Ongono’s starting point is a striking shift in geography. In 1910, roughly two-thirds of the world’s Catholics lived in Europe. Today it’s closer to a quarter, with Latin America, Africa and Asia now home to the fastest-growing Catholic communities.
Meanwhile, church attendance across much of the West has fallen sharply, even as baptism registers stay full, producing what Ongono calls ‘cultural Catholics’ – people who identify with the faith without really taking part in it. Alongside them sits a growing group of ‘nones’, people raised in the Church who have since drifted away from religious labels and religious life altogether.
Layered onto this demographic shift are decades of damage from clerical abuse scandals, which Ongono says have eroded trust and, in very practical terms, diocesan finances. Fewer people are donating to the church, fewer attend church events, and many ‘younger churches’ in the developing world remain financially dependent on aid from Rome and the West, a legacy of missionary structures never designed to produce self-sufficient local communities.
So what does effective leadership look like in this changed landscape? Ongono builds his answer around two long-standing but underused principles. The first is subsidiarity: decisions should be made at the most local level capable of making them well, with higher authorities stepping in only when genuinely needed. It is one of the guiding principles of the revision of the Code of Canon Law and is reflected in the provisions for “particular and proper laws”. The second is a vision of leadership itself as service rather than status, echoing Jesus washing his disciples’ feet rather than commanding from above.
Practically, this means giving dioceses and conferences of bishops more genuine say, involving lay people more meaningfully in decision-making, and rebuilding financial models so that churches in the Global South aren’t perpetually dependent on outside subsidy. It also means, Ongono argues, taking seriously the fact that most Catholics no longer live in Europe, and so involving more non-Western local churches in the decision-making of the universal church
Ongono is careful to stress that none of this is about inventing something new from scratch. Rather, it’s about rediscovering ideas the Church already holds dear – participation, shared responsibility and decentralised authority in a right understanding of synodality – and applying them with real commitment at every level, from the parish to the Holy See itself.
Of great importance are the references to the Second Vatican Council’s theology of the laity, the view of the Christian community as the family of God, and the values of accountability and co-responsibility. If the Church is to remain a living community rather than a shrinking institution, it will be because leaders at every level chose service and shared responsibility over old habits of control.
Jean Olivier Nke Ongono is the holder of the Global Church Leadership Chair at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. Starting in the winter semester of 2026, his chair will offer a new master’s programme with the possibility of continuing to the doctoral level (or canonical licentiate) in theology, specialising in church leadership, drawing on insights from canon law, pastoral theology, the social sciences, and statistics.
