced plants, and those plants are now producing abundant fruit. We are now living the time of the harvest, the time of the sheaves. So we see the harvest in Africa, all over the place in Africa. We see it in Asia. We see it in various parts of the world where the churches that grew from this missionary endeavor are now flourishing. And so we are at the moment of saying, they come back, they come back full of songs. Think of the songs, the joy in the African liturgy. They come back, they come back full of songs, carrying their sheaves. The young churches are now bringing in the sheaves, which are the fruits of the sacrifice, the missionary endeavor of those heroes of our faith, the missionaries.

Robert Duncan: Is the church in Rome ready for African church leadership? Often those who have followed the Church and the media in particular have portrayed leaders from the African church and leaders from the European or Western church as being at odds in different matters like sexuality and church authority during recent synods. Do you see unity at risk if Africa is playing an increasingly important role, globally?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Wherever you have two people, you have diversity of opinions. Even among Africans in Africa, we have diversity of opinions. Think of the situation in Rome. One thing I can tell you is that the Church had been blessed with excellent popes. And these popes from the time even before, but especially from the time of Pope Paul VI, have been very, very open and not just supportive, but also very encouraging to the African church. Think of the declaration of Pope Paul VI in Uganda in 1969, when he called the Africans that they have to become now the missionaries of their own continent. And then it was like telling the Africans that the church has become adult, no longer a teenage church, but an adult church. I’m going to come back maybe to talk about that. But then you think also of Saint John Paul II, and how the amount of attention he gave to Africa, even calling the first special assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Africa. And then you think of his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, who called also the second special assembly on Africa of the Synod of Bishops. And then Pope Francis, all the openness. It was Pope Francis, for example, that brought me to Rome. And now we have Pope Leo XIV. Maybe people should know that once Pope Leo XIV was elected the Superior General of the Augustinians, when he was elected Superior General of the Augustinian Order, one of his first trips, I don’t know whether it was actually the very first, but one of his first trips was to Africa. So we have people, popes, that have been open to Africa and very welcoming to Africans. Is that a generalized thing? Of course, we have also people, Westerners, not just in Rome, but all over the place, that look at Africans with some diffidence. And they look at Africans as these immigrants. Even some priests and some people think that Africans, if not just African immigrants, laypersons, but even priests and religious, like people who were coming to get jobs from them. And now that is a mentality we are trying to help them to correct. And I go back always to the text of Psalm 126, verse 6, to let them know we wouldn’t be here if there were no Europeans, no Westerners, that sacrificed the most important, the most beautiful moments of their lives, of their youth, to come to our countries to preach the Gospel. So we are not here out of accident. We are here as the children, the sons and daughters that came from the sacrifice of Western missionaries.

Robert Duncan: I’d like to pick up on that. I’m jumping around a bit from my plan, but because it’s the second time you’ve mentioned the missionary activity in Africa. I was, in preparing for this interview, I found a talk that you gave at the Gregorian a couple years ago online, and you said some very interesting things. For example: “We criticize (speaking of Africans), we criticize colonialism, but then we bring it home. We have enculturated colonialism in the form of tribalism and ethnic supremacy.” You also say, “We condemn white supremacy, but in Africa, we often practice ethnic supremacy ourselves.” And the last quote I’ll read you is, “In some places, people would rather accept a European bishop than a fellow African from another tribe. That is racism enculturated.” That is very true. And I still hold some opinion.

Archbishop Nwachukwu: That is very true. And I still hold (that) opinion.

