The laborious indigenization of an international order: the Dominican Friars in sub-Saharan Africa.

Denis, Philippe

This paper deals with the history of the Dominican friars in sub-Saharan Africa. It presents the main findings of an inter-African research project which was initiated in 1996 and led to the publication of a book entitled Dominicans in Africa. A History of the Dominican Friars in sub-Saharan Africa. (1) Eleven authors participated in the project. Six of them are young black Dominicans; the others are Westerners who have lived in Africa for long periods of time.

The Catholic church, to which the Dominican order (also known as Order of Preachers) has belonged since its foundation in the 13th century, was global long before the word existed. We all know that its head is in Rome. But this does not mean that all decisions are made in Rome. In fact, the decision-making process is fairly decentralized. One of the Roman congregations, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (also known as Propaganda (2)), coordinates the missionary enterprises of the Catholic church in the world. It establishes missionary territories (called prefectures or vicariates), appoints--jointly with the Congregation for the Bishops and the Secretariat of State--prefects, vicars or bishops and allocates mission territories to religious orders or congregations. (3) Once this is done, it the responsibility of the religious congregations, male or female, to find funding and personnel. This usually happens at the national level.

Two types of missionary congregations are involved in missionary work. Some, like the Benedictines, the Franciscans, the Dominicans or the Jesuits, were primarily founded to minister to the church in the West. Each has a specific task. The Dominicans' main Charism, for example, is preaching. For them missionary work (to non-Christian countries) is only one type of ministry among many others.

Other congregations were founded specifically for the missions. The majority of missionary congregations were established in the 19th and 20th centuries. In Africa, the most important ones are the Fathers of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans), who work mostly in West and Central Africa; the White Fathers, who are active in the Great Lakes region and in East Africa; and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who amongst others are in South Africa, Namibia and Zambia.

The Dominican Order (4) has three levels of government. The friars live in communities called priories. The priories and houses constitute a province, the boundaries of which often (but not always) coincide with a national state. The province is headed by a provincial who is assisted by a provincial council. At the international level, the Order is governed by the master of the Order and his assistants, who together constitute the Dominican curia which is based in Rome.

The curia has relatively little authority over the friars. The real power resides in the provinces. There are currently 33 Dominican provinces worldwide (for a population of 5850 professed friars (5)). Smaller entities are called vice-provinces or general vicariates. The provinces, vice-provinces and general vicariates elect their leadership every four years at an assembly called provincial (or vicarial) chapter.

It is at the level of the provinces that the decision to establish a mission is made. In some cases, as in East Africa or in Ethiopia, the initiative to start a mission was taken by the Dominican curia in Rome but the responsibility of running the mission is then handed over to one of the provinces. (6)

Early history of the Dominican Order in Africa

Signs of a Dominican presence are attested in sub-Saharan Africa as early as the 16th century in present-day Congo and Angola and along the Indian Ocean, on the eastern side of the continent. In both areas, the friars belonged to the Portuguese province. As elsewhere in the Portuguese empire, evangelization was subject to the padroado system: the secular power, namely the king of Portugal, was responsible for the mission. As a result, colonial interest and apostolic concern became completely interdependent. In south-east Africa, the Roman Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, founded in 1622, never managed to correct this situation.

It was in south-east Africa that the Portuguese friars were the most active. (7) They were the main missionary order in this region. The Jesuits had been the first to penetrate into the interior but the tragic failure of Goncalo da Silveira's mission in 1561 dissuaded them from establishing a permanent mission in south-east Africa. The Dominicans opened their first house on the island of Mozambique in 1577. At the peak of their influence, in 1631, they had 18 mission stations, on the coast, along the Zambezi River and inside the Munhumutapa empire. Later on, their number decreased. When they finally left the region in 1835, they numbered only five. For lack of regular income, many friars resorted to trade. Numerous reports voiced concern about their immorality and their lack of missionary zeal. There have been zealous Dominican missionaries, of course, like Joao dos Santos, the author of Ethiopia Oriental (Evora, 1609), a remarkable study of ethnography and history, or Francisco de Trindade, who reorganized the mission at the end of the 17th century and published a catechism in the vernacular language.

