As the demographic heart of Catholicism continues shifting toward the global South, many observers are asking whether the era of European leadership in the Church is drawing to a close.

Pope Francis — the first non-European pontiff in over a millennium — embraced a decentralized approach to governance and evangelization. In the wake of his death, the upcoming conclave raises existential questions for the future of the Church. Did Benedict XVI’s pontificate mark the end of a historical chapter in which the Church was rooted in, and oriented toward, Europe? And if so, would this mean that the decline of the European Church is now irreversible?

Such questions go beyond geography. They touch on the Church’s cohesion and identity. While decentralization may strengthen the global reach of Catholicism, it also entails a risk of fragmentation — especially if Europe, long the cradle of Catholic theology and tradition, loses its place in shaping the future of the Church. Whether or not the next pope is European, the coming pontificate will face a critical challenge: to discern whether, and how, Europe can still serve as a source of unity for a Church that is increasingly global and diverse.

 

Demographic Shift

What is clear is that Europe stands alone as the only continent where the number of Catholics is in decline.

While the latest Fides agency data for 2022 shows that the number of Catholics worldwide is on the rise — particularly in Africa and America — Europe is the weak link in this chain of growth, with a drop of almost 500,000 faithful compared to the previous year. The same applies to the number of priests, with a reduction of almost 3,000 in just one year.

While these downward trends were undoubtedly accelerated over the last five years by the COVID-19 crisis and the various sexual-abuse scandals, they have their roots in the second half of the 20th century, especially after the student revolutions of 1968. As Italian historian Danilo Breschi noted, the European Church’s openness to Marxist philosophy after Vatican II contributed to a gradual secularization from within.

This entwined fate of Europe and Christianity — with the faith having so profoundly shaped the Old Continent — leads some to argue that moving the Church’s center away from Rome might actually protect Catholicism from Western decadence.

Catholic philosopher Chantal Delsol supports this view. “Since the turn of the century, Western universalism, i.e., the global influence of the West, has been shattered, and the universalism of the Church in its Western version no longer holds water,” she told the Register.

She pointed to the growing rift between African bishops and Rome over Fiducia Supplicans and the blessing of homosexual couples — and Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo even wishing the Western Church “a happy demise.”

Delsol sees this as proof that “we can no longer impose our emancipatory, or progressive, principles on all the world’s churches.” For her, a non-European pope could help rebalance some of the Western drifts.

 

The Risk of “De-Churching”

And yet, while a gradual withdrawal of the Church’s nerve center from Europe may seem like an attractive option given the prevailing secularism of the West, it would not be without profound consequences — and could permanently reshape both the European continent and the institution of Christianity itself.

For Polish-American scholar Piotr H. Kosicki — a Catholic history specialist and associate professor at the University of Maryland — decentralization could also mean “de-Churching.”

“I tend to think that trying to shift the center away from Europe is, at least from the standpoint of the Roman church, the beginning of the end,” he told the Register, arguing that “historically, the Church’s survival and renewal, from the Counter-Reformation onward, depended on maintaining a strong, centralized structure.”

Germany’s ongoing ecclesial crisis illustrates the fragility of this balance. The Synodal Way — an initiative launched in response to the abuse scandals and intended to reform Church governance and doctrine — has openly challenged the authority of Rome on key issues such as sexual morality, priestly celibacy and the role of women. While some within Germany view it as a path toward renewal, critics across the Catholic world fear that it risks a form of schism, or at the very least, a loss of communion with the universal Church.

Despite sharply worded warnings from Rome, Pope Francis largely refrained from direct confrontation. This hands-off approach — seen by some as a hallmark of his decentralized model — has raised concerns that a future non-European pope may lack the historical and cultural grounding to fully grasp the significance of the German Church and the gravity of the situation on the ground.

For Kosicki, such examples underscore the need to preserve a strong central axis within the Church. While reforms to the Roman Curia and broader Church governance may be necessary, he warns that displacing the center to any one region could endanger the already delicate equilibrium between local diversity and the Church’s universal identity.

This fear of a weakening of the Church’s cohesion and identity is shared by Vatican analyst Andrea Gagliarducci, author of Cristo speranza dell’Europa. 50 anni della Chiesa europea tra passato e futuro (“Christ, Hope of Europe: 50 years of the European Church between past and future”).

He warns that the “logic of numbers,” rewarding regions where Christianity is growing the most, is most likely a strategic mistake. “Europe is a continent that carries within itself the vocation of unity, and this unity is fundamental in a Church that risks ever greater fragmentation,” he told the Register.

This is particularly crucial, Gagliarducci argues, because Europe’s Church now faces growing, subtle forms of hostility — from the criminalization of pro-life activism to the marginalization of religious practice and the vandalism and abandonment of historic churches.

 

The Death of the Old Continent?

Beyond its impact on the Church, this shift in Catholicism’s center of gravity also raises existential questions about Europe itself — the cradle of Catholic theology and intellectual tradition. What will be left of Europe without Catholicism, the source of most of its institutions and monuments, from hospitals and universities to cathedrals?

French journalist and writer Bernard Lecomte, author of Benoît XVI, le dernier pape européen (“Benedict XVI, the last European pope”), warns that Europe’s very cultural foundations could erode without the Church’s guiding influence.

“The primacy of man, the reign of law and truth are directly dictated to us by the Gospel: if there is no more Gospel, the primacy of man will probably be over,” Lecomte told the Register. He expressed particular concern about how Europe will confront the technological and geopolitical challenges ahead, without the ethical compass once provided by Christian thought.

“Who remembers, for example, that the simple idea of consent to marriage, whereby a man cannot marry a woman without her consent, was introduced by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages?” he continued. “It is going to be complicated to safeguard this heritage of great principles and virtues, I’m intrigued and rather frightened of what it is going to lead to.”

His concern extends to how the historic principle of separation between church and state is evolving in the European countries where Islam is steadily expanding. “The principle of rendering to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s — consubstantial with Christianity — does not exist in other religions. How can a healthy balance be maintained in societies where Church and State no longer counterbalance each other?”

 

A Possible Reprieve?

Lecomte believes Benedict XVI — who made Europe’s de-Christianization his central concern — was, in that sense, the “last European pope,” because the demographic and cultural forces driving Catholicism southward seem unstoppable.

He nevertheless believes that a “reprieve” is still possible, and the election of a European pope, even temporarily, could offer the Church as a whole a much-needed pause for reflection about its future orientations. It would be for Europe a final chance to reconnect with its Christian roots before the Church’s center of gravity shifts. This reprieve, however brief, might help Europe confront its spiritual decline with the very theological and cultural tools that once shaped it.

The real challenge for the next pope — European or not — will be to hold together a Church that is both universal and increasingly fractured, without losing sight of the heritage that gave birth to it.