During stops in Kenya, Uganda and the wartorn Central Africa Republic, Francis preached peace, reconciliation, mercy, fraternity and railed against poverty, exploitation and social injustice. These are familiar themes for popes travelling in the developing world. But prior to Francis they’d never been articulated by a non-European pope, never from someone whose view of world politics and Church institutions was formed far away from Catholicism’s European heartland.

This is important because the Church needs to understand Africa. The Vatican is acutely aware that Africa leads the world in terms of Catholic growth, but analysing demographics and fully appreciating and respecting the unique nature of African Catholicism are different matters. That is where the Church has struggled.

The African Church is insisting it be heard and has the numbers to demand an attentive audience. Over the past century, African Catholics skyrocketed from just one per cent to more than 20 per cent of the world Catholic population. Within 25 years, Africa should have 450 million Catholics (versus 150 million today), outnumbering all of Europe and behind only Latin America.

All of this has engendered a rising confidence and assertiveness. African Church leaders are unwilling to meekly accept a paternalistic Western model of modern Catholicism. With justification, they argue the Church in the West has failed to counteract the forces of secularism and individualism that have so damaged Church and family life. They are becoming ever more emphatic in defence of African cultures and traditions that hold an orthodox Catholic view of marriage and family, and they cringe at Western norms that by African standards seem spiritually wobbly.

Pope Francis may not fully share African orthodoxy but the first non-European pope in 13 centuries is Africa’s kindred spirit when it comes to championing a truly universal Church. He is determined to reform Vatican institutions that historically are more European than universal. Also, his call for a Church that is poor and for the poor resonates nowhere more loudly than in Africa. The continent is a microcosm of all that Francis regards as unjust, and not only in its wretched poverty. African nations are disproportionately confronted by terrorism, war, refugees, hunger, disease, corruption, exploitation and all manner of social injustice.

Francis, more than any pope before him, can connect with Africans because he would be the last person to impose a Western vision of the Church on them. He may not be one of them but it’s understandable if Africans regard him as the next best thing.