Robert Duncan: Can you give more context?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: I can tell you, all of us criticize colonialism. And it is not rare to find Africans wanting to blame everything that is going bad, badly in Africa on colonialism. And then I tell people, look at other countries that have experienced also colonialism. I take Ireland, for example. They experienced colonialism. They are not just there licking their wounds. They have gone beyond. Of course, we don’t negate history, but we should not allow ourselves to be tied down to history. We have to go beyond what wounded us and find a show that we can go beyond our wounds. Colonialism was a very bad thing in history. We think of even the Shoah, of the Jews, for example. The Jews are not just there, staying there and weeping and wobbling on the ground. They keep the history. They don’t want to forget what was done to them, but they don’t let it pin them down. They have grown and they have gone far beyond. Now, this is what Africa should do. We should not just be there criticizing colonialism all the time and then remaining in the blame game. We should go beyond. Unfortunately, instead of working to go beyond colonialism, what we have done is almost, I put it in inverted commas, inculturating colonialism. The evils that we criticize in colonialism, we now practice to our own brothers and sisters, just because they belong to another clan, to another ethnic group, to another part, or even of the same ethnic group. And this, unfortunately, has crept into the Church in some places. This is very dangerous because we know that tribalism is rampant in many societies in Africa and who is going to heal it? The military have tried. Politicians have tried. Orders have tried. The only person, the only group we think should help in healing it is the Church. Why? Because the Church gives a common ground to everybody, a common principle, the principle of loving, not just like oneself. I have to underline that. Love your neighbor like yourself is not the basic principle of the church. That is Old Testament. Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18. It comes from the Old Testament. Loving your neighbor like yourself, almost as it were, making yourself the point of departure. No, Jesus changed that. Jesus said, loving your neighbor no longer like yourself, but like I, Jesus, have loved. So, all Christians have one point of reference, Jesus Christ. John chapter 13, verse 34. If we were to keep to what we take as our basic text, which is the Bible, for Christians, the gospel especially, we wouldn’t have space for this new colonialism that presents itself as tribalism and ethnocentrism.

Robert Duncan: Many people, though, in the West will say that the Church itself is part of colonialism’s legacy.

Archbishop Nwachukwu: No, the Church, the people, the colonialists came looking for what they would take away. The Church did not come looking for what it would take away. The Church came looking for what it would give to those in need, to the local populations. Of course, even as we have it today, we have people, politicians especially, people that are self-centered, who try to manipulate religion and use it for their personal interests. We had that also among colonial powers, among some colonialists. And so, they tried to, some places, manipulate agents of the Church. But the sincere, true missionaries had no colonial interests. Their interest was bringing new way of living, education, new way of health care, health care, new way of hygiene. They were focused on the health, the life, and well-being of the people to whom they brought the Gospel.

Robert Duncan: What formed you spiritually growing up? You’re from Nigeria. What were your early life experiences and how did they shape your vocation?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: My vocation actually came especially from my father. My father was a primary school headmaster. He was formed under the Irish missionaries and he believed very firmly, he imbibed the principles taught by the Irish missionaries. And those were the principles he transferred to us. I must tell you that my mother was Anglican until marriage. So, I began growing as a child on two legs, the firm leg of Catholicism and the other leg, weaker one, of Anglicanism. Whenever I went to my maternal home, my maternal siblings would try to make a mockery of me because of our devotions to the saints and the blessed Virgin Mary and so on. And that pushed me early to start digging into the Bible to know how to prepare my defense when I met them. Now, at the age of six, five or six, they told me I started mimicking the priest that came to celebrate in my father’s school. And that was only twice or thrice every year because the parish was so big. It had more than 50, 60 outstations and the priest was coming to our part only twice or three times a year. And although I was small, whenever the priest left, I came to learn from my parents that I would go there and I began to mimic the priest. And I tried to tell them that I would be like that priest. He later on became a monsignor. That was the priest that baptized me. So, at the age of five, six, I was already thinking of being like that parish priest. And my father started also giving me some religious books to read. Unfortunately, that dream, that lofty dream of a child was cut shut and destroyed. In 1967, when at the age of seven, I experienced the most horrible thing any child would experience. The Biafran Civil War. I was a child of Biafra and I saw my own friends, colleagues, overnight develop distended stomachs due to kwashiorkor or beriberi and they died.

