\"Arquivos, historiografia e igrejas evangélicas em Moçambique\" _Estudos Mocambicanos_ 19 (2001)

The Vatican vs. Lisbon THE RELAUNCHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MOZAMBIQUE, ca. 1875-1940 Éric MORIER-GENOUD

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The historiography of missions [in Mozambique] is prejudiced to a point that one can say is irremediable. Missions are subject to apologetics when seen from one angle, the inside, and misrepresented by anticlerical and other prejudices when seen from the outside, prejudices which do not forgive the presence of a pure and even ingenuous ideal within systems which generate exploration.2

INTRODUCTION This paper has two broad aims. The first is to fill a gap in the literature. The second is to challenge some established ideas about the church in Mozambique and, by implication, possibly also in other Portuguese African colonies. Concerning the former aim, one cannot but note indeed that we know very little about the Catholic church in Mozambique in the 19th Century and, more largely and precisely, between the late 18th and the early 20th Century. This paper will cover those years and draw together old and recent material published on the topic as well as bring some new information gathered in several archives in Portugal and Mozambique. It will thus provide a more complete and, to some extent, an even revised summary of the history of the Catholic church in South East Africa up to 1940. Concerning the latter aim, this paper wants to challenge several established ideas about the church in Mozambique and, more largely, in the Portuguese African colonies, ideas which are deficient either because of a lack of understanding of the Catholic church functioning or because of a lack of knowledge of its history in the area. By putting the church into theoretical and historical 1

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I would like to acknowledge here the generous support of the Gulbenkian Foundation for my research in Portugal. I also would like to thank the Archives of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MNE) and the Centro de Estudo de História Religiosa (CEHR) of the Catholic University in Lisbon. In Mozambique, I’d like to thank the support of the Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA) of the Eduardo Mondlane University, the national Historical Archives of Mozambique (AHM) and the custodio of the Franciscan order, Frei Massinga, for granting me access to his province’s archives. José CAPELA, Donas, Senhores e Escravos, Edições Afrontamento, Porto, 1995, p.160.

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perspectives, I hope this paper will improve our understanding of the early and late colonial Catholic church in Mozambique and possibly in other colonies as well. The main arguments of this paper are contained in its title. The latter has indeed three subtleties or twists to it. The first is that it says that the half-century before 1940 is the period when the Catholic church was launched anew in Mozambique — the institution had indeed literally collapsed by the second half or the 19th Century as we shall see. This stands in contrast to much academic literature which tends to say that the Roman church expanded anew after the 1920s and, more particularly, after 1940-41. The 1920s is seen as a landmark because it sealed the end of the openly anti-clerical first Portuguese Republic and because it saw the publication of a series of laws and decrees which favoured the church. 1940 is the date of the signing between the Salazar regime and the Vatican of a Concordat and Missionary Accord which marked the beginning of a period when the state gave substantial and exclusive support to the Catholic institution — in 1941 a complementary accord called the Missionary statutes defined precisely the modalities and conditions of this support. There is something of a debate over the exact nature of these 1920s laws and the 1940-41 international agreements between Rome and the Vatican. Did they benefit the state or the church most, and did they lead to the integration of the church into the state or, vice versa, the state into the church?3 Whichever the answer, the fact is that most scholars, explicitly or implicitly, agree in seeing these accords as the beginning of a new period when church and state collaborated and the Catholic institution expanded again after years of lethargy. Yet what I want to argue and show in this paper is that the church had already started to expand before the 1920s and 1940s. The 1920s laws and the Concordat and Missionary Accord might hence have reinforced the renewal of the Catholic institution, but they did not initiate it. Moreover, if this is the case, then the church was not in a lethargic condition before the colonial state came to its help after 1920. Finally, should I be right, then we should read and understand the Concordat somewhat differently, not only as the foundation of a new period, but also as the product and closure of earlier times. The second subtlety in the title of this paper is that it says that the relaunching of the Catholic institution was not peaceful and even less the result of an agreement between the Portuguese state (Lisbon) and the Catholic church (the Vatican). This stands in opposition to much academic literature again, particularly that which focuses on the 20th Century. Indeed the latter tends to say that the Roman institution expanded anew in Mozambique (and in other Portuguese colonies) because of its collaboration with the (colonial) state. The 1920s laws and the Concordat, Missionary Accord and Missionary Statute of 1940 and 1941 are presented as proof of the collaboration.4 Yet as I have just said, the church started to expand again before the first half of the 20th Century and the thing is that during this period Catholic works were done in part, and at time even wholly, against the colonial power’s will. Now, my argument does not infirm the view that the Roman church collaborated with colonialism after the 1920s or after 1940-41. Neither does it infirm the view that the church expanded mostly thanks to state support after these dates. Rather my contention nuances and complements the dominant understanding of the Catholic institution in Mozambique. It is somewhat dangerous a nuance to argue considering the controversial nature of the historiography (cf. quote at the beginning of the text). But I believe it is important to understand, first, that what is true for the 1920s 3

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For the latest rebounce of the debate, see Michel CAHEN, “L’État et la diversification religieuse au Mozambique, 1930-1974. I. Le résistible essor de la portugalisation catholique (1930-1961)”, Cahier d’Études Africaines, 158, XL-2, pp.309-349 and “L’État et la diversification religieuse au Mozambique, 1930-1974. II. La portugalisation désespérée (1959-1974)”, Cahier d’Études Africaines, 159, XL-3, pp.551-592 See for example M. CAHEN, op.cit and …???…. In the case of Angola, see Benedict SCHUBERT, A guerra e as Igreja. Angola 1961-1991, Basel, P. Schlettwein Publishing, 2000, chp.1, section 5.

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onwards does not hold true for the period before. Second, and possibly more importantly, it is crucial to understand that all the church’s expansion was not due to collaboration with the state. And third, and consequently, it is important to grasp that the dynamic of the Catholic church expansion in Mozambique was not determined by the colonial state (since it had already been re-initiated), but only shaped by it — a nuance of size I believe. The third subtlety in this article’s title is that it say the Vatican was opposed to Lisbon (or vice versa) and not that the Catholic church. This implies the Vatican had problems with the colonial state which the Portuguese Catholic institution did not have (obligatorily). This is abusive a statement for the period under consideration. But what I want to underline here with this irony, and which is absolutely crucial to understand the Roman church’s dynamic in Mozambique and Portugal during the years under consideration, is that the Vatican and the Portuguese Catholic church were not one and the same. One could of course argue, and it is in part true that, the two (the Vatican and the Portuguese church) constitute different levels of the same Catholic institution. But the fact and the point here is that the relationship between the whole Catholic institution and the state is not bilateral but trilateral or, even better, triangular. The state relates on the one hand with the Vatican in international relations and on the other hand with the local hierarchy in Portugal and Mozambique. This is a methodological point but also a historical one. For, as we shall see, this duality of the Catholic institution was often at the core of the problems between church and state, in particular when liberal and Republican regimes were in power. One could, and one even should, say that the Portuguese state was divided as well. But, for one, the divisions within the regime did not lead to a duality of the state and they were thereafter not as problematic and important as with the Catholic church. For another we are concerned here primarily with the Church and its relaunching in Mozambique. To sum up then, the subtlety and argument here is that the Catholic institution in Portugal and its colonies was a dual institution, both national and international, and that the relation and problems between church and state could take place, and did take place, at different levels. To argue the methodological and/or historiographical points mentioned, I have relied on secondary literature as well as on archival work. Concerning the archives, I have worked in those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lisbon and the Mozambican national archives in Maputo. In both these cases, I have worked mostly on documents concerned with the early 20th Century. Similarly I have worked in the archives of the Franciscan custodia in Maputo — I was not allowed to enter the richer archives of the order in Lisbon. Regarding the secondary literature, I have relied on the one hand on the dynamic new research on the Catholicism which has emerged over recent years in Portugal, particularly around the Centro de Estudos da História Religiosa (CEHR) of the Catholic University in Lisbon.5 On the other hand I have relied on old books and reports not readily accessible and not always used by scholars. On the basis of this research, I have written and eventually organised my presentation as follow. In a first section, I describe and explain the collapse of the Catholic church in Mozambique after 1759. In a second section, I talk about the first period of Catholic renewal, namely from 1850 to 1910. In a third section I am concerned with the momentous collapse of the church at the beginning of the 20th Century and the subsequent second renewal or relaunching of the Catholic church from 1926 onwards. In the conclusion, I pull my argument together and try to build its implications for our understanding of the institution and the relation between church and state in Mozambique. 5

For a chronological bibliography showing the emergence of this new scholarship, see Maria Inácia REZOLA, “As ‘artes de ser português’”, História, Ano XXI (nova série), n°14, May 1999, pp.50-58.

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THE LONG ANTI-CLERICAL CENTURY, 1759-1850S The Catholic church first arrived in Mozambique in 1498, a little more than five hundred years ago, when a priest accompanying Vasco de Gama on his way to India lay foot on the Island of Mozambique. In many ways, 1498 is only the date of a symbolic beginning since the priest did little more than hold mass there. Still, the Portuguese began establishing a presence in various parts of the country after 1498, building fortresses on the coast and along the Zambezi river, and with them came Catholic missionaries, secular, Jesuits and Dominicans. Over subsequent decades, the growth of the Catholic church was quite steady and regular. While some priests went to reside at Portuguese fortresses, many more went to work at the evangelisation of the local population. After their first twenty years, the Dominicans claimed to have baptised no less than twenty thousand persons. Possibly less impressive numerically but more important socially and politically, the Jesuits made inroads in the Monomotapa kingdom. There they managed to baptise the court and many tribal chiefs. This lasted only two years though before the Jesuits’ man at the court, Silveira de Gonçalo, was murdered in 1562 as a result of his being suspected to be a spy. The Jesuits never managed to regain their influence in the Monomotapa area and restrained thereafter to the Zambesi river basin. On a formal plane, Mozambique started as part of the diocese of Funchal. After the creation of the bishopric of Goa in 1534, it became dependent on the latter. In 1612 it gained an independent ecclesiastical administration with a seat at Sena (on the Zambezi). Overall though the church was also dependent on the Portuguese king since the latter had been granted a right of padroado (patronage) over the area (among others) by the Pope in 1455 and 1456.6 After 1590 the expansion of the Catholic church in stopped Mozambique and the institution somewhat stabilised if not consolidated. Jesuits and Dominicans remained predominantly in the areas of Portuguese presence, that is on the northern coast and the Zambezi basin, where they served predominantly the white population. They were supposed to live from the tithe and royal stipend. But in practice they soon had to live off the property they were granted by the Crown as well. As a consequence Dominicans and Jesuits started buying huge properties (prazos) with numerous slaves like any large Portuguese landowners of the area. An author has calculated that the Dominicans had at the beginning of the 17th Century no less than 3’000 slaves and the Jesuits some 5’000!7 Both orders tried to evangelise none the less and both opened a religious college, respectively at the Island of Mozambique and at Sena. Now, there is an almost generalised criticism of the Church of that period.8 Firstly, because the clergy behaved like anyone else in the area, following much of the local customs, owning slaves and eventually practising few Christian values. Secondly, because the church did not manage to form a indigenous institution with its own priests. Baptisms were still numerous, but they were superficial so that the main following of the church eventually turned out to be the missionaries’ slaves! Thirdly, because fairly rapidly the missionaries gave up on evangelisation and limited themselves to serving the already converted, overwhelmingly Afro-Portuguese 6

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A good summary of this history can be found in James DUFFY, Portuguese Africa, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1959, ch.5. J. CAPELA, Donas, Senhores e Escravos, op.cit., p.165. J. CAPELA, Donas, Senhores e Escravos, op.cit., pp.160-177; Gerhard LIESEGANG, “A obra autogiográfica do Missionário Jesuíta M. Thoman (1788) e o problema das Missões Católica no Século XVIII em Moçambique” in Actas do seminário ‘Moçambique: navegações, comércio e técnicas’, Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, Lisbon, 1998, pp.37-66; James DUFFY, Portuguese Africa, op.cit.

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population. As “bad” or little efficient a church the Mozambican institution might have been, the point which interest us here is that the institution had a free hand during the period and it could and tried to expand — something which was soon not to be the case anymore. After 1750 the Catholic church in Mozambique started to decline. This was the consequence of the arrival of the Marquis of Pombal to the post of prime minister in Portugal. The Marquis was a modern but authoritarian man. Once in charge, he engaged in profound reforms of the country’s economy and social structure. In relation to the church, he engaged in a policy of “regalism à outrance” as Charles Boxer has called it.9 He attacked part of the nobility and sections of the Catholic church linked to it, and he tried to control the church more. In consequence, after several years of harassment, Pombal expelled the Jesuits from Portugal in 1759 and he had their property nationalised (on the pretext of their collaboration with a coup d’état against the King).10 Jesuits were expelled from Mozambique as well and their property in the Zambezi region sold to auction. The expulsion of the Jesuits from Mozambique reduced dramatically the number of priests in the country as this was one of the only two orders present. Existing figures are rather imprecise and the number of Catholic fathers seem to have already started to decrease before 1759. Still, there were some twenty priests in Mozambique in 1759 (an author says 29) of which seven or nine (another author says at least fourteen) were to be imprisoned and expelled as a result of Pombal’s orders.11 Whichever the exact figure, thus probably as much as 50% of the clergy was expelled. The Dominicans tried to take over the work of their Christian fellows after 1760, aided by secular priests from Goa. But for some reasons (the period remains largely unstudied) the number of priests continued to decline and with it, one can assume, the number of Catholic believers. A figure neatly summarise the situtaion: whereas there were twenty-four missionaries in Mozambique in 1781, there were only ten left by 1825.12 The decline of the Catholic church in Mozambique turned into a literal collapse at the beginning of the 19th Century. This came as a consequence of the collapse of the church in Portugal itself. The demise of the institution in Portugal began with the Napoleonic invasions. The latter swept through the country and had a negative impact on the church, buildings being occupied and recruitment falling. Then, from the 1820s onwards, came the liberal revolutions. The latter, with flux and reflux and a civil war in the middle, de-structured the church of the Ancient Regime at once. Liberalism aimed at submitting the church to the State along regalist principles. Accordingly, different liberal governments took measures which tried to severe the link of the institution to Vatican, by internally prohibiting religious congregations (seen as supranational if not antinational) and by internationally braking diplomatic relations with Rome.13 The liberal regime began in 1832 by extinguishing the tithe for the church; in 1833 it went to prohibit recruitment into the religious orders’ noviciates; and in 1834 it banned all religious orders from Portugal at once and nationalised their property. Additional measures included the reorganisation of dioceses and the nomination of bishops without the 9

Charles C. BOXER, The Portuguese seaborn empire, 1415-1825, Penguin, London, p.180. David BRIMINGHAM, A concise history of Portugal, Cambridge University press, Cambridge, 1993, pp.79-92 11 Respectively: António DA SILVA, “Ocupação missionária de Moçambique” in Moçambique. Curso de extensão universitária, ano lectivo de 1964-1965, Institutio Superior de Ciências Sociais e Política Ultramarina, Lisbon, n/d [1964?], pp.673-695 and Francisco Augusto DA CRUZ CORREIA, “Moçambique (1498-1975)” in Carlos MOREIRA AZEVEDO (dir.), Dicionário de História Religiosa de Portugal, vol.4 (J-P), Centro de Estudos História Religiosa da Universidade Católica & Circulo de Leitores, Lisbon, 2000, p. 241. 12 Henrique Pinto REMA, “A actividade missionária de Portugal nos séculos XIX e XX. I. A missionação portuguesa em geral”, Itinerarium (Braga), vol.XLIII, 1997, p.253. 13 Religious and secular 10

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acknowledgement of the Vatican.14 Without surprise, these measures led to a strong response from the Catholic hierarchy. As relations between Lisbon and the Vatican were broken, the official church sided with the armed opposition under the guidance of the king’s brother, Dom Miguel. When Dom Pedro won the civil war of 1832-34, a situation of Schism emerged with the Catholic hierarchy and religious orders posed against the church put into place by the liberal government out of primarily secular religious ranks.15 The de-structuring of the church of the Ancient Regime had considerable consequences in Portugal as well as in Mozambique. In Portugal, some 368 convents, masculine and feminine, were closed out of a total of 535. This lead to a huge drop in the number of religious men and women in the country — the number of secular priests remained relatively stable on its side if it did not actually grow as liberals tried to coopt those it saw as less compromised.16 In Mozambique more specifically, the Dominicans were expelled manu militari in 1838 and the presence of the Catholic church reached thereafter its nadir.17 There was no Prelate left in the country and not even a diocesan administrator after 1822. By 1855 there were a mere four priests still in the country and they were all working on the coast only. State intervention had become normal into church affairs has become normal. Thus one of the last priest to leave Mozambique had been suspended from its duties by no less than the Governor. Moreover, division was rife within what was left of the church. When a new Prelate was nominated from Goa in 1869, two priests (i.e. half the clergy) refused to recognise him.18 Finally, it goes without saying that the material situation of the Catholic institution degraded significantly in Mozambique just as well. The new prelate of Mozambique nominated at the end of the century, Dom António Barroso, described the situation when he arrived in the following manner: “the few churches which existed were extremely poor in ornaments and in a shameful state (…). The archives of the ecclesiastic chamber and parishes have been burnt, robbed or eaten by moths, with the result that there is an almost absolute lack of documents”.19 What amounted in the end to a “long anti-clerical century” was to have long-term consequences for the Catholic church in Mozambique. At a first level, it impacted negatively on the Portuguese institution’s capacity to reproduce itself and, in turn, to reproduce a missionary force to work in the colonies and, more specifically, in Mozambique. This was to be quite significant a consequence over many years to come. The Franciscan order for example was to have personnel limitations for many decades — in fact even up to the 1960s as the 1st Republic blew yet another blow to the congregation’s noviciates in the 1910s (see more below).20 At a second level, the liberal attacks against the church traumatised the Catholic institution and its members. And, in turn, this trauma shaped the “Weltanschauung” of the institution and its political positions in the following decades as we shall see. Here again the 1st Republic revived and augmented this trauma, to eventually ensure that the latter survived into 14

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Vítor NETO, O Estado, a Igreja e a Sociedade em Portugal (1831-1911), Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda, Lisbon, 1998. Luís DORIA, “Génese do Cisma Religiosos”, História (Lisbon), vol.XXIV (III serie), n°43, March 2002, pp.46-55 and V. NETO, O Estado, a Igreja, op. cit., ch.1. Fernando TAVEIRA DA FONSECA, “Demografia Eclesiástica. II. Do século XVI aos inícios do século XX” in Carlos MOREIRA AZEVEDO (dir.), Dicionário