Social Sciences and Missions 32 (2019) 148–176 Social Sciences and Missions Sciences sociales et missions brill.com/ssm The Conceptualisation of Africa in the Catholic Church Comparing Historically the Thought of Daniele Comboni and Adalberto da Postioma Laura António Nhaueleque Open University, Lisbon [email protected] Luca Bussotti CEI-ISCTE—University Institute of Lisbon and, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife [email protected] Abstract This article aims to show the evolution of the conceptualisation of Africa according to the Catholic Church, using as its key references Daniele Comboni and Adalberto da Postioma, two Italian missionaries who lived in the 19th century and 20th century respectively. Through them, the article attempts to interpret how the Catholic Church has conceived and implemented its relationships with the African continent in the last two centuries. The article uses history to analyse the thought of the two authors using a qualitative and comparative methodology. Résumé Le but de cet article est de montrer l’évolution de la conceptualisation de l’Afrique par l’église catholique, à partir des cas de Daniele Comboni et Adalberto da Postioma, deux missionnaires italiens du 19ème et 20ème siècles. À travers eux, l’article cherche à interpréter la manière dont l’église catholique a conçu et mis en œuvre ses relations avec le continent africain au cours des deux derniers siècles. L’article utilise l’histoire pour analyser la pensée des deux auteurs, en mobilisant une méthodologie qualitative et comparative. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/18748945-03201004Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 12:36:38PM via free access the conceptualisation of africa in the catholic church 149 Keywords Comboni – Postioma – Catholic Thought – Africa – mission Mots-clés Comboni – Postioma – pensée catholique – Afrique – mission This article aims to analyse how the Catholic Church dealt with the “African question”. This is made through the analysis of two symbolic figures who lived in different cultural, sociological and theological contexts, Daniele Comboni and Adalberto da Postioma. The article will reveal the transformations, resis- tances and continuities of Catholic missionary work in Africa in the last two centuries. The analysis presented here is limited and determined by the two above- mentioned figures who represent the focus of this research. In chronological terms, it intends to consider the missionary activity of the Catholic Church in the 19th and 20th centuries. Geographically, the study privileges the areas in which Comboni and Postioma operated as missionaries: Central Africa and namely Sudan for Comboni and Angola for Postioma. The study presented here distinguishes between missionary theology (and philosophy, especially in the case of Postioma) and missionary practice, trying to point out the different per- spectives of these two dimensions. Comboni and Postioma are two figures who have similarities but also great differences: the similarities are in their dedication to discovering African cul- ture and the need to evangelise African people. The differences are basically historical, due to the two different periods in which they lived, and their ideas about how to deal with Africa within the context of Catholic missionary work. Comboni belonged to a “fighting church”, in which to evangelise meant “to civilise” or “to Europeanise”,while Postioma was part of a heterogeneous strand which aimed to balance Christianity with traditional African beliefs, promoting a culture of evangelisation, but as part of a missionary work based on dialogue and respect for the different cultures. The comparison of these two figures offers a way to understand the path that Catholic missionary thought followed for about one hundred years of its relationship with Africa and also to point out how the “Africanism” accepted by the Catholic Church encountered fluid but definite limits. Unlike Comboni, Postioma probably went beyond these limits, with the result that his work has remained marginalised until the present day. Social Sciences and Missions 32 (2019) 148–176 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 12:36:38PM via free access 150 nhaueleque and bussotti This article attempts to answer a basic question: how did theology and mis- sionary work evolve in Africa within the Catholic Church during the period which symbolically began with the work of Comboni and finished with the work of Postioma? As far as method is concerned, the main instrument for carrying out this work has been an analysis of written works, letters and inter- ventions by each of the two authors considered here, accompanied by biblio- graphic research focused on the Catholic Church’s ideas about Africa. The text is composed of three sections. The first section focuses on the evolution of the conceptualisation and practice of Catholic missionary work, with particular emphasis on Africa; the second section deals with Comboni’s African thought; and the last section analyses Adalberto da Postioma’s African thought.The con- clusion discusses the main issues raised throughout the study. 