Robert Duncan: What was the conflict about?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: It was a conflict between Nigeria and my part of Nigeria, which took the name of Biafra and wanted to be independent. I don’t want to go into the causes and so on, but this part of Nigeria felt there was some bit of discrimination against it and felt, okay, if you don’t want us inside, we want to be independent. And Nigeria did not want it. And so the civil war broke out and it seemed that Nigeria used hunger as one of its weapons of war. And sorry to say, Nigeria had the support, tacit or in some cases open, of most European countries of the time. And so I lost two of my sisters, not in combat, but to war, to lax. And for three years, I saw the dreams of my childhood, you know, vanish, disappear. Thanks to God, the war came to an end. When the war finished, of course, you can imagine how I felt towards the rest of the Christians of Nigeria, because many of those who came to fight us were also Christians, not Muslims. The head of the Nigerian government, Yakubu Gowon, was a Christian. He’s still alive. He’s still a Christian. So I began as a young person to ask myself, how could Christians do such things to their fellow Christians? Of course, the Nigerian side had also the Muslims with them, but the leader of Nigeria was Christian. Most of the generals and leaders of the Nigerian army were Christians. As a child, of course, I was asking myself, was it not possible for the Christians to reach an agreement? I don’t even know. I came to know that the two leaders, Yakubu Gowon, a Christian, and Odumegwu Ojukwu, a Christian, the leader of the Biafrans, met in Ghana, and they were not able to reach an agreement. Of course, they reached an agreement, an Aburi agreement. Why were they not able to implement it? So, the same feeling is the feeling I had when I heard of the Russian-Ukrainian war. People were telling me of political, geographical interests, and I was asking them, excuse me, Russia is full of Orthodox Christians. Ukraine is full of Orthodox Christians. Which Christ are we worshipping? How can we profess to be sincerely Christians and we cannot sit down and negotiate and find meeting ground based on the gospel that we receive from Christ? This is a total betrayal of Christ.

Robert Duncan: So, in a context like that, what does it mean that Christianity is growing? Are they rival Christianities? Is it all positive news that Christianity is growing in Africa?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Christianity is growing in Africa. What I’m talking about is, of course, Christianity has always tried to challenge the consequences of sin. You know that the origin of violence in humanity is not directly from God. It is from turning away from God. I will take you, maybe, if you don’t worry, I take you quickly back to the Bible a little bit. God created the human being, according to the Bible, to be his reflection, God’s reflection. If we read Genesis 1:26-27, and God said, “Let us make man and woman in our image and likeness.” So, God made the human being in God’s image and likeness. What does that mean? That God made the human being to be like a mirror or a camera focused on God so that whoever looks into it does not see himself or herself, but sees God. That’s capturing the reflection of God. And so, God said to this human being, you must maintain me as a measure of what is good and bad. Eat of every fruit, but not that of the measure of good and bad. This is now Genesis 2:16. But then in Genesis 3, man and woman did exactly what God said they should not do. And once they ate of that fruit, what happened? They changed their camera from being focused on God, capturing God’s image, to doing selfie. So, they started capturing their image. That is why once they ate of that fruit and God called them, their eyes were opened and they saw not God, but they saw themselves as naked. So, which means eyes opening is almost like a subtle way of saying that their camera was turned the other way and they began to see themselves and no longer God, because they had eaten the fruit of using themselves as measure. And so, they began to see themselves. They became the center. And so, God put them away from the place of intimacy with God. That’s how at the end of Genesis 3, they were moved away from the Garden of Eden. And once the focus was no longer on God, but on self with the selfie, violence came. And until today, all the cases of violence we have are the consequence of selfie in human relations. Look at them. It is about me, about my interests. It is about me and my selfishness against my brother, my sister. Now, what does Christianity preach? Move the focus from yourself, return to Christ, the perfect image of God. That is where Christ says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” John chapter 14 verse 6. If only Christians were to know that they have the most formidable arm, weapon, for not defeating every violence, every misunderstanding, every war, we have the Gospel.

