ABSTRACT
The topic assigned to me in itself indicates a dilemma that many Roman Catholic theologians in Africa face: can theology be both African and Roman at the same time? Unlike Protestant churches, which in their theology of the church consider themselves to be local, the self-understanding of the Roman Catholic Church is that of an essentially global, universal or worldwide institution. Hence an African Roman Catholic Church or theology sounds like a contradiction in terms. Nevertheless, since the end of the Second World War and the subsequent decolonization process the Catholic Church has seen a trend towards localization, culminating in the statement by pope Paul VI (1969) at the closing ceremony of the first meeting of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences in Africa and Madagascar in Kampala: “You may and you must have an African Christianity.”1 Maybe more than in any other Christian denomination, the tension between global and local is a feature of African Roman Catholic theology. This became apparent during the first and second special assemblies of the Synod of Bishops for Africa, popularly known as African synods, when the “power centre” in the Vatican tried to set the agendas for the synods and the African bishops and theologians tried to influence them.
