As Pope Benedict XVI makes his first trip to Africa as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, he will confront a phenomenon that can only be called a mystery.<\/p>\n
Why is it that Africa \u201d\u201c a continent of bloody conflicts, forced migration, rampant health problems, and profound poverty where as many as 800 million people suffer from chronic hunger \u201d\u201c contains some of the most exuberantly religious people on earth? How do Africans find so much hope amid the hopelessness?<\/p>\n
Unlike Europe and much of the Western world, where church membership seems to be on a constant decline, Africa is a kind of religious Klondike, where mainstream Christian churches, evangelical churches, and Muslim faiths all appear to be growing with no end in sight. The Catholic Church alone has 185 million members in Africa \u201d\u201c 20 percent of the continent’s population. In countries, like Angola, with a Catholic colonial past, Catholics make up 60 percent of the population.<\/p>\n