So, the Gospel, the Church growing in Africa, means also putting this weapon in the hands of many more people. Now we have the weapon. The challenge of the Church today is to teach the people how to use that weapon, which is the Gospel, and to reach the reconciliation and the peace and justice that that weapon brings. You know, I was amazed thinking of the theme of the Second Assembly for Africa, of the Synod of Bishops that was convoked by Pope Benedict XVI, the Church of Africa. Reconciliation, peace, and justice. These are the things that flow from a good evangelization. We are not having the numbers. The challenge is to tell the people how to harness the weapon in our hands in making the numbers work.

Robert Duncan: When this interview airs, the Pope will be just days away from a four-country trip to Africa. He’ll be going to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea. Why does this trip matter beyond Africa? What should the global Church, and in particular, maybe people in the Western world, be paying attention to as the Pope goes to Africa?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: This visit is very important because the world is no longer fragmented as it used to be, especially in our moment. Since we started talking about globalization, globalization, and now we are talking about the era of social media, so we no longer have distances, as it were. We are all together. We form one single village. So, what happens in Africa reverberates also in Europe or in the U.S. If things are not good in Africa, you do whatever you want, the people are going to flood towards Europe. So, it is necessary, people are speaking, saying here in Europe, let us try to help them, help their country so that they will remain home. To change a person, you begin with the mind. And the visit of the Pope, the message of the Pope, is a message that always goes towards the formation of the mind. Think of his visit to Algeria. The symbol of the visit is that of two doves, now drinking from a common cup, sharing peace. And that means telling people, peace is what we need. Algeria, I served in Algeria as Secretary of the Nunciature for three years, in a difficult moment, from 1999 to 2002. And I saw, I visited much of the country, even down south up to Tamanrasset, to the tomb of Charles de Foucauld. I visited the tomb, that is almost, the desert sands are coming so close to the tomb. So, I visited this country. It is a country where we have a very small, a tiny population of Catholics in a predominantly Muslim country. But the Pope is giving the message that the little ship we have there is a flock that loves peace and that loves also to drink with the rest of the doves from the same cup of peace. So, his message there is going to be certainly the message of peace. I understand he’s going to visit the Grand Mosque, the Great Mosque, and then he is going to celebrate and then speak with the Christians, Catholics, at Notre Dame d’Afrique, just in front of the Apostolic Nunciature. So, that is a message also focused on the mind, speaking of peace and sharing. He goes on to Cameroon, and that is, the message of Cameroon is very important because Cameroon stands at a meeting point between West Africa, Central Africa, Savannah Africa towards the north, and a bit moving a bit towards the south. So, it is very central. And the problems, the issues we have in Cameroon are issues that we have in various parts of Africa. So, the symbol we have there is a symbol we should be able to apply to every part of Africa. Think of the Bible lying below the image of the country, and then from the Bible, the cross of Christ coming out. So, this is like saying the message of the Gospel that brings us the image of Christ. The cross is not just the cross of death, it is the cross that is the embrace. The embrace that gathers people together, irrespective of their ethnic or tribal affiliations, irrespective of their political, social affiliations, in a country that is also the part, the English-speaking part, is facing some internal conflicts. This type of message of the Bible bringing Christ and trying to speak of, there is also another image of a dove, which means peace through the Gospel and the presence of Christ. That is a very strong message. And so, the Pope is going to be certainly talking about peace, reconciliation, justice and peace. I don’t know the text, but from the symbol, from the image, you can have the intuition that the Pope is going to be addressing these issues. You go on to Angola. Angola, as we know, for various years encountered wars, and so there was a lot of shedding of blood. Maybe that is why the color red is very strong in the symbol that we have in Angola. But then also we have the other elements of nature and then of family, which means that the Pope is also going to be talking about the suffering of the people. He is going to be talking about the need to rise from the ashes and to move towards a better future.

Robert Duncan: Also mining?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Well, he’s going to be talking about... I said we did not participate directly in preparing the Pope’s visit, so I do not have any access to his texts. If I were requested to contribute, maybe when he talks about justice and peace, you cannot talk about justice in a country like that without touching things like the question of mining.

