Roman Catholic Church in Kongo - Role of Regular Clergy

Role of Regular Clergy

The regular clergy (monks and teaching orders) had an important role to play in the development of Kongo's version of Christianity. Jesuit missionaries had a brief presence in 16th century Kongo (1548–1555), but political issues between them and King Diogo I brought the mission to an end.

A Discalced Carmelite mission worked in Kongo from 1584-88 and Dominicans also had a brief mission in 1610-1612. However, it was the renewed Jesuit mission and the Capuchin mission that marked the real presence of regular orders in Kongo.

The Jesuits returned to Kongo in 1619, and in 1625 opened the College of São Salvador, which was responsible for the education of most of the Kongo elite in the mid 17th century. João de Paiva, the rector of the college until 1642, was particularly instrumental in the education of Kongolese, and also wrote an extensive, though now lost, chronicle of the country. Some of de Paiva's material informed the Synopsis Annalium of António Franco (1725). Jesuits also organized lay brotherhoods which played an important role in politics.

The Jesuits were followed in 1645 by the Capuchins. Capuchins came to Kongo largely because Kongo kings, beginning with Álvaro II of Kongo, were dissatisfied with the failure of the bishops to ordain sufficient clergy and the Portuguese crown's opposition to the ordination of Kongolese. Kongo demanded that its church be separated from that of Portugal and that Angolan interests from the rival and increasingly enemy colony that often controlled the episcopal office. As a compromise, the Papacy decided to send Italian Capuchins from areas that were not objectionable to Portugal to Kongo. Although officially missionaries, the Capuchins were as much like parish priests as missionaries to the unconverted. In fact, this parish priest role put them frequently at odds with the secular clergy, who Capuchins charged were lax in their duties and too tolerant of traditional Kongolese religion.

The Capuchins generally had three or four missionaries in the whole of Kongo, occasionally they had as many as ten, never enough to truly take over the instruction of the people or educate more than an elite of political actors and their own staff. The Capuchins generally constructed hospices near political centers, such as São Salvador, Mbamba, and Soyo or in territory relatively far from the political centers such as the hospice at Nsuku in the north of the country. There they and their staff of freed slaves (nleke) who carried them on their annual rounds of the countryside. While travelling they stopped at centrally located villages for a few days while people from neighboring settlements came in, and then they performed the sacraments, especially baptism, to thousands. It was not uncommon for a long serving missionary to record tens of thousands of baptisms in their reports, and many fewer marriages and communions.

The Capuchins' special role in Europe, America and in Africa was to purify the religious practice of rural communities, and in Kongo they were particularly keen to destroy what they considered "superstitious" in Kongolese religion, which included the making of charms (minkisi) and healing cults like the kimpasi. As such they were embued with the spirit of the Counter Reformation and hostile to many local practices, both in Europe and in Africa. Although some regarded Kongo as a devoutly Christian nation and were more tolerant of local custom, many wrote harsh denunciations of local practice. So much so that Axelsen portrayed their relations with the Kongo as something akin to a war until the mid-eighteenth century, when dwindling numbers of foreign clergy allowed the local religious actors to reassert themselves. Because of this literature, many scholars have argued that Kongo did not really accept Christianity, or simply masked their true beliefs behind show conversion. However, the missionary reports strongly suggest a syncretic understanding of Christianity on the part of the Kongo rural poor as well as the nobles, in which some elements of the former religion and many more of its cosmology informed Christian practice.

The Capuchin missionaries left very long accounts of Kongo, some of which are the best sources available to us today. Giovanni Francesco da Roma (1648), Antonio de Teruel (1664), Girolamo da Montesarchio (1668), Girolamo Merolla da Sorrento (1688), Luca da Caltanisetta (1701), Marcellino d'Atri (1702), Antonio Zucchelli da Gradisca (1712), Bernardo da Gallo (1710), Lorenzo da Lucca (1718), Cherubino da Savona (1775) and Raimondo da Dicomano (1798) among others, all left lengthy accounts full of details of daily life, political events, and religious observations. Finally, Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, whose long book of 1687 was often quoted, cited and translated became one of the fundamental sources for Central African history, and his illustrations, both in the unpublished Araldi manuscript (in Modena) and as engravings in his book are important sources for daily life.

After the first two decades of the 18th century, fewer Capuchins came to Kongo, and Portuguese policies, which restricted the ability of Capuchins to enter Angola and Kongo, hampered the 18th century mission as well. For most of the mid-18th century there was only one missionary in the country, and by the end of the century, there were many years with no Capuchins. The Capuchins finally left Central Africa altogether in 1835, and by then they had not had a missionary in Kongo since 1814.