Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa has replaced Europe as the locus for the world’s Christians, due to both higher birthrates and Western Europe’s “widespread Christian disaffiliation” — with Christians declining as a share of the world’s population due to adherents leaving the faith, according to new research by the Pew Research Center.

As millions of pilgrims flocked to the famed Ugandan shrine in Namugongo in the days leading to commemoration of the country's 45 Christian martyrs, local authorities prevented an attempted terror attack in what they said was a swift secret service operation, possibly saving hundreds from imminent death.

Catholic bishops from Europe and Africa have issued a strong joint statement warning that Africa is once again becoming a "battleground for external interests"—particularly over land, resources and Europe's climate agenda.

The Catholic Register’s exclusive April 8 report about the threats two Nigerian clerics are facing for speaking abroad about Christian persecution in Benue State has sparked condemnations against religious intimidation from the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Nigeria, an international religious freedom alliance and by U.S. and U.K. politicians.

A Nigerian Catholic bishop standing in the breach to alert the world about Christian persecution in Benue State has drawn verbal attacks and apparent escalating threats in recent weeks.

Pope Francis appealed to South Sudan leaders to “lower the tension in the country” as Catholic bishops in Sudan and South Sudan expressed alarm at the escalating violence in the world’s youngest nation and warned of a catastrophe if full-scale war returns.

A young seminarian has become the latest victim of killings in Nigeria, the West African country where attack and kidnapping of Catholic clergy is on the rise.

Mary's Meals has launched a worldwide emergency campaign in the wake of nearly 21 million children across southern Africa facing malnutrition as poor harvests and some of the worst African droughts in living memory continue to plague countries well into the new year.

A "silent genocide"—mimicking the Rwandan one of 1994—is occurring eastern Congo, said some Catholic Church sources, as shock greeted the killing of 70 people in a Protestant church in the North Kivu Province.

Amid what a Catholic charity called "unimaginable" suffering of civilians trapped in civil war brutality in Sudan, the United States declared that one of the fighting factions is committing genocide in the country and slapped sanctions on its leader.