Frederick Nzwili

Catholic bishops in Eritrea have expressed anger at the forced takeover of church-run institutions as the government moved to confiscate or close more schools.

Catholic bishops in Kenya are urging the government to shelve plans to close two refugee camps in the north, which host refugees who fled civil war and famine in Somalia and South Sudan.

As turbines turn on Africa's largest wind farm on the shores of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, Catholic leaders welcomed the project as good for the environment and important for human development.

Young people's intensified demand for climate action is a sign of hope during the planet's ecological crisis, said Cardinal Peter Turkson.

The Congo River basin, which spans six African countries, is coming under pressure, partly due to clearing of the forests for subsistence agriculture, large-scale farming, illegal logging and lack of clear reforestation policies.

An emotional debate over whether Muslim students may wear hijab in Christian schools took a new turn last week Jan. 24 when the Kenyan Supreme Court reversed a lower-court ruling that had allowed female students to wear Muslim headscarves to school.

“The issues of returning recent converts has been of great concern to us. As leaders, we have been talking about it and urging Christian communities to account for all the youth,” said the Rev. Wilybard Lagho, vicar general of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa, which has experienced attack recently. “They can be very dangerous since they are hard to suspect.”

As frequent terror attacks continue in northeastern Kenya, Catholic bishops and priests are warning that the acts are posing threats to missions and their work.

In deeply religious Africa, both Christianity and Islam are on the rise. But small groups of determined atheists have emerged, and are challenging Africa's grip on faith while seeking recognition and more followers.

When forest rangers arrived at Mau Forest Complex in June to evict thousands of illegal settlers, frightened villagers started moving out.

After closing more than 700 churches and some mosques in March, Rwandan government officials have moved to institute guidelines for how faith groups operate in the majority-Christian East African country.

The recent kidnapping of a Congolese priest illustrates some of the problems the Catholic Church has faced during the prolonged conflict.

Religious leaders who campaign for wildlife conservation are mourning the death of the world's last male northern white rhino, calling the subspecies' likely extinction a spiritual loss.

Kenyan Catholic bishops have announced plans to convene a national dialogue forum in the face of a political crisis, which they say has left the country's ordinary people on the brink of despair.