1 Evolution of the Catholic Approach to Evangelisation and Missionary Work in Africa Over the two centuries in which the works of Comboni and Postioma were writ- ten, the focal points which characterised the relationship between the Catholic Church and the secular world were the affirmation of liberalism during the first stage and the affirmation of totalitarian regimes during the second, passing through the colonisation and decolonisation of Africa. Respected authors have emphasised the importance of the political and cultural context of the period in relation to the missionary work carried out by the Church.1 According to the historian Gadille, it is possible to identify four main peri- ods in the relationship between the Catholic Church and Africa. The first, between 1820 and 1880, is characterised as the “time of creative effervescence”2 for Catholicism. The “creative effervescence” of which Gadille speaks occurred, among others, in the diocese of Lyon with the foundation, by a group of lay peo- ple led by Pauline Jaricot, of the Œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi (1822), whose main goal was to “spread the Gospel around the world”, bringing together lay and religious men (Essertel, 2001: 27). Propagation de la Foi was not the only institution to be founded in this period. Father Lavigerie (Archbishop of Alger) founded the Société des Missionnires d’Afrique (a.k.a. les Pères Blancs, or “White Fathers”) in 1868 and, in 1869, the Sœurs agricoles hospitalières, which 1 Gadille (1988). 2 Idem, p. 47. Social Sciences and MissionsDownloaded 32from (2019) Brill.com09/27/2021 148–176 12:36:38PM via free access the conceptualisation of africa in the catholic church 151 very soon assumed the denomination of Sœurs Missionaires de Notre Dame d’Afrique (a.k.a. Sœurs Blanches).3 France, with its ‘Berulian school’,4 was the epicentre of this wave of spiritu- ality, as the experience of Father Francisco Libermann confirms (Coulon & Brasseur, 1988). Italy was also affected by this wave of new missionary spiritual- ity. Figures such as the Piedmontese Capuchin Guglielmo Massaia, Giustino de Jacobis of the Congregation of Missions, the Neapolitan Ludovico de Casoria, Nicolò Olivieri of the Pia Opera del Riscatto (which aimed to redeem “Moorish Girls”) all, directly or indirectly, joined the debate on missionary work in Africa, greatly influencing Comboni’s spiritual and religious education. Specifically, a letter from De Liguori about the Christian martyrs in Japan (which accurately described the ecclesiastic climate in the 19th century) seems to have made a particularly important impact on the young Comboni.5 At the Vatican side, after the short pontificate of Pious VIII, the first part of the first period identified by Gadille is marked by Gregory XVI. A moderate from a political and social point of view (the Mirari Vos encyclical condemns the Catholic liberalism formulated by Lamennais), he gave a great boost to mis- sionary action. He concentrated his work on the opening of new missions in England, North America, as well as in Australia and Africa, and he condemned the slave system, classifying it as a trade in human flesh.6 As stated by the Italian Cardinal Costantini: The missionary idea broadly penetrated into Catholic consciousness and the entire holy blossoming of works for missionary cooperation germi- nated by the Propagation of the Faith, the Work of the Holy Childhood, the foundation of new missionary institutes.7 Due to the historical legacy of a church connected to the occupation of Africa and the slave trade, many African peoples considered Islam to be their main religious reference. Cultural factors, such as the role of women and the accep- tance of polygamy, also contributed to the spreading of Islam, especially in West Africa.8 However, between 1820 and 1880, the Church took different 3 Taroni (2012). 4 Krumenacker (1999). 5 Battelli (1988). 6 Agasso & Agasso (2011). 7 Costantini (1948), p. 16. 8 Parrinder (1959). Social Sciences and Missions 32 (2019) 148–176 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 12:36:38PM via free access 152 nhaueleque and bussotti stances regarding this phenomenon, sometimes ambiguously. Pious IX, Gre- gory XVI’s successor, in his Instructio 1293 (1866), accepted de facto slavery and the buying and selling of slaves. He also preferred to support the South against the North in the American CivilWar. As Cardinal Antonelli said as he attempted to explain it to Rufus King, the American representative in Rome, in 1864, the Church was against slavery but was highly concerned about suddenly freeing some millions of slaves who would encounter enormous difficulties integrating in the social and economic life of their various countries as free human beings.9 A common, traditional position defined the approach to the national ques- tion in Africa. While Gregory XVI approved the occupation of Poland by the Tsar’s troops, Pius IX, with his Syllabus (1862), condemned rationalism and absolute nationalism, both products he argued of an anti-Christian moder- nity.10 At the end of this period, and especially starting in the 1870s, the Church felt in risk.