“You cannot talk about justice in a country like (Angola) without touching things like the question of mining.”

Robert Duncan: And the reason for that, I mean, one possible connection, Pope Leo has talked about artificial intelligence, and many of the raw materials that go to build the data centers and the phones, you were talking about selfies earlier, come from mining in Africa, in places like Angola.

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Well, that’s true. Angola, but especially RDC, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And then, unfortunately, these are countries that are battered by the selfie, personal interests of people that are not thinking of the local populations, but are thinking of their own personal interests. The selfie in man that has turned man into agent of sin. So, this is the thing that the Gospel is trying to contrast, the tendency of selfie. The Gospel is saying, change the camera, return it to Christ. Now, I have to tell you, the expression, their eyes were opened, I found in two interesting moments, permit me to just make this little digression. At the moment of the selfie in Genesis, when man and woman, people say they ate apple. No, what they did was twist what God said. God said, do not touch the question of judgment of good and evil. That belongs to me. God wants himself to be the yard stick for measuring good and evil. So, we should be focused on God. In Genesis chapter 3, that fruit they ate turned them, and they were focused no longer on God, but themselves. Think that in Genesis chapter 2, verse 24. The two of them were naked, but they were not ashamed. Why? Because they were not even seeing themselves as naked, because they were totally focused on God. But in Genesis chapter 3, once they ate of this fruit, we see their eyes were opened, which means the eyes turned, they began to do selfie. The eyes again turned again, opened again, in Luke chapter 24. If you read up to verses 31 and 32, these are the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, after the resurrection of Christ. When they received the bread, blessed and broken by Christ, we read their eyes were opened. Exactly the same Greek expression that we have in Genesis chapter 3. We have it here. Their eyes were opened, but they did not see themselves. They recognized Christ. So, it was like the selfie of Genesis was turned back and refocused on Christ through the Eucharistic bread that was blessed by Christ. So, the Eucharist brings us back from selfishness to Christ. Are we able to bring this message to our people, the message of the Gospel, that makes us focus on Christ as a center? That is the challenge we have in our Africa and in the universal Church.

Robert Duncan: The last of the four countries was Equatorial Guinea.

Archbishop Nwachukwu: In Equatorial Guinea, I think the symbol there focuses mainly on symbols like the family and so on, but it also has a boat there. I think there again, the attention is on mission and then on the family life. That is also a place that the Holy Father is going to again be focusing on the mind of the people. It’s just like saying he’s going to tell the people a new mind for a new life.

Robert Duncan: Many people listening may have heard of these countries, but may not be able to identify them on the map. Do you have a key for what they could be paying attention to, why they should tune into this trip, even if the Pope is not coming to see them and it seems like something far away?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Okay, I’ll just tell you some specific things about them. Algeria stays in the North and the dominant language in Algeria is Arabic. St. Augustine is from there. That was the powerhouse of the Latin church in the first years of Christianity in Northern Africa. The Pope, thanks be to God, is visiting there. He’s Augustinian. And so it is what you could call Arab Africa. Cameroon is a meeting point between English-speaking Africa and French-speaking Africa. So you just come below, you come immediately sub-Saharan Africa, the first level there. As I said, from the West, Western Africa and from Eastern Africa, they meet in Cameroon. From the North and the South, they meet in Cameroon. And so in Cameroon, you have a meeting of French-speaking Africa and English-speaking West Africa also, they meet in Cameroon. Now below Cameroon, a little bit below and towards the West, staying just below Nigeria, you have Equatorial Guinea. That is one of the few countries in Africa that speak Spanish. So you have the purpose of visiting Spanish-speaking Africa. And then Angola is a little bit further. You know, Angola is interesting. Angola was the seat of what used to be the Congo, where Catholicism stayed in the Middle Ages. The first Catholic ambassador that was accredited to the Holy See came from the Congo in today, the Kingdom of the Congo, that is today Angola. Today’s Angola. The ambassador Ne Vunda left, I think it was about the 15th or the 16th, early 16th century. He was accredited to the Holy Father, to the Holy See, and he left by ship traveling from Angola by sea towards Spain and Portugal. And then eventually, after various months, he arrived in Rome, but was already sick when he arrived. And when he arrived in Rome, he died. And the Pope then wanted him to be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore. He is the only African buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. So to tell you how important Angola is to the presence of Christianity in Africa, presence of Catholicism in Africa, and this Angola today is Portuguese-speaking Africa. So with these four countries, the Pope with one shot is taking Arabic-speaking Africa, French and English-speaking Africa, Spanish-speaking Africa, and Portuguese-speaking Africa in one shot.

