page_title: Catholic Church in Africa
hierarchical_section_title: Catholic Church in Africa
caption_attribution_description: Pays ou le catholicisme est une religion importante. Countries whith an immportant catholic population.
context_page_description: The Catholic Church in Africa refers to parts of the Catholic Church in the various countries in the continent of Africa.
  Christian activity in Africa began in the 1st century when the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Egypt was formed as one of the four original Patriarchs of the East.
  However, the Islamic conquest in the 7th century resulted in a harsh decline for Christianity in northern Africa.
  Yet, at least outside the Islamic majority parts of northern Africa, the presence of the Catholic Church has recovered and grown in the modern era in Africa as a whole, one of the reasons being the French colonization of several countries in Africa. Catholic Church membership rose from 2 million in 1900 to 140 million in 2000. In 2005, the Catholic Church in Africa, including Eastern Catholic Churches, embraced approximately 135 million of the 809 million people in Africa. In 2009, when Pope Benedict XVI visited Africa, it was estimated at 158 million. Most belong to the Latin Church, but there are also millions of members of the Eastern Catholic Churches. By 2025, one-sixth of the world's Catholics are expected to be Africans.
context_section_description: The Catholic Church in Africa refers to parts of the Catholic Church in the various countries in the continent of Africa.
  Christian activity in Africa began in the 1st century when the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Egypt was formed as one of the four original Patriarchs of the East (the others being Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem).
  However, the Islamic conquest in the 7th century resulted in a harsh decline for Christianity in northern Africa.
  Yet, at least outside the Islamic majority parts of northern Africa, the presence of the Catholic Church has recovered and grown in the modern era in Africa as a whole, one of the reasons being the French colonization of several countries in Africa. Catholic Church membership rose from 2 million in 1900 to 140 million in 2000. In 2005, the Catholic Church in Africa, including Eastern Catholic Churches, embraced approximately 135 million of the 809 million people in Africa. In 2009, when Pope Benedict XVI visited Africa, it was estimated at 158 million. Most belong to the Latin Church, but there are also millions of members of the Eastern Catholic Churches. By 2025, one-sixth (230 million) of the world's Catholics are expected to be Africans.
  The world's largest seminary is in Nigeria, which borders on Cameroon in western Africa, and Africa produces a large percentage of the world's priests. As of June 26, 2020, there are also 29 Cardinals from Africa, out of 222, and 400,000 catechists. Cardinal Peter Turkson, formerly Archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana, is Africa's youngest Cardinal at 64 years old, and was also one of several prelates from Africa estimated as papabile for the Papacy in the last papal conclave of 2013.
caption: Countries in Africa with an important catholic population.
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