But can one speak of evangelization? After a phase of mass baptisms, a practice soon discovered to be meaningless, the priests tended to restrict their work to the Portuguese settlers. They ministered only to the domestic servants and to the slaves of the Portuguese, but otherwise ignored the rest of the population. In addition, they also tried to convert the Munhumutapa emperors, as a way of increasing their influence. In 1629, after a war of succession in which the Portuguese took an active part, the new emperor, Mavhura, accepted to be baptized together with his family and his dignitaries. In the long run, however, this missionary strategy failed. For the Munhumutapa emperors, baptism was the seal of the alliance with the white power. They abandoned the Christian faith as soon as Portuguese power diminished in the region.

The Portuguese missiologist Antonio Brasio has gathered 120 names of priests born in Africa between 1549 and 1800. (8) Although incomplete, his list highlights a major aspect of missionary history--nearly all African priests ordained during the early modern period belonged to the Portuguese colonies situated along the western coast of Africa: mostly Angola but also Congo, Cape Verde and Sao Tome. The most remarkable of these African friars, however, was born in the south-eastern part of the African continent. He was no other than the son of Karaparidze, the emperor defeated by Mavhura in 1629 with the help of the Portuguese army. After the battle he was made a prisoner by the Portuguese. The viceroy of India, Miguel de Noronha, count of Linhares, took him to Goa, where he was educated by the Dominicans. In 1630 he was sent to Lisbon where he received the Dominican habit and a religious name, Miguel de Apresentacao.

A few years later, Miguel was ordained priest and sent to the priory of Bacaim in India. He never returned to his home country. In 1650 the king of Portugal, who was looking for a successor to the ageing Mavhura, offered to allow him to return and take over the Munhumutapa empire. But he refused, saying that he preferred to stay in India. (9)

By then, Dom Miguel was in the Santa Barbara priory in Goa. He seems to have been a good religious. According to Ardizone Spinola, an aristocratic Italian Theatine priest Who knew him well in the 1540s, racist attitudes were not exceptional in the Dominican community. "Although he is a model priest, leading a very exemplary life, saying Mass daily, yet not even the habit which he wears secures him any consideration there, just because he has a black face. If I had not seen it, I would not have believed it." (10) We would like to know more about the internal relationship within the Dominican communities in India. In any event, other sources reveal that Miguel de Apresentacao had responsibilities: he taught theology and, at the end of his life, he became the vicar of Santa Barbara parish in Goa. In 1670, the master general of the Dominican Order, Thomas Rocaberti, awarded him the title of master in theology. (11) His presence may have been controversial but at the same time he enjoyed support among his brethren.

Dominican missions in contemporary Africa

There are currently ten (male) Dominican entities in sub-Saharan Africa. All but two (South Africa and Congo) were established after the second world war.

The missionaries who serve, or have served, these ten entities belong to no fewer than twelve Dominican provinces: Belgium: Congo; Canada: Rwanda and Burundi; France (province of Paris): Cameroun, Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville; France (province of Lyon, now amalgamated with the province of Paris): Senegal, Ivory Coast and Benin; France (province of Toulouse): Reunion and Madagascar; Netherlands: South Africa; Philippines: Ethiopia; Portugal: Angola; Spain: Congo and Central Africa; Switzerland: Eastern Congo, Rwanda and Burundi; United Kingdom: South Africa; United States (province of St Albert's): Nigeria and Ghana; United States (province of St Joseph's): Kenya and Tanzania.

Four of the new foundations predated independence. The province of St Albert's in the United States established a mission in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1951. A group of friars from the province of Lyon arrived in Dakar, Senegal, in June 1955. They later expanded to Abidjan and Cotonou. Another group from the French (Paris) province started a community in the latter part of 1955 in Douala, Cameroon. A team of Swiss Dominicans came to Bukavu, Congo, in August 1959. They were followed, in January 1960, by a group of Canadian friars, who established a community in nearby Butare, Rwanda. The Swiss Dominicans left Bukavu in 1966 to help their Canadian confreres to run the university of Butare.

In 1963, the year of Kenya's independence, a group of American friars from the Eastern province arrived in Nairobi to run the national seminary for Kenya. Due to a disagreement with the bishops conference, however, they left the country in 1969. They came back in 1985 and are currently involved in a variety of ministries in the country.

Several friars from Portugal went to Angola in 1982, resuming a century-old tradition of Dominican presence in Africa which had been interrupted in 1834. They first settled in Waku-Kungo. Lastly, we should mention the Dominicans from the Toulouse province, who went to Reunion in the Indian Ocean in 1993 and are now in the process of opening a new house in Madagascar, and those from the Philippines, who have a house in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, since 2003. (12)

New forms of ministry

In the period preceding the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Dominicans, like the other missionary congregations, received a territory from the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith: Niangara in Congo (1912), Kroonstad in South Africa (1932) and Sokoto in Nigeria (1953).

