• Originally published in the USA TODAY on April 18, 2005 Copyright 2005 Gannett Company, Inc.

By Desmond Tutu


As the cardinals gather today in Vatican City to begin conclave, the process to choose a successor to Pope John Paul II, much speculation outside the Vatican has centered on whether the next pope will be African.


One man -- Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria -- could indeed become the first African pope in modern times.


The notion of a black pope is, to say the least, controversial, even though three Africans have been pope. It is not quite in the same league as a depiction of Jesus Christ as black. Most Christians have grown up with the historically inaccurate image of Jesus as Caucasian when, as a Semitic, he would have been a great deal more swarthy than our conventional pictures of him as white. Nonetheless, a black pope could do more than break a color barrier -- he could facilitate a greater global understanding of a neglected part of our world: the so-called Third World.


In my tribute to Pope John Paul II, I said, "We hope that perhaps the cardinals when they meet will follow the first non-Italian pope by electing the first African pope (in modern times)."


It was a dramatic way of suggesting that we need a pope from the Third World, where Roman Catholics, like many other major denominations, are growing spectacularly. (This is conspicuously not the case in any of the countries of the Northern Hemisphere.)


Choosing a pontiff from one of these regions of the world would reward those Christians, just as it could be argued that Christians behind the Iron Curtain were given the Vatican's nod through the election of the Polish cardinal who became famous as Pope John Paul II. He went on to help topple communism, especially through his support of Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement in his Polish homeland.


A pope from Africa -- or elsewhere in the Third World -- would reflect today's reality and eloquently say the churches of the Southern Hemisphere have come into their own and are being taken seriously.


Under the radar

The Third World, particularly Africa, runs the grave risk of disappearing from the radar screen of the movers and shakers of the world. Africa's plethora of problems -- disease, poverty, misgovernance, corruption and disasters -- has given rise to so-called Afro-pessimism and donor fatigue. Someone with the high profile of the pope could turn the world's attention more squarely on the parts that need it most, though this is more a hope, or assumption, than a guarantee.


The presence of an African-American justice, Clarence Thomas, on the U.S. Supreme Court has certainly not meant that the burning issues in his ethnic community would be his or that he automatically would come down on the side where most of his black sisters and brothers are.


But my hope is that a black pope would be what we in South Africa like to call a son of the soil -- one whose soul has been impregnated with the aspirations, insights, world view and value system of his African homeland. That he would be one who would bear on his breast, carrying in his heart -- as Aaron the High Priest carried biblical Israel -- the concerns, the anguish and longings of his fellow Africans. He could not fail to be moved by the plight of those wallowing in abject poverty, growing more impoverished in a world with a grossly inequitable economic system that favors those who are already strong and affluent while their sisters and brothers in the developing world are facing starvation and squalor and deprivation.


He would be their champion, the voice of these voiceless ones, and would prick the consciences of those who rule the roost in the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization to evoke a more compassionate, more gentle, more caring world order into being.


The view from Africa

Coming from Africa, he would be appalled at the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS and surely would concur with the Spanish Roman Catholic Bishops Conference in wanting to promote the use of condoms, which have been shown to stem the spread of this horrendous virus. He would not permit dogma to be the cause of so many unnecessary deaths. After all, Jesus said of most religious rules that they were made for us, not the other way, and that if they did not enhance life, then without compunction, Jesus would jettison them.


I also pray that this pope would realize that the church is grossly impoverished without the ministry of women as priests. We in the Episcopal Church have been richly blessed by our sisters' outstanding service as bishops, priests and deacons. And we hope he would rethink the ban on contraception and married clergy.


Sure, I said that the cardinals should look to select an African as the next pope. Yet, if God were to give us another Pope John XXIII, who opened the Roman Catholic Church to the world, then I would not mind if he were not black.

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• Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and headed the Anglican Communion in southern Africa.