Africans say a Black pope would be nice to have. But they are not too hopeful

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — If the next pope is from sub-Saharan Africa, he would be the first in Catholic Church history. Catholic Africans think it is a long shot, though some are cautiously optimistic that Pope Francis’ successor could be a Black cardinal from their continent.

The answer will come soon, as the cardinals eligible to elect the new pope open their conclave next Wednesday at the Sistine Chapel.

At least three African cardinals are among those currently cited as “papabile," the term used by Vatican observers to describe possible contenders to lead the Catholic Church.

They are Cardinals Robert Sarah of Guinea, Peter Turkson of Ghana and Fridolin Ambongo of Congo.

If any of them is selected, he would be the first African pope in more than 1,500 years and the first ever from sub-Saharan Africa. That historical record makes many in Africa eager for change — but not overly hopeful.

Before the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI, there was much media attention around Francis Arinze, a highly respected cardinal born in Nigeria, raising questions even then about whether the world was ready for a Black pope from Africa.

Two decades later, Catholicism continues to decline in Europe while it grows in the developing world. The number of Catholics is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else.

At least 20% of global Catholic community is in Africa, which “is characterized by a highly dynamic spread of the Catholic Church,” according to a recent Vatican report.

Some say having a pope from Africa, or Asia — which is also seeing strong Catholic growth — would signal a powerful message of inclusion. But as Francis' papacy showed, inclusive efforts can alienate many others and even breed dissent.

The three possible papal candidates from Africa — Sarah, Ambongo, and Turkson — are seen as holding orthodox views on some of the hot-button issues that the Catholic Church is grappling with, reflecting wider social conservatism on the continent of 1.3 billion people. Catholic orthodoxy in Africa was at odds with Pope Francis’ pastoral vision of mercy and understanding for all marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ Catholics.

The real-life situation was reflected in the fictional Oscar-nominated film “Conclave,” in which one of the four contenders vying for the papacy was a socially conservative cardinal from Nigeria.

Congo has the highest number of baptized Catholics in Africa.

Ambongo — the archbishop of Congolese capital, Kinshasa, since 2018 — last year signed a statement by the conference of African bishops rejecting a Vatican declaration to allow priests to offer spontaneous, non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples seeking God’s grace.

That statement, seen as a rebuke of Francis, asserted that same-sex unions were “contrary to the will of God." It cited biblical teaching condemning homosexuality and asserted that same-sex relations are “contradictory to cultural norms” in Africa.

But it is Sarah, the Guinean cardinal who is the Vatican’s former liturgy chief, who posed a more public challenge to Francis.

A favorite of traditionalists, Sarah prefers silent prayer and is an adherent of the old Latin Mass. He is a staunch defender of longstanding doctrinal faith.

After Francis in 2021 reimposed restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass that Benedict had relaxed, Sarah responded with tweets quoting Benedict’s original 2007 law to relax the restrictions. His posts were accompanied by a photo of Benedict wearing the red cape that Francis had eschewed the night of his election.

A year earlier, Sarah had orchestrated a media firestorm by persuading Benedict to co-author a book reaffirming priestly celibacy at a time when Francis was considering ordaining married men to address a clergy shortage in the Amazon. As the scandal grew, Benedict removed himself as a co-author.

Sarah, 79, officially retired in 2021 but remains eligible to attend the conclave. Since the death of Francis on April 21, he has emerged as a favorite of European traditionalists who want to see a reversal of Francis’ progressive policies.

But in Africa, where Francis was widely loved for his engagement with the continent's crises, many Catholics simply want a pope who will be a faithful leader for everyone.

“For us, it does not matter whether he is African, white, or Black. What matters is having a good, holy pope who can unite Catholics across the world,” said Luka Lawrence Ndenge, an emergency officer with the Catholic charity Caritas in the remote town of Wau in South Sudan.

The father of two said he believes an African can rise to the papacy, especially as “we already have African cardinals who are fully capable.”

Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin, primate of Adigrat in the Ethiopian region of Tigray, said he hopes the next pope will be as compassionate as Francis, who repeatedly called attention to war in Tigray in 2021 and 2022.

But the prospect of having a Black African pope is exciting, he said.

“For me, having a passionate, dedicated and competent African leading the Catholic Church is very important to me as an African and to see it in my lifetime is my absolute wish,” he said.

Emily Mwaka doesn’t like speculating about the next pope, especially on the color of his skin. So when the head of the Catholic laity in Kampala, Uganda, recently came upon a small group of Christians discussing a newspaper article about possible papal contenders — including some from Africa — she asked them to stop it.

Even if the next pontiff is “green,” she said, he “will be for all of us.”

Associated Press reporters Samuel Getachew in Tigray, Ethiopia, and Michael Atit in Wau, South Sudan, contributed to this report.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

FILE - People in the crowd cheer and wave as Pope Francis is wheeled past after addressing clergy at the St. Theresa Cathedral in Juba, South Sudan, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

FILE - Pope Francis addresses clergy at the St. Theresa Cathedral in Juba, South Sudan, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

FILE - A priest holds a sacrament bowl showing a photograph of Pope Francis during a Holy Mass at the John Garang Mausoleum in Juba, South Sudan, Feb. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

FILE - In this March 4, 2013 file photo, Cardinal Robert Sarah, of Guinea, walks in St. Peter's Square after attending a cardinals' meeting, at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

FILE - Pope Francis talks with Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson during his weekly general audience, in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

FILE - Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu is approached by reporters as he arrives for a college of cardinals' meeting, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

FILE - Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu arrives for a college of cardinals' meeting, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

FILE - Graffiti artist Alexander Ikawah, paints Pope Francis on a canvas in Nairobi, Kenya Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)