Pope Benedict XVI is returning this week to Africa, the Roman Catholic Church's fastest-growing region whose pool of aspiring priests replenish dwindling numbers of clerics elsewhere.

The 84-year-old pope arrives on Friday and will visit a seminary in the western town of Ouidah. This tiny nation on Africa's western coast is emblematic of the church's growth spurt. In just the past decade, Benin's Catholic population has grown by half, adding over half-a-million converts. In the same period the pope's native Germany has lost nearly 2 million worshippers, according to the World Christian Database.

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