Saints of Africa

Folks who enjoy this book should also enjoy Wade in the River: The Story of the African Christian Faith and An Unbroken Circle: Linking Ancient African Christianity to the African-American Experience, both by Fr. Paisius Altschul.

Many have speculated that perhaps our next Pope might come from Africa. While such speculation is premature, the reasoning makes sense. This continent of 117 million Catholics has already produced three popes, three Doctors of the Church, eight Fathers of the Church, and thousands of martyrs and saints.I recall some time back a colleague asking for a book like this. Unfortunately, at that time, I was unable to direct him towards anything that I was familiar with. As I said, this book is long overdue.Fr. O'Malley has done a great service in compiling this book of some ninety African saints. To my knowledge, it is one of few books like it. The saints' stories are told simply, yet inspiringly, shedding much needed light on these saints forgotten by the West.The entries include such familiar names as St. Augustine and St. Monica as well as many, many less known saints such as Blessed Josephine Bakhita, St. Deogratias, St. Melchiades, and Blessed Isidore Bakanja.The book is organized in a curious fashion - listing the saints according to their feast days rather than alphabetically. Thankfully, an index in the front of the book also lists them in a calendar format so that the reader can more easily look up particular saints. An alphabetical listing of all of the saints, or a similar index in the back of the book, might have made it easier to find a particular saint.Each chapter covers the saints whose feast days fall within that month. A convenient map in the beginning of each chapter indicates the region where each saint came from, although the map does not indicate specific countries. Many of the saints come from regions before they were recognized African countries.Also helpful is the brief history of the Catholic Church in Africa found in the back of the book and a glossary.Again, this book is a welcome addition to hagiography. Those interested in the saints, or those interested in Africa, will find this book enormously interesting.