Spiritan Circumscriptions of Africa and the Islands
The Spiritan Conference of Circumscriptions of Africa and the Islands (SCCAI) brings together the provinces, foundations, districts and groups of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans, C.S.Sp.) serving across the African continent and the neighbouring islands. Each entry below profiles what that circumscription is doing in mission and evangelization, social development, formation, and interfaith dialogue.
Northern Africa
Algeria
Spiritan Community of Algeria · Diocese of Oran (Sidi Bel Abbès and Béni Abbès)
- Mission: five Spiritans from Cameroon, Nigeria and France; Fr. Raymond Gonnet welcomes tourists and pilgrims at Béni Abbès, where Charles de Foucauld built his chapel.
- Social development: a library centre in Sidi Bel Abbès offers tutoring, adult courses, women’s training and cultural clubs, with Algerian Muslim teachers.
- Interfaith dialogue: dialogue of life with Muslims, Muslim–Christian meetings, a parish of sub-Saharan students and visits to Christian prisoners.
Read the full article: Spiritans in Algeria: for a Church of encounter and service
West Africa
Ghana
Spiritan Province of Ghana · founded 1971
- Mission: over 100 members serving 16 parishes across 9 of Ghana’s 18 dioceses; produced Archbishop John Bonaventure Kwofie of Accra.
- Social development: runs the Spiritan Technical Vocational School, a computer school in Kumasi, Libermann Senior High School and Spiritan University College, Ejisu.
- Formation: Spiritan Seminary and Institute of Philosophy, Ejisu.
- Leadership: Provincial Superior Fr. Raphael Kobina Annan.
Nigeria
Four circumscriptions: Nigeria South East & North East (Provinces), North West & South West (Foundations)
- Mission: Spiritan roots to 1885; today serves a share of Nigeria’s roughly 30 million Catholics across four circumscriptions.
- Social development: the Spiritan Healthcare Apostolate (HECAP), Nsugbe, funds care and retirement housing for elderly and sick missionaries.
- Formation: Holy Ghost Juniorate, Ihiala (1952) and the shared Holy Ghost Novitiate, Awomama (1958).
- Interfaith dialogue: Nigeria North East Province has a formally designated Coordinator for Interreligious Dialogue, Fr. Abraham Akpen.
Sierra Leone
Historically part of the West African Province
- Mission: long served by the late Fr. Gabriel Luseni, a Sierra Leonean Spiritan who was Provincial Superior of the West African Province before his death in 2024.
Liberia
A Spiritan presence supported by the wider Congregation
- Social development: home to the Spiritan Academy, a Catholic demonstration school supported by the US Spiritan Province.
Senegal, The Gambia & Guinea-Bissau
One of the Congregation’s earliest African mission fields
- Mission: Spiritan missionaries first reached Senegal in 1779.
- Social development: The Gambia has an active parish ministry and a Spiritan Lay Associates programme.
Central Africa
Coordinated through UCSAC, the Union des Circonscriptions Spiritaines d’Afrique Centrale.
Cameroon
A Spiritan presence since 1916
- Formation: hosts formation infrastructure used across the wider region — the Scolasticat Poullart des Places, Ngoya, and the international Blessed Daniel Brottier novitiate, Mbalmayo.
Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville)
Congo-Brazzaville Province of the Holy Ghost Congregation — home province of the Superior General
- Mission: Spiritan schools founded from 1883; today’s Superior General, Fr. Alain Mayama, comes from this province.
- Social development: Espace-Jarrot, serving street children in Bacongo; Sala-ngolo vocational training centre, Dolisie.
- Formation: Séminaire Émile-Biayenda, Brazzaville, founded 1947.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
A full Spiritan Province
- Mission: roughly 20 Spiritan priests serving nationally under Provincial Superior Fr. Pierre Kahenga; Spiritans founded most parishes of the Diocese of Kongolo.
- Heritage: a beatification cause opened in 2023 for the 20 Spiritan missionaries martyred at Kongolo in 1962.
