On 13 June 2021, a street in Burkina Faso was named after Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo spoke at a ceremony unveiling the newly named Rue Pape Benoît XVI (Pope Benedict XVI Street) in the capital, Ouagadougou and also told that naming of a street after Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI brought “hope” to the country, Africa, and the world.
The thoroughfare was previously called street 54.160.
At the ceremony, Ouédraogo described Benedict XVI as a great pastor whose name “brings hope to Burkina Faso, to Africa, and to the world and promotes the spirit of dialogue, reconciliation, justice, and peace in the hearts of all people.”
“Let us make this street a place where peace awakens faith,” the archbishop of Ouagadougou said at the ceremony.
Archbishop Michael Crotty, the apostolic nuncio in Burkina Faso and Niger, said at the ceremony that the naming of the street was “a sign of gratitude to the pope, … who established the apostolic nunciature in Ouagadougou on 12 June 2007, and on the same day appointed Archbishop Vito Rallo as the first apostolic nuncio resident in the country.”
Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa with a population of 20 million people, approximately 19% of whom are baptized Catholics.