The Catholic Church in South Sudan is composed of one ecclesiastical province with one archdiocese and six suffragan dioceses. There have been a total of 31 bishops in South Sudan to date. The bishops of South Sudan and Sudan are currently members of one single bishops' conference, designated as Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
It is the largest church in South Sudan. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, the Catholic Church was the largest single Christian body in Sudan since 1995, with 2.7 million Catholics mainly concentrated in South Sudan. Later estimates suggested that 37.2% of the population is Catholic, with about 6.2 million Catholics out of a total population of 16.7 million. Figures in 2020 noted that Catholics had become more than half of the country's population.
The patron saint is Josephine Bakhita. Bakhita was born in Darfur in 1869 and kidnapped at the age of 6 by slavers. She was sold three times and beaten regularly. She was ransomed by Callisto Legnani, an Italian consul, converted to Christianity in a Venetian school and became a nun. She was canonized in October 2000 after being beatified in 1992. Her name became well known in southern Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War because of Christianity’s repression by the Sudanese government and that government’s use of slavery. Bakhita’s influence is recognized through a Catholic radio station based in Juba named Radio Bakhita.
The current President Salva Kiir Mayardit is Catholic.
History
19th Century
Catholic missionaries arrived in Sudan in 1842, building schools and hospitals. In 1849, Dr. Knoblecher, the third leader of the Vicariate Apostolic Central Africa, which reached Khartoum, Sudan in 1848, led an exploratory expedition to southern Sudan and set up the first Catholic mission there at Gondokoro in 1852. That same year, 8 men were baptized. An additional station was opened at modern-day Kansia in 1854. By 1858, 22 missionaries had died in Sudan. Father Matthias Kirchner became leader of the mission and gave the mission up to the Franciscans believing that they had the numbers and resources to survive sicknesses. More deaths led Pope Pius IX to close the mission. In 1864, Daniele Comboni developed A Plan for the Regeneration of Africa by means of Africans, in which he proposed training centers for priests and missionaries in Central Africa. He did not return to southern Sudan, but Deng Sorur, the first southern Sudanese Catholic priest, studied with Comboni. The Comboni Mission was established between 1895 and 1910 and played a role in spreading Christianity in South Sudan.
20th Century
In the early 20th century, the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium government encouraged missionary organizations to start schools in southern Sudan. In 1900, Monseigner Antonio Riveggio established a mission in Lul. In 1904, three more missions were started in Bahr al-Ghazal. In 1905, Catholics opened Stack Memorial School as a mission station and to prepare children of chiefs to work for the colonial government. In February 1907, Father Paolo Maroni baptized the first 8 Christians at Kangnjo. By 1913, between 200 and 300 Southerners had been baptized at Wau. Wau became the administrative center of the Vicariate Apostolic that same year. It became a diocese in 1974. When the government wanted increased cooperation with missions in education in the 1920s, the Catholic missions differed from the Protestant missions in that they believed the government should help the Church educate southern Sudanese. Comboni technical schools in [Bahr el Ghazal] had boys learning carpentry, bricklaying and gardening. Girls learned religion, English, needlework and hygiene. The language of school teaching was addressed a lot in the 1930s, with some Catholic schools using a local language and other schools arguing that it was better to use English. Boys associations for alumni of some schools were also created in the 1930s and 1940s to promote interethnic engagement. Despite this, some Dinka mission school graduates believed they received unequal treatment from the Catholic church. They believed it was because the Dinka were seen as too independent-minded for the Church. Some priests refused to sit on the ground or drink water at Dinka compounds. Some washed their hands immediately after shaking hands with the Dinka.