EUROPE/ITALY – “The Metamorphosis of West Africa”: the latest work of the Sinderesis School will be presented in Rome

Rome – “Quo Vadis Africa?”: This question summarizes the research conducted by the young people of the “Sinderesis School” at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome during the 2024-2025 academic year, which focused on West Africa. The work has now been collected in the volume “The Metamorphosis of West Africa – Not only migration” , edited by Archbishop Samuele Sangalli, Founder and President of the “Fondazione Sinderesi – Praticare l’etica ” and Adjunct Secretary of the section for the First Evangelization and the New Particular Churches of the Dicastery for Evangelization, and by Antonella Piccinin, lecturer at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
The volume will be presented on Monday, December 1, at 5:30 p.m. at the “Centro Fede e Cultura Alberto Hurtado” at Palazzo Frascara in Rome. As Archbishop Sangalli emphasizes in his introduction, a continent that will host two and a half billion people by 2050 “cannot be explained solely by poorly managed migration.” This is especially true for West Africa, the subject of the studies collected in this volume.
Among the challenges facing the region are the democratic representation of the population in states threatened by the rise of jihadism and transnational organized crime, and the resulting military response from the coup leaders who have gained a foothold in countries such as Burkina Faso and Niger. Father Giulio Albanese’s contribution addresses these aspects, which are further complicated by the geopolitical challenges arising from the sharp decline of French influence in the region and the rise of new powers such as Russia, China, and Turkey. However, French influence persists thanks to the networks of French Freemasonry, which has long co-opted the elites of the states that emerged from former colonization.
Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu, Secretary of the Section for First Evangelization and the New Particular Churches of the Dicastery for Evangelization, addresses the issue of ethnicity. The Archbishop draws inspiration from his home country, Nigeria, where 371 ethnic groups coexist and over 500 languages are spoken, the Archbishop emphasizes that the ethnic question can be both a force for unity and for division, depending on how politics pushes the population in one direction or the other. Other contributions address economic aspects , educational aspects , and migration aspects .
On an interreligious level, Abdellah Redouane, Secretary General of the Islamic Cultural Center of Italy, offers a detailed description of the religious diversity in West Africa and the current complexity of the Islamic components there. The volume concludes with a contribution by Father Luigi Maccalli, an SMA missionary, who was kidnapped in Niger in 2018 and freed two years later. Through the spiritual processing of this painful experience, Archbishop Sangalli emphasizes in his introduction, “the missionary became a committed advocate of the logic of nonviolence, forgiveness, and peace.” In conclusion, the research compiled in this volume by the Sinderesis School has not only documented the often problematic situation in West Africa in detail, but has also strived to offer concrete solutions for a region that has the potential for integral human development.

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