Central African Republic
A Spiritan Provincial Superior active amid ongoing instability
- Mission: Provincial Superior Fr. Jean-Max Ngonda also chaplains the Fraternités du Saint-Esprit lay movement, with roughly 2,300 members across 9 dioceses.
Angola
Spiritan Province of Angola · erected 1977, present since 1866
- Mission: marking its 50th-anniversary jubilee in 2026.
- Social development: technical training centres, boarding schools, and language and translation work.
Gabon & Equatorial Guinea
One joint circumscription under a single Provincial Superior
- Mission: a former provincial superior, Mgr. Séverin Nziengui Mangandza, now serves as Apostolic Vicar of Makokou, Gabon.
East Africa
All descended from a single East Africa Province founded in 1973.
Kenya (and South Sudan)
Holy Ghost Fathers Province of Kenya — the region’s founding and dominant circumscription
- Mission: a “two-nation Province” with 18 missions in Kenya and 3 in South Sudan’s Rumbek Diocese.
- Social development: medical and water projects among the Pokot people, including at Rotu and Tangulbei.
- Formation: Nairobi hosts the Congregation’s East African theologate, training around 40 scholastics a year.
- Interfaith dialogue: hosted SCCAI’s September 2026 continental Interfaith Dialogue Workshop.
Tanzania
Spiritan Province of Tanzania — the Congregation’s East African cradle
- Mission: the Holy Ghost Mission, Bagamoyo, founded 1868, hosted the 2020 General Chapter that elected the first African Superior General.
- Formation: hosts the region’s philosophy house (Arusha) and novitiate (Lushoto).
Ethiopia
Spiritan Community Outreach Ethiopia (SCORE) — unified since 2013
- Social development: SCORE’s development wing employs 82 staff; a January 2026 youth-livelihoods training reached 30 young people in the Gamo Zone.
- Interfaith dialogue: ecumenical cooperation with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has shaped the mission since 1972.
Uganda
Uganda Foundation · established 2008
- Social development: HIV/AIDS ministry, education for deaf children and school-dropout girls, and chaplaincy at Mulago Hospital, Kampala.
Southern Africa
Mozambique
A young, internationally-staffed missionary group · arrived 1996
- Mission: active across the Dioceses of Nacala, Nampula, Beira and Chimoio.
- Social development: community school and kindergarten projects in Nampula, water infrastructure at Itoculo, and emergency shelter after the 2019 cyclone.
- Formation: Inter-diocesan Philosophy Seminary of St. Augustine, Matola.
Zambia
Zambia Spiritan Group
- Mission: has staffed Maria Regina Parish, Linda, since 1980, and runs a Spiritan Academy.
Malawi
Malawi Spiritan Group — “Serving with One Heart and One Soul”
- Mission: an active, growing circumscription with confrères professed alongside Kenyan, Tanzanian, Ugandan and Zimbabwean Spiritans in 2026.
South Africa
Deep historical roots dating to 1878
- Mission: Spiritans built the dioceses of Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Bloemfontein and Bethlehem before handing diocesan leadership to others from 1951 onward.
Zimbabwe
A confirmed, active circumscription
- Formation: Zimbabwean Spiritans professed alongside confrères from Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda in 2026.
Indian Ocean Islands
Madagascar
Congrégation du Saint-Esprit — Province de Madagascar
- Mission: the only full Province among the islands, with 11 communities across 5 dioceses.
- Social development: the Clinique des Flamboyants health centre and reforestation work, Mampikony.
- Formation: Maison Poullart des Places, Mampikony.
Mauritius
Centred on the shrine of Blessed Jacques-Désiré Laval, “Apostle of Mauritius”
- Interfaith dialogue: the annual Laval pilgrimage in Port-Louis draws tens of thousands of pilgrims of different faiths.
Réunion
A Spiritan presence since 1817
- Mission: today staffed mainly by confrères from Madagascar, Congo, Tanzania, Senegal and Angola.
Cabo Verde
Present since 1941, self-governing
- Mission: elects its own local superior and now exports vocations — 12 Cabo Verdean-born Spiritans serve abroad.
