Using the currently empty see of Kinshasa as a starting point, John Allen looks at growth trends in the global Catholic population:

The post has been vacant since the January 6 death of Cardinal Frédéric Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi, who was 76. Etsou became archbishop in 1990, during the final years of the famed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, and he denounced the violence of the civil wars which raged in that era. Later, Etsou also rejected the anti-democratic tactics of Mobutu’s successor, Laurent Kabila, and he raised doubts about behind-the-scenes international influence in the victory last summer of Kabila’s son, Joseph, in national elections.

Congo is today a nation of 63 million, roughly 55 percent of whom are Catholic.

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One footnote: In recent years, it has become fashionable to dismiss French-speaking Catholicism as largely a spent force, despite the impressive character of some its leadership, such as Cardinals Godfried Danneels in Brussels and Jean-Marie Lustiger in Paris. Both France and Belgium have low Mass attendance rates, with 50 percent of the French reporting that they never attend religious services at all. A majority of the French, 51 percent, say they don’t even believe in God.

The rise of the Democratic Republic of Congo in global Catholic affairs, however, may give French-speaking Catholicism a new lease on life, in the same way that Brazil has long provided Portuguese bishops, theologians and lay activists with a disproportionate echo in the global church. French-speaking Congolese clergy and lay leaders naturally see France and Belgium as points of reference, reading the theological literature produced in French, inviting French-speaking Catholic VIPs to give lectures and host symposia, and otherwise regarding the French and the Belgians as primary sources of Catholic culture.

In that light, French-speaking Catholicism may have a future in the 21st century after all.

In the same spirit, it’s worth noting that by 2050, Uganda and Nigeria both will have grabbed spots on the Catholic “Top Ten” list, meaning that in 43 years four of the ten largest Catholic nations in the world will have English as a dominant language, as opposed to just two today. (In both cases, that’s including the Philippines). English is already the language of economic and cultural globalization, and increasingly it will become the language of ecclesiastical globalization as well.