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One of the touchiest issues for Roman Catholicism is the reintroduction of African culture into the church. Most converts have long identified Catholicism with the Western European liturgy that they first learned. (TIME'S Rome Bureau Chief James Bell reported last week from Kampala that the Credo sung by Ugandan Catholics during the Pope's visit to Rubaga Cathedral was the purest Latin he had ever heard.) Until recently, older converts and African priests had resisted such innovations as Mass in the vernacular, native songs, instruments and dances, looking on them as part of their rejected past. Experimental native works like the famous Missa Luba were first encouraged by white missionaries. Now, however, the black clergy has taken the lead in Africanizing Catholic ritual. Masses all across the continent are beginning to employ old dance forms and chants. In Zambia, even the tribal lamentations at the bedside of the dying are being reintroduced. Vernacular masses can be found almost everywhere, and native drums, long used to call the faithful to church, are now a common part of many religious services. Though not all. Complained one Ugandan: "It sounds too much like a beer party."
Whatever the solutions to these questions, the African bishops who met with Pope Paul made it clear that the answers would have a uniquely African flavor. Speaking to the prelates last week, Upper Volta's Paul Cardinal Zoun-grana pointed to the Africanization of liturgy as a good example. "Rather than a primitive outlook," said the cardinal, the rituals "represent an African way of thinking and way of life." Pope Paul went even further, telling the bishops on his arrival that they could give the Church "the precious and original contribution of negritude which she needs particularly." For the churchmen of Africa, Zoungrana had already reminded his colleagues, that meant first rediscovering "the African soul."
* Protestant and Anglican churches in Africa today claim a total membership of 22 million, not including nearly 7 million members of more than 5,000 independent African sects, some of them only semi-Christian.