Seychelles
Spiritan leadership of the Diocese of Port Victoria
- Mission: Bishop Denis Wiehe, C.S.Sp., is emeritus Bishop of Port Victoria.
News from the Spiritan Group of Ethiopia
The Fruits of Mission: Fr. Prof. Peter Osuji, C.S.Sp., Returns to Ethiopia after 27 Years
By George Mokua, C.S.Sp. — August 2026
Fr. Prof. Peter Osuji, C.S.Sp., a Spiritan of the Nigerian South East Province and now a professor of Bioethics at Duquesne University in the United States, returned to Ethiopia in July and August 2026 for the first time in 27 years. Fr. Osuji was the first African Spiritan priest appointed to the Ethiopian mission, arriving in the 1990s to serve nine years as parish priest and school director at Dhadim Parish in the Borana region before leaving for further studies in 1999.
His return visit took him through several Spiritan ministries, including Good Shepherd Parish, Dhoqolle, where he concelebrated Mass and reunited with former students he had once taught and mentored. He was welcomed by the Spiritan Group of Ethiopia Superior, Fr. Kilimpe Garbicha, C.S.Sp., and by Fr. John Luwani, C.S.Sp., who credited his visit with encouraging the younger missionaries currently serving in Ethiopia. Fr. Kilimpe praised Fr. Osuji’s continued fluency in the Borana language after nearly three decades away, and recalled his earlier contribution to expanding Dhadim Primary School from Grade Six to Grade Eight.
Addressing the missionaries currently serving in Ethiopia, Fr. Osuji encouraged patience, careful listening, and a willingness to learn from the people before them — counsel he credited to his own formation in a country whose Christian and cultural heritage long predates its evangelisation by Spiritan missionaries.
Read the full story on the SCCAI Substack: The Fruits of Mission: Fr. Prof. Peter Osuji, C.S.Sp., Returns to Ethiopia after 27 Years
“Behold, I Am Doing Something New” — the Spiritan Group of Ethiopia Enlarged Assembly, June 2026
By Br. George Mokua, C.S.Sp. — July 2026
The Spiritan Group of Ethiopia (SGE) held its Enlarged Assembly from 21 to 27 June 2026 in Arba Minch, under the theme “Behold, I Am Doing Something New” (Isaiah 43:19). The week brought confreres together for prayer and discernment, to review four years of ministry and plan ahead, opening with a retreat led by Fr. Prof. Patrick Mwania Musau, C.S.Sp., Vice Chancellor of Tangaza University, Nairobi, who urged the group to recognise and join the renewal God is already working, rather than treating mission as a list of tasks to complete.
Fr. Jeff Duaime, C.S.Sp., First Assistant to the Spiritan Superior General, addressed the assembly on behalf of the General Council, commending the Group’s contribution to evangelisation, education, and integral human development across the Borana Zone, the Hawassa Vicariate, and the South Omo and Gamo–Arba Minch area. Rt. Rev. Bishop Dejene Hidoto Gamo, Apostolic Vicar of Soddo, thanked the Spiritans for their pastoral commitment and highlighted their humanitarian response to recent landslides in the region, led by Fr. Eric Onai, C.S.Sp.
The assembly also recognised the SECAM African Union Liaison Office and Chaplaincy, led by Rev. Fr. Dr. Louison Emerick Bissila Mbila, C.S.Sp., and the work of Spiritan Outreach for Community Empowerment (SCORE Ethiopia) under Mr. Mamo Beriso Bulbo. A new Group Council was elected, with Rev. Fr. Kilimpe Garbicha Wako, C.S.Sp., as Group Superior, assisted by councillors Fr. Emmanuel Chia Tersugh, C.S.Sp., Fr. Denis Mugalula, C.S.Sp., and Fr. John Luwani, C.S.Sp. The gathering closed in a spirit of gratitude and renewed missionary commitment among the Group’s international community of confreres, drawn from across Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Read the full story on the SCCAI Substack: “Behold, I Am Doing Something New” (Isaiah 43:19): Looking back at the Spiritan Group of Ethiopia Enlarged Assembly