Joseph Albert Malula (December 12, 1917—June 14, 1989) was a Congolese Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Kinshasa from 1964 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1969.Pope Paul VI created him Cardinal Priest of Ss. Protomartiri a Via Aurelia Antica in the consistory of April 28, 1969. Malula was the first cardinal from Zaire. At a Mass in 1970, at which President Mobutu was present, the Cardinal claimed that Zaire's ruling class was enriching itself and ignoring the people's misery[1]. In 1971, despite being an advocate of African culture, he also expressed his disapproval of Christians giving up their baptismal names in an article in the Catholic weekly magazine, Afrique Chrétienneafter, following the renaming of the Republic of the Congo as the Zaire Republic[2]. President Mobutu subsequently removed the Cardinal from his government-owned residence and suspended the magazine for six months.
Malula was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the conclaves of August and October 1978, which selected Popes John Paul I and John Paul II respectively. He supported Albino Cardinal Luciani at the August conclave, and even gave him a public embrace before he was elected[3]. Before the October conclave began, he spoke of the Vatican's pomp, saying, "All that imperial paraphernalia. All that isolation of the Pope. All that medieval remoteness and inheritance that makes Europeans think that the Church is only Western. All that tightness that makes them fail to understand that young countries like mine want something different. They want simplicity. They want Jesus Christ. All that, all that must change"[4].
Cardinal Malula died at a Leuven hospital in Belgium, at the age of 71. He is buried in Notre Dame du Congo Cathedral in Kinshasa.
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bmalula.html
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