First three notable deeds of Pope Leo XIV in his first week invoked my oral literature class on Africa religion on atonement of the departed souls. In maiden appearance at the loggia of St. Peter Basilica, Pope Leo XIV adorned resemblance of Pope Benedict XVI’s vestment first appearance also as Pope. To follow that, Pope Leo XIV used Ferula of Benedict XVI in his first mass in the Sistine Chapel. And the same first week, Pope Leo XIV visited and recited a prayer at Pope Francis’ graveyard.
According to pre-Christianity African religion, the ancestors were very important. Africans used the good spirit of their ancestors. Africans believed that when good people die, their spirits continue living and they use them as intermediary between God and people-akin to God of Isaac and Jacob in Bible quotation. There are believed to be two kinds of spirits of dead people. One type is that of good spirits and these are spirits of the people who die while being good as far as social norms are concerned. These are spirits that Africans depend on and for our purpose we will simply refer to them as ‘ancestral spirits’ for those departed decades and, ‘living dead’ for those who departed in recent times-to distinguish them from the good spirits that are created as spirits and have never been human bodies. Persons who die improperly become evil according to the social norms and their spirits become ‘evil spirits’ and people do not depend on them. Instead of being depended on, these evil spirits are feared, resented and chased away from the name where the living people reside. Among the people whose spirits become evil spirits are thieves, murderers, adulterers, witches, sorcerers and also include those who do not die properly such as those who commit suicide.
One of the reasons why people use ancestral spirits as go-between is that there is a belief that those spirits are worthier before God than people in the bodies. Body limits one in becoming what God would like one to be, it is claimed.
However, it should be noted that, in the worship of God, ancestors are supposed to be go-between only. They are not supposed to receive worship for worship is directed to God and God only.