Later they opted for more flexible forms of ministry, better adapted to the needs of modern Africa. (13) All three dioceses were handed over to the local church. The Dominicans are still involved in parish ministry but this is no longer their main form of pastoral work. In Senegal, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and South Africa, they work as university chaplains. In Benin and in Angola they run development projects. In Burundi and in Ivory Coast they support street children. They are also involved in preaching, lecturing and retreats.

Seven countries where the Dominicans are currently present--Angola, Ethiopia, DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Burundi and Ivory Coast--have been, and sometimes still are, involved in civil wars. For the friars concerned this constitutes a serious challenge. War disrupts community life while prompting the friars to new forms of ministry. In some cases--as in Rwanda-Burundi--the matters in dispute are divisive in the Dominican communities themselves.

The indigenization of Dominican life in Africa

Having set the scene, let us now come to the main part of this paper. To what degree has Dominican life become African? This is a very contested question. The author of this paper was born in the West. He came to Africa--more specifically to South Africa--in 1988 and now lives permanently in this country. His origins inevitably influence his views on indigenization. The only ambition of this paper is to identify a certain number of indicators and to use them to assess the progress of indigenization in the Dominican Order in Africa. I suggest the following indicators:

--recruitment of African candidates;

--establishment of novitiates and houses of studies;

--appointment or election of locally-born church leaders;

--self-government;

--financial autonomy.

I. Recruitment of African candidates

The indigenization of the Dominican Order in Africa had a modest start in the early modern period. At least five black Dominicans were ordained in south-east Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries, probably more. As mentioned earlier, the last Dominicans left the region in 1835. (14)

The Belgian Dominicans arrived in Congo in 1912. It was not until 1953 that the first African candidates were admitted to the Order, and four of them were ordained in 1958. Clearly, the missionaries of the first generation were not ready to accept indigenous candidates. In South Africa, the first students were admitted in 1944, 27 years after the arrival of the first English Dominican. With one exception (a coloured candidate who did not persevere), all Dominican students were white until 1968. The novitiate became multi-racial only in 1968 when it moved to Payneville Springs, a "grey" area from the point of view of apartheid legislation. The first coloured Dominican was ordained in 1977 and the first black in 1986.

The examples of Congo and South Africa show that there was a long interval between the arrival of the friars and the acceptance of the first indigenous candidates. A similar observation has been made for other Catholic missionary congregations, for example the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Basutoland (present-day Lesotho). (15)

Things started moving after the second world war. In virtually all the other Dominican foundations, local candidates were accepted shortly after the arrival of the missionaries. This does not mean that the training and the integration of the indigenous recruits went smoothly. According to a rough estimate, 60-80 percent of the candidates accepted between 1950 and 1990 subsequently left the religious life. They left at all stages of the religious curriculum: as novices, as students in first vows, as students in final vows or as priests. In Rwanda-Burundi, for instance, only three members of the first generation of Dominicans are still in the religious life and in Cameroon only two. In South Africa, not more than a third of the students trained between 1944 and 1968 subsequently remained in the Order. In Congo, the recruitment virtually came to a halt in the 1970s. A new generation of students arrived in the early 1980s, most of whom have persevered to this day.

Nigeria is currently the strongest Dominican entity on the African continent. The Order there numbers more than one hundred and thirty friars, nearly all born in Africa. The second biggest entity is Congo, with about seventy friars, all but one indigenous. The other entities do not have as many African members but the indigenization process is well advanced. Since the 1990s, it has become irreversible.

2. Establishment of novitiates and houses o[ studies

In the early days, the African candidates were trained and ordained overseas. The establishment of a local house of formation is an important step in the indigenization of the Dominican Order. Five entities have a permanent novitiate. The English vicariate of South Africa was the first to open a novitiate, in 1947 in Stellenbosch. Then followed Viadana (Belgian Congo) in 1953, Ibadan (Nigeria) in 1968, Abidjan (Ivory Coast) in 1970 and Kigali (Rwanda) in 1990. The other entities send their candidates to a neighbouring entity. They sometimes open novitiates for short periods.

