white">Stan Chu Ilo is research professor of world Christianity and African studies at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago; and coordinating servant of the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN). He is the author of African Ecological Ethics and Spirituality for Cosmic Flourishing and editor of Handbook of African Catholicism. He led the North American working group of the "Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries" project.
Many Catholics around the world connect with this papacy and the universal church, but for some Francis' dreams of a more diverse and inclusive church are threatening.
The stories we heard through a Vatican project were moving accounts of the lives of everyday people, and the resilience of many who are rejected and abandoned at the peripheries of life by society and our churches.
