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I'm disappointed. Well, as disappointed as a non-Roman Catholic can be. Not that I have anything against the new pope, Benedict XVI (in case you've been away from civilization for the past week, the 78-year-old German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became the 265th pope of the Roman Catholic Church on Tuesday). The event was surrounded by such a potent mixture of mysticism and celebration that it was as if we were all Roman Catholics for a day. This is a circumstance that captivated (and annoyed) non-Catholics. Come on, not even a contentious U.S. national election or worldwide tragedy garnered more media...

ONITSHA, Nigeria -- The legend of Cardinal Francis Arinze, a contender to become the first pope from Africa in 1,500 years, stems from a moment of crisis in Nigeria's Catholic heartland. It was the early 1970s, and the government had ordered all European and American priests -- most of the Catholic leadership at the time -- out of the country. The political purge left Arinze and a handful of Nigerian priests with a massive job and few resources to do it, church leaders here said. But Arinze, the first African-born archbishop in this grubby trading center on the Niger River,...

SOWETO, South Africa - Mass is so crowded at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church that the parishioners spill out into the courtyard, where they huddle close to the doors to hear and be heard. Worship here is participatory and joyous, not a staid moral duty performed amid pomp and ritual beneath the stained glass of one of Europe's cavernous and magnificent cathedrals. The Catholic Church seems young, active and relevant, growing at a rate so explosive — with nearly 140 million Roman Catholics in Africa — that it's a vital part of today's Christian expansion. The next pope will inherit...

LAGOS, Nigeria — A fierce competition for souls is on in Lagos. In this sprawling capital that seems glued together out of scraps of rusted iron, plywood and torn posters, the immortal combat is being waged on faded billboards so closely planted along the highway that it's difficult to make them out as they flash by: Divine Harvest! Holy Fire! Winners Chapel! Victorious Family! Champions Chapel! Miracle Explosion! None of the posters is for the Roman Catholic Church, which is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else. Father George Ehusani, secretary-general of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, hardly needs to...