Some entities have also opened a house of studies. Here again South Africa paved the way with a philosophy course at Stellenbosch in 1944, followed by a theology course in 1957. The Stellenbosch house of studies was closed in 1970 in the aftermath of Vatican II. A similar house reopened at Cedara, Pietermaritzburg, in 1989 from where it moved to Pietermaritzburg in 2000. Nigeria followed a similar pattern. A house of studies was established in Ibadan in 1973: called Dominican Institute, it is now a theological school in its own right, with close ties to the University of Ibadan. Viadana in Congo also became a house of studies, until it was transferred to Kinshasa in the early 1980s. Lastly, we should mention Abidjan, the house of studies of the West African vicariate. In South Africa, Congo and Ivory Coast the Dominican students attend lectures in neighbouring theological institutions. Thanks to these houses of studies, they are educated locally, and trained to the priesthood in an African context.

3. Appointment or election of locally born church leaders

In the Dominican Order, all leaders are elected except in newly instituted houses or in the houses which are too small to have an elected leadership. At its inception, a mission is usually too small to elect its own leaders. The establishment of formally constituted priories and provinces is a sign of maturity for a Dominican mission. In sub-Saharan Africa there are currently 24 priories and ten houses (communities without elected leadership). (16)

In any event, it took a long time before indigenous leaders were chosen. The first were elected in the 1980s. Today six of the ten entities--Nigeria, Congo, South Africa, West Africa, Rwanda-Burundi and Angola--have indigenous leaders. A significant proportion of the regent of studies--friars responsible for the intellectual training of the students--and of the novice masters are also indigenous.

4. Self government

To date only three entities are self-governed. The first autonomous structure in Africa was the Southern African vicariate which was constituted in 1968. It resulted from the amalgamation of the English vicariate, founded in 1917, and the Dutch vicariate, founded in 1932. The general vicariate of Congo was established the following year. The provincial vicariate of Nigeria became a vice-province in 1985 and a province in 1993. To become a province or a vice-province, there must be a minimum number of three formally constituted priories.

The others still fall under the authority of the province which founded them, and are called provincial vicariates. This means that all appointments and elections have to be ratified by the head of the province. The provincial council has a say on any matter of importance concerning the vicariate. The vicar provincial is accountable to the provincial. Five entities--West Africa, Equatorial Africa, Rwanda-Burundi, Angola and East Africa--are provincial vicariates. The first two are part of the French province, Rwanda-Burundi is part of the Canadian province, Angola is part of the Portuguese province and East Africa is part of the St Joseph's province in the United States. The mission of the Indian Ocean is too small to be called a provincial vicariate: it falls under the authority of the province of Toulouse in France. As to the Addis Ababa house, while staffed by friars from the Philippines, it is under the immediate jurisdiction of the master of the Order.

5. Financial autonomy

Financial autonomy is of paramount importance when it comes to indigenization. As Stuart Bate pointed out in his study of the economics of the Catholic vicariate of Natal, "economic matters are pervasive, permeating into a number of areas of Catholic missionary culture in settler society". (17) Compared to the other churches, the Catholic church in Africa has a relatively low degree of financial autonomy. Most of its infrastructure--churches, seminaries, convents and priories--was built with foreign money. The Dominican Order is no exception. The four provincial vicariates and the mission of the Indian Ocean depend on their provinces not only for their infrastructure but for a substantial part of their running costs. They also depend on external donors for the training of their students. In other words, if the link to the provinces had to be cut, they would face a severe financial crisis.

The province of Nigeria, the general vicariates of Congo and Southern Africa are supposedly financially autonomous. They no longer have a formal link with a Dominican province and to some degree are autonomous. Some of their members generate income through preaching, teaching or NGO work. Yet these entities still depend on the West--the Dutch, German or Irish Dominican provinces for instance--for their training costs as well as their infrastructure. The dependency syndrome has by no means disappeared.

Conclusion

In this paper, we touched only the surface of the problem of the indigenization of religious life. Other aspects like the contents of the theological curriculum, the liturgy, the daily practice of the communities and the influence of celibacy on the religious life need further discussion. Ultimately Dominican life can be said to be indigenized when the African members of the Order feel fully at home in their congregation. To what extent can they be fully Dominican without betraying their African roots? Each African friar will give his own response to this question. Some progress has been made but there is still a long way to go. The indigenization of religious life is a slow and painful process.

