Christianity and The Roman Catholic Mission In Africa
Christianity and The Roman Catholic Mission In Africa
Despite the beliefs of many early Christians, religion in Africa is everywhere. Traditional African beliefs and rituals, as in recourse in sacred objects when an individual is about to embark upon a journey or the worship that one pays to natural objects, such as the Hottentots who dance in the moonlight in praise of the moon, is not understood by Christians (New Advent 7). Many early Christians believed that there were tribes without any form of religion in African as well as tribes like the Hottentots, who believed in the wrong God, and took it upon themselves to bring them the word of their God.
African Christianity began as early as 180 by a group of martyrs and has pushed on ever since (Early African Church 1). Several hundred years later, Roman Catholic missions in Africa began with Portuguese explorations down the west coast of Africa. In the 1490's Kongo became a Christian kingdom. Many political leaders, like Manikongo the Christian King of the Kongo, pushed devotion toward Christianity. With this devotion came an interest in Western medicine, education, and technology and with it came the trouble of the white man. Shortly after this time the Portuguese clergy began to do more harm than good to progress Christianity among the Kongo. Slave trading went into full swing and Manikong appealed to the Pope for support against the slave trade, but to no avail (Pre-Col 1). Other missionaries began to spend more time in trade than teaching or preaching and the number of Christian slave trade supporters grew. The Christian kingdom then collapsed in 1665 (Kongo Christianity 2).
By the 1840's the Roman Catholic Missions experienced a great revival with the founding of two new missionary orders in Africa, The Congregation of the Holy Ghost and the White Fathers (Pre-Col 1). More and more white settlers continued to come into Africa, from Belgium to France, with their government or church supported missions to ensure their compliance in the world of colonial pacification. Most Africans did not take these intruders well, yet some did and were surprisingly helpful. As one missionary wrote in 1906, "The blacks are far form ignoring that the colonial authorities are hostile to us and that our religion is not that of the whites who live in the [French] Sudan," (Colonial 2). Either way, with or without support, the missions kept...