Australia and the World Past and Present

The Catholic order known as the White Fathers had been operating in Mozambique since 1946.

By the 1960s, decolonisation was about hit Africa in a big way.

By this time, the White Fathers were discussing the situation in Mozambique amongst themselves – whether independence would come and what the appropriate response should be.

The War of Liberation kicked off in 1964. Suddenly the discussion had more urgency.

Should they support the Portuguese authorities in the colony? Should they support African nationalist groups? If so, in what way? Or, should they remain neutral and was it even possible to remain neutral?

Morier-Genoud has noted that the the main historiography of Catholicism in Mozambique has been that the Church supported the Portuguese colonial project.

But he argues that it was a more complicated picture than this. Some clergy were supportive. Others were not.

Morier-Genoud has focused on the diocese of Beira, Mozambique’s second city.

Missionary activity waxed and waned for centuries in the Portuguese territory.

In 1855, there were only 5 missionaries operating in the colony.¹

By the late 1920s, the Church was growing.

In 1940 a Concordat and Missionary Accord were signed between the Vatican and Portugal. These were landmark arrangements. The agreements would be hugely influential on the operations of the Church in the Mozambique. It meant that the Church would receive subsidies from the state. The state would pay the salaries of the clergy and include retirement provisions. Land was also offered to the Church. Morier-Genoud describes the Church at this time as a ‘quasi-state institution’.²

WWII had an impact. In the 1950s Lisbon banned German, Italian and Dutch missionaries from operating in Mozambique.

After the Concordat was signed, there was growth in the number of Church schools and hospitals built in Mozambique.

By 1975 there were 19 male congregations, 39 female congregations and over half of the clergy was non-Portuguese.³

The issues of colonisation and independence divided the Church in different ways.

Morier-Genoud describes some of the main players of the early 1960s. He has labelled the Cardinal of Mozambique as a “arch-conservative” while he describes the Archbishop of Beira as a “liberal”.⁴

Many of the White Fathers were sympathetic to independence for Mozambique. But given the repressiveness of the political climate, thoughts and words tended to remain private. Sometimes they were expressed in private diaries or in private conversations between missionaries. A small number of the White Fathers helped Africans to flee the territory. In 1965, one White Father was arrested for this activity and kicked out of Mozambique. Some Africans wanted to pursue educational opportunities outside of the territory. Some were nationalists and wanted to advance independence from a base outside of Mozambique.

The White Fathers had strong and regular contact with colleagues in other African countries. Their colleagues were witnessing similar movements their own parts of the world. As a result of this contact, the White Fathers in Mozambique had access to diverse perspectives – probably more diverse than the missionaries in other orders. Still, no other surrounding country used Portuguese as a major language. Missionaries across Southern Africa could usually converse with colleagues in Botswana, Zambia, Northern Rhodesia and Malawi, but Portuguese missionaries were often more constrained.

While having sympathy for their African flock, the White Fathers tended to be anti-communist. So when FRELIMO adopted Marxism in 1968 it drove a wedge between FRELIMO and the order.

Sebastião Soares de Resende (Bishop in the diocese of Beria) thought that there was a certain inevitability in independence and that it might prove to be positive, but he didn’t make these views public. Morier-Gounard says that his “public positionings were neutral.”⁵

He said to his clergy in 1964 that “missionaries…should not get involved in political questions…Priests are priests for everyone in their parishes, or missions, or dioceses, regardless of which party they are from, or whether they are democrats, socialists or communists. If they ostensibly support one side, they will become incompatible for those who support other parties.”⁶

Resende died in 1967.

His successor was more conservative and Morier-Gourard writes that he was not as consultative as Resende had been. He suggests that the White Fathers were radicalised under the new leadership.

So in the late 1960s, you had a situation in which the clergy were more political and more divided.

In 1971 the White Fathers made the decision to leave Mozambique. They were not comfortable with the close relationship between the Church and the state.

With the White Fathers gone, the remaining missionaries tended to favour the state. Some looked favourably upon Salazar’s Estado Novo because they saw it as rescuing the Church from its former persecution under Republican governments in Portugal.

There were differences between the various orders in Mozambique. The Jesuits wanted to maintain a strong connection with Portugal. The Burgos Fathers wanted the Church in Mozambique to be more independent from Portugal.

Up to 1971, the White Fathers were the only order to withdraw from Mozambique. Conditions generally became worse in the colony after their departure. Most orders had chosen to remain. However in March 1974 the Pipcus Fathers also made the decision to leave Mozambique. Around half had already left when their departure was interrupted by changes to the regime in Portugal.

The issues of colonisation and independence were staring missionaries in the face everyday. Consideration of them couldn’t be avoided. It was not true that the Catholic Church is Mozambique held a single view. There were divisions among the different orders. And there were divisions within orders. There were those who were more aligned to the Portuguese state. There were those who didn’t want to get involved in politics and wanted to get on with their pastoral duties. There were even missionaries who would side with FRELIMO. The Church in Mozambique in the late 1960s and early 1970s was a fractured one.

1. A fractured Church: Catholicism and decolonization in Mozambique 1960-1974, in E.A. Foster, & U. Greenberg (eds.), Decolonization and the Remaking of Christianity, University of Pennsylvania Press, p 3. ↩︎
2. Ibid, p. 4 ↩︎
3. Ibid, p. 4 ↩︎
4. Ibid, p, 5 ↩︎
5. Ibid, p. 5 ↩︎
6. Ibid, p. 6 ↩︎