The story is well known in Rome, but it can serve to illustrate how the election of an African pope — which many would see as a step forward for the Church, a breath of fresh air, a definitive swipe at the Vatican’s rot — could also lead to a great disappointment. It happened at the end of 2023. The Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith had just published the declaration Fiducia supplicans, which allowed the blessing of same-sex couples, a way of putting into practice Pope Francis’ remark on the plane back from Rio de Janeiro: “Who am I to judge gay people?” The African Church as a whole was incensed. Most particularly Cardinal Fridolin Besungu Ambongo, 65, a Capuchin friar and archbishop of Kinshasa, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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