Robert Duncan: I’d like to conclude by asking you, what worries you most about the future of Africa or the current situation now? Generally, it’s a large continent. We didn’t really have a chance to talk about Islam and the threat of religious violence. What are the issues that maybe we didn’t talk about that keep you up at night?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Well, the issue that keeps me up at night most is what you mentioned at the beginning, and that was the enculturation of colonialism and colonialistic tendencies in the form of tribalism, in the form of ethnocentrism, in the form of clannishness that has dominated the political sphere. And where you have tribalism and clannishness and ethnocentrism, you have corruption, corruption tribes, because people don’t work for the public good. They work for the preservation of their interests, because they know that when the leader of the group changes to another tribe, they might lose their job. So they try to make hay while the sun shines. So that is a danger. That is a major danger we have there. Another danger, which is close to that, is the danger of non-acceptance. Unfortunately, if you go to the Arab North Africa, people speak of racism towards blacks in Europe and other places. Well, I can tell you, we also have it very, very strongly in the northern part of Africa towards sub-Saharan Africans. So it is an extended form of tribalism, but now influenced by the difference of color, because people in northern Africa, many of them are of lighter skin complexion, and so sometimes they have a tendency to despise their brothers from sub-Saharan Africa who have a darker skin color. That is also a challenge. Now, what about the challenge of Islam? I have to mention that violent Islam is not from Africa. I have to repeat that and underline it. Violent Islam is not from Africa. Well, you would say, I would even say further, neither Christianity nor Islam originated in Africa. Both of them came from outside. Now, if a person is a guest in your place, we ask the guest to behave himself or herself. So we are asking people who are exponents of Islam and Christianity in Africa to behave themselves. We have to behave ourselves in the continent and represent exactly and live exactly what our religions preach. Islam —from Salaam — says (it’s) a religion of peace, then let them be a religion of peace and not of violence and not of terrorism. Christianity, we say, is a religion of love, religion of the person of Christ. Then let us be a religion that speaks of Christ and not of trying to manipulate the Gospel for personal interests and personal gains. This, the thing that worries me currently, is the question of manipulating religion, whether it is Islam or Christianity, manipulating religion for personal interests and personal gains instead of using or following religion for what it really teaches and what it really represents.

Robert Duncan: So I’d like to end on a positive note. Often Africa is described as being exuberant and the church in Africa being alive, whereas churches in Western European countries or even maybe the U.S. can be described as sleepy or in decline. So what can Christians in the Western world learn from African Christians?

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Well, the first thing I tell the Christians in the Western world is that God has made them hungry and they are passing a period of hunger so that they will be able to receive the fresh food that is coming from the mission lands. Because if the Church were still to be luxuriant, to be flourishing in the West, I’m sure they would be feeling, oh, we are satisfied, we don’t have need for these others. If you want to make a person enjoy food, you tell the person to fast a little bit. So God is making the West to fast a little bit so that they will be ready to welcome the sheaves that are coming back. And once they have imbibed that mentality of welcome, I call it the mentality of the mother who welcomes her child, once that has been done, the church in the West will rise again from its trunks. I don’t see the Church in the West as dying. It is passing through a phase of hunger to help it welcome the sheaves that are coming home.

Robert Duncan: Archbishop Nwachukwu, thank you so much for your time.

Archbishop Nwachukwu: Thank you very much.