Preface “Born Equal and Free !”

Preface “Born equal and free !” One day a friend of mine told me the following story about David and his friend Stephen. David had visited Stephen and they both went to the cemetery because David wanted to pay his respects to the parents of Stephen whom he knew very well and who were now resting in that cemetery. Upon arrival in the cemetery, David was struck by one thing. Only the name on the cross distinguished one grave from the other. All had the same shape and style. When he marvelled and asked his friend Stephen why, the answer he got was the following: “in our town we took the decision to offer the same type of grave to all our citizens because we are born equal and at the end, before God, we are equal. We are all God’s children in need of love and understanding. In the same row as my parents are a policeman, a mayor, a priest, etc. You would not know if they would not tell you.” Approvingly David said “born equal and free, that is our challenge!” Our Founder, Fr. Lavigerie was not eavesdropping on this story but his ardent commitment to participate in the campaign against the anti-slavery campaign in the nineteenth century certainly helped many attain the dream that we are born equal before God and that we should be free, not enslaved by anybody. However, what could one person do? Not much we might be tempted to say. But let us recall that one voice less in an election can mean the loss of an opportunity to serve others with a certain vision! Each voice counts and every eye, mouth and brain all the more so! If you think your contribution is not important look one day at how a team of ants work together to gather food into their granary. None is strong enough to carry anything but through working together they are able to roll enough food into their granary for the lean season! The commitment to invest in fighting against Slavery went beyond our Founder and stimulated others to participate in the way the Spirit was moving in the Church and in the world. Pastoral agents, beginning with Pope Leo XIII down to the common person in the distant villages in Africa, decried the injustice of forcefully removing thousands of Africans from their home and sending them elsewhere. As we celebrate the 125th Anniversary of Lavigerie’s participation in the anti-Slavery campaign we are spurred to action too against the different forms of slavery and discriminations that deprive people of their equality before God and each other and of their freedom. Knowledge is good but when it leads to meaningful action it is still better. May the present booklet, raise our awareness about the past but especially open our ears, hearts and eyes to the situations of slavery around us today so that we can courageously announce that as Missionaries we have a different message for God’s people who are all born equal and free! May we, like the Biblical Prophets and like our Founder be able to denounce today’s forms of modern slavery and commit ourselves eradicating them! “United we stand, divided we fall”. If our actions during this year are to bear lasting fruit, we need to network with other Societies, Congregations and groups engaged in fighting for the rights of the slaves of today who are counted more in terms of economy than for their equality in dignity and freedom as children of God and as our brothers and sisters. The Historical research Team of the Missionaries of Africa has produced this booklet that will help us better know the context of our Father’s action and thus inspire us to act today. I hereby express the Society’s heartfelt gratitude to the team (Frs. Jean-Claude Ceillier and François Richard). May we use their booklet with joy and purpose. Fr Richard K. Baawobr Superior General Foreword This number 11 of the History series is different from the previous ones. First of all, it responds to a specific request to contribute to the 125th anniversary of the Anti Slavery campaign. In the minds of the two General Councils, it is not only the matter of a simple commemoration but a general mobilisation to fight against the present day forms of slavery. This booklet makes its contribution to this project in reminding us that our charism comes from Cardinal Lavigerie, whose vision ought to a source of inspiration for us in the present time. Rather than publishing a detailed history of the Cardinal’s campaign, we chose to collect some texts from different sources. We have, above all, wished to highlight the texts from the time, either of the Cardinal himself or of the first missionaries. Nevertheless, it seemed necessary to add some narrative in order to introduce the campaign itself and the commitment of the White Fathers and White Sisters. The first chapter traces the sequence of events of the campaign from 1888 to 1889. To do this we have reproduced the second chapter of the fourth part of the biography of the Cardinal written by François Renault in 1992. It was translated into English by the late John O’Donohue. We thank Fayard publishers for permission to use this text. The second chapter, the most important, presents an important selection of texts by Lavigerie. The purpose is to allow us have direct access to the very words of our founder in order to understand better what inspired him so profoundly. We thank Richard Calcutt and Michael Targett for having translated these texts into English. The third chapter focuses on the actions of our predecessors, in trying to show how the first members of our two Missionary Institutes put on lot of effort in fighting the scourge of slavery. It was translated into english by Sr Felicia Nowak and Fr Ian Buckmaster. The final text has been edited by Jacques Poirier. Jean Claude Ceillier François Richard Chapter I The Slave Trade Lavigerie was convinced that the slave-trade presented a radical obstacle to development of any kind in Africa. He had read on the subject even before the first missionaries left for Central Africa, but it was only when their reports started to come in that he began to realize its true extent. He raised the alarm in a number of publications, but these reached only a limited public. He also sought to persuade the Holy See to intervene to alert public opinion, and tried to convince countries in a position to do so to put pressure on the Sultan of Zanzibar. These efforts were unsuccessful, but Lavigerie was not the man to give up when so much was at stake. It was not only East Africa that was involved. West Africa was also afflicted, as well as vast areas of what is now Southern Sudan. Each year, tens of thousands of human beings were being enslaved, many of them carried off to North Africa, to the dependencies of Zanzibar, to the Middle East, and even to as far away as India. The number of these exported victims can be to some extent calculated, but it is impossible to say how many more were killed during the raids or died on the slave routes before they reached the coast. The words of the explorer Cameron were no exaggeration: “Africa is bleeding from every pore.”i The abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888 provided Lavigerie with a further opportunity of denouncing the evil. Brazil was the last European-type country to abolish slavery, and to celebrate the event Leo XIII addressed an encyclical letter to the Bishops of Brazil. When Lavigerie heard that the Encyclical was in preparation, he suggested that, in his comments on slavery, the Pope should not give the impression that it no longer existed. After giving a long description of the horrors of the slave-trade in Africa, Lavigerie recommended that the Pope issue an urgent exhortation to competent persons, in various fields, to help to put an end to it. The missionaries could be encouraged to do everything possible to ease the sufferings of the slaves and bring about their liberation, while “Christian governments” should be encouraged to take genuinely effective measures against the leaders of the trade. These suggestions were accepted and incorporated in the Encyclical In Plurimis of 5 May, 1888. These urgings of Lavigerie corresponded to what the Pope had already said in 1885 in the Encyclical Immortale Dei about the place of Christians in all fields of human endeavour. Lavigerie had used the opportunity of that Encyclical to repeat similar directives of his own. Since the earliest days of his priesthood, one of his principal interests had been to prepare the way for reconciliation between the Church and modern society. This preoccupation faded somewhat into the background during the 1870’s, but it reappeared with the election of Leo XIII, and in response to growing attacks on the Church as hopelessly reactionary and opposed to all contemporary aspirations towards progress, freedom, science and culture. The best way of meeting these attacks was for Christians to enter the field of their adversaries and outclass them in what these too easily regarded as their own particular sphere. It was this kind of thinking that led Lavigerie to propose to the Pope an anti-slavery campaign. Here was an area of great humanitarian need where the Church could take the initiative and confound the critics who accused her of indifference to human welfare in this world.

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