ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN AFRICA: In Search of Its Soul

THE African Catholics who welcomed Pope Paul to their continent last week are among the newest and the oldest Christians in the world. In Egypt, Alexandria had a colony of Christians at the time of the Apostles, and it became a prominent center of early Christian scholarship. The great 4th century church father, St. Augustine, was bishop of Hippo in what is now Tunisia. Yet North African Christianity was virtually erased by the massive Moslem invasions that swept across the northern part of the continent in the 7th and 8th centuries; only the churches of Ethiopia and Egypt survived. Even today, Islam remains the largest religion in Africa, claiming almost one-third of the continent’s 300 million people.

Below the Sahara, Arab traders and slavers established footholds for Mohammedanism in East and West Africa. But Portuguese sailors of Prince Henry the Navigator also dutifully carried Catholic missionaries with them on their 15th century voyages along the coast of Africa; King Nzinga of the Congo became a Catholic a year before Columbus discovered America. The ebb and flow of colonial fortunes kept the coastal missions weak, but a start had been made. Finally, spurred on by both imperialism and the new humanitarianism of the 19th century, missionaries penetrated the interior.

The new Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant,* were asked to give up many of their tribal cultural traditions. Not only were the most dehumanizing practices proscribed—ritual murder, human sacrifice, slavery—but also many other institutions that were an intricate part of the fabric of communal life. Polygamy was almost universally forbidden. The ancestor cult, a belief that the dead remained a part of the village and should help control its life, was discredited. Ritual dances and chants, ritual drinking, even the traditional and critical rites of passage—ceremonies marking birth, death, puberty, marriage—were treated as lapses into heathenism. Though the tribesman believed deeply in the evil that could be wrought by black magic, and felt he needed charms to resist it, Christianity derided his fears; Catholicism offered him little more in the way of protection than holy water and the Latin ritual. Yet the convert cherished the idea that a Christian had a kind of magic of his own: he was “a good man.” Even though a Christian in a bush parish today may have violated church law by taking more than one wife, he will still busy himself with parish affairs, support the church generously, and probably be recognized for his kindness and charity.

The new religion also brought important material benefits. From the first, missionaries emphasized education and medical care (often building schools and hospitals before churches), and Christianity became the avenue to health and literacy. In many an emerging nation, church schools were the training grounds for future post-independence leaders. Though Senegal is less than 5% Catholic, able President Leopold Senghor and three of his Cabinet ministers are Catholic. Tanzania’s President Julius Nyerere, who preached an aggressive socialism in his 1967 Arusha Declaration, is a former Catholic school teacher. Its prominent role in education and health has created a certain resentment against the Catholic Church in some new nations, but most countries below the Sahara still welcome the church’s contribution. Even in the shattered Congo, where 115 priests and nuns were slain in the vicious civil war of the early 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church again runs most of the education system, and—apparently to ensure honesty—even handles the payroll for road-maintenance crews. But the church has an apostolic role beyond such service functions, and it is that role that is particularly endangered. Two particular problems:

THE PRIESTHOOD

The overriding complaint in Africa is a shortage of priests, a situation for which the church can only blame itself. The first black African Roman Catholic priest was not ordained until 1843, more than 350 years after the Portuguese arrived. The first black African Catholic bishop was not consecrated until 1939. Partly because of such footdragging, the ratio of priests to Catholic laity is one of the lowest in the world (one priest for approximately 2,300 Catholics, as opposed to one for 800 in the U.S.). There are now 14,400 priests in Africa, 3,400 of them black, and 351 bishops, of whom 115 are native; the continent has six cardinals, three of whom are black. Conversions continue at a remarkable rate, and a high birth rate swells membership. Even little Malawi, with 750,000 Catholics, is counting 50,000 more each year. But African Catholics have not supplied anything like enough candidates for the priesthood. The problem is more than priestly celibacy. Despite their polygamous proclivities, Africans have their own traditions honoring continence (Zulu warriors were expected to refrain from intercourse before battle) and celibacy carries a certain distinction. But it does discourage some vocations, and stringent educational requirements block others. Yet candidates must be found if the Church is even to care for its present members—let alone evangelize the 100 million Africans who still follow tribal religions.

AFRICANIZATION OF THE CHURCH

One of the touchiest issues for Roman Catholicism is the reintroduction of African culture into the church. Most converts have long identified Catholicism with the Western European liturgy that they first learned. (TIME’S Rome Bureau Chief James Bell reported last week from Kampala that the Credo sung by Ugandan Catholics during the Pope’s visit to Rubaga Cathedral was the purest Latin he had ever heard.) Until recently, older converts and African priests had resisted such innovations as Mass in the vernacular, native songs, instruments and dances, looking on them as part of their rejected past. Experimental native works like the famous Missa Luba were first encouraged by white missionaries. Now, however, the black clergy has taken the lead in Africanizing Catholic ritual. Masses all across the continent are beginning to employ old dance forms and chants. In Zambia, even the tribal lamentations at the bedside of the dying are being reintroduced. Vernacular masses can be found almost everywhere, and native drums, long used to call the faithful to church, are now a common part of many religious services. Though not all. Complained one Ugandan: “It sounds too much like a beer party.”

Whatever the solutions to these questions, the African bishops who met with Pope Paul made it clear that the answers would have a uniquely African flavor. Speaking to the prelates last week, Upper Volta’s Paul Cardinal Zoun-grana pointed to the Africanization of liturgy as a good example. “Rather than a primitive outlook,” said the cardinal, the rituals “represent an African way of thinking and way of life.” Pope Paul went even further, telling the bishops on his arrival that they could give the Church “the precious and original contribution of negritude which she needs particularly.” For the churchmen of Africa, Zoungrana had already reminded his colleagues, that meant first rediscovering “the African soul.”

* Protestant and Anglican churches in Africa today claim a total membership of 22 million, not including nearly 7 million members of more than 5,000 independent African sects, some of them only semi-Christian.