The National Episcopal Conference of the Congo and prophetic diplomacy: managing tensions, political mediation and the search for lasting compromises

This article examines the political role of the National Episcopal Conference of the Congo (CENCO) in the Democratic Republic of Congo from the colonial-missionary alliance at the end of the 19th century up to the constitutional référendum crisis of 2026. The paper centres on the question as to how an institution with a spiritual mission can become decisively involved in the political sphere through electoral mediation, peace agreements, and civic mobilisation without compromising its impartiality or becoming a partisan actor. Using a historical-structural approach, the article looks back at the transformation of the Congolese Catholic Church from an auxiliary of the colonial project into becoming a critical counterweight under Mobutu, and more recently the “last democratic bulwark” since the Sovereign National Conference of 1991–1992. As such, the paper explores the Church’s doctrine of distinguishing its spiritual mission from its temporal engagement (i.e. the “substitution” idea and the laity role), before analysing CENCO’s contemporary diplomacy, seen through the lenses of “positive neutrality”, as presented in the “Ubuntu” social pact concluded with the Church of Christ in the DR Congo, and its confrontation with the ruling authorities over the proposed constitutional référendum of 2026. The article concludes that while CENCO remains an indispensable mediator, the fragmentation of the religious landscape (with competition from revivalist churches) and the pressure from the ruling authorities are steadily undermining its model of “prophetic diplomacy.”