The Church We Want: African Catholics Look to Vatican III ed. by Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator (review)

The world is a very different place since Vatican II (1962–65), the last global ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. That council, in part, was meant to modernize the Church, opening it up to the world through deeper dialogue and partnership, ecumenically in terms of other Christians, and those of other or no faiths. Despite ongoing evaluation of its actual aims or successes (and failures), Vatican II helped fashion a Catholic ethos and culture that today is more engaged in dialogue with all peoples and cultures; it promotes human dignity and human rights; and it is more attuned to the political and economic engagement that springs from such truths. Also essential in reading “the signs of the times” was its call for the development and maturity of local churches, especially in the so-called third world.

In The Church We Want: African Catholics Look to Vatican III, eighteen articles were selected based on the wider work produced through a three-year research project involving African theologians, bishops, and other experts reflecting on theological and moral issues relevant to the Catholic Church in general, and Africa specifically, since 1965. Significantly, notwithstanding the book’s title, which implies a certain level of uniformity, the voices in the book are not uniform. The book is divided into three parts, with the first part examining the effects of Pope Francis on the Church in Africa; the second part assessing and critiquing how theology is taught and implemented in Africa and the significance and impact of Church teaching in Africa; and the third part specifically looking toward Vatican III and highlighting areas in need of deeper discussion and soul searching, particularly the role and value ascribed to women.

Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator offers an informed and passionate introductory essay that provides the context and main themes of each essay. In addition, he offers a glimpse into the kind of inclusive Church he envisions, rooted in social justice and the care of the poor, while embracing the full role of women at all levels within the Church. Only men are ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood and the subsequent higher levels of authority where the core decisions of Church life and practice are made. This core group of men also tends to be from Europe and North America, or trained and ordained there, although this face of the Church is slowly beginning to reflect the growing influence of the Catholic Church in the Global South.

In Part One, South African Bishop Kevin Dowling depicts his moving encounters with the poor and marginalized, many dying from HIV/AIDS, and reflects on how to do theology “in the face of such horrors” (6). Sister Anne Arabome presents a moving and urgent plea for African women to be granted deeper roles within the Church and criticizes Pope Francis for failing to steer and develop this further.

In Part Two, Nader Michel’s essay on Coptic Christianity in Egypt is illuminating, and Philomena N. Mwaura provides acute sociological analysis of the many problems inflicted upon marriage and the family across Africa (and its gap with idealized Church language). Caution and disappointment, however, must be added towards Teresa Okure’s contribution. In seeking to establish a New Testament Church, her essay is saturated in supersessionist thinking while showing little depth or respect for the Jewish faith and tradition. It highlights the deep need for Judaism and developments in Jewish-Christian studies to be taught in African seminaries and schools, and not be dismissed as a “concern of Western scholars to cope with the guilt of the Holocaust” (97).

Part Three is the strongest section of the work and provides the most fertile ground in leading the Church to Vatican III, or Nairobi I as Joseph G. Healey envisions. Tina Beattie’s focus on the silent suffering mothers of Africa, and Nontando M. Hadebe’s call to protect the rights of the most vulnerable is illuminating. Despite some minor flaws, the...