In the book mentioned in the opening paragraph of this paper, (18) Timothy Radcliffe writes:

 This history shows that times of flourishing and of difficulty
 have marked the history of the [Dominican] Order in Africa. This
 is a story of birth and death and rebirth. Provinces repeatedly
 started new initiatives, and tried again and again to found the
 Order in Africa over the centuries. This is a story of courage and
 of renewed hope. Even today the foundation of the Order on this
 beloved continent is not easy. But this history surely encourages
 us, for the brethren who went before us did not give up. This is
 promising not just for the presence of the Order in Africa, but
 for the contribution that African Dominicans will increasingly
 make in the mission of the whole Order on every continent. The
 Order needs the gifts that its African brothers and sisters bring:
 a deep sense of the presence of God, an ancient wisdom and a joy
 in the Lord.

(1) Philippe Denis ed., Dominicans in Africa. A History of the Dominicans Friars in sub-Saharan Africa, Dublin, Dominican Publ. & Pietermaritzburg, Cluster Publ., 2003, 264pp.

(2) Established in 1622.

(3) It should be noted that the mode of assignation of mission territories changed in the early 1960s. Propaganda decided to assign mission territories to individual clerics--who often happened to be religious--and no longer to religious congregations per se. Information kindly provided by Fr Stanslaus Muyebe, St Joseph's Theological Institute, Cedara.

(4) On the history of the Dominican Order, see William A. Hinnebush, The Dominicans. A Short History, Dublin, Dominican Publ., 1975.

(5) Figures for 2003 (http://www.krakow2004.dominikanie.pl/capitulum/stats_chapter.pdf). They are distributed as follows: Africa: 317; Asia: 717; Europe: 2895; Latin America and the Caribean: 969; North America: 952.

(6) See W. Sinkele, "East Africa", in P. Denis ed., Dominicans in Africa, pp.215-225.

(7) On the history of the Portuguese missions in South-East Africa, see Paul Schebesta, Portugals Konquistamission in Sudost-Afrika. Missionsgeschichte Sambesiens und des Monomotapareiches (1560-1920), St Augustin/Siegburg, Institutus Missiologicus Societatis Verbi Divini, 1967; S.I.G. Mudenge, Political History of Munhumutapa c. 1400-1902, Harare, Zimbabwe Publ. House, 1988; Philippe Denis, The Dominican Friars in Southern Africa. A Social History (1577-1990), Leiden, Brill, 1998, pp.2-65.

(8) A. Brasio, "A Promocao Sacerdotal do Africano", in Portugalem Africa, no. 19, 1962, pp.12-22; and 20, 1963, pp.135-155.

(9) Letter of Miguel de Apresentacao to King John IV of Portugal, 1650. Cf. Sotheby's Sale Catalogue of 9 April 1974, p.107, quoted in C.R. Boxer, The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion 1440-1770, Baltimore and London, John Hopkins UP, 1978, p.123.

(10) Quoted in Boxer, The Church Militant, p.11.

(11) Luis de Sousa, "Quarta Parte", in George McCall Theal ed., Retards of South-Eastern Africa, no. 1, Cape Town, Government of the Cape Colony, 1898, p.404.

(12) International Dominican Information, no. 423, 27 July 2004.

(13) For a description of these new forms of ministry, see P. Denis, "Dominican Concern for Social Justice in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa", in J.O. Mills ed., Justice, Peace and Dominicans 1216-2001, Dublin, Dominican Publ., 2001, pp.125-132.

(14) P. Denis, "An Indigenous Clergy in Portuguese South-East Africa (1550-1835)", in P. Denis ed., The Making of an Indigenous Clergy in Southern Africa, Pietermaritzburg, Cluster Publ., 1995, pp.26-39.

(15) See Jerome Skhakhane, "The Beginnings of Indigenous Clergy in the Catholic Church of Lesotho", in P. Denis ed., The Making of an Indigenous Clergy in Southern Africa, pp.115-123. Maniata Kisweso made the same observation in his thesis on the first indigenous priests in the Kwango mission in Congo (Emergence et developpement du clerge autochtone dans la mission jesuite du Kwango, 1883-1961, unpublished PhD dissertation, Universite de Louvain-la-Neuve, 2003).

(16) Figures for 2003 (http://www.krakow2004.dominikanie.pl/capitulum/stats_chapter.pdf).

(17) Stuart Bate, "Creating a Missionary Vicariate: Economic in Catholic Missionary Culture", in Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, no. 28/2, December 2002, p.223.

(18) T. Radcliffe, "Foreword", in P. Denis ed., Dominicans in Africa, p.8.

Philippe Denis is professor of the history of Christianity at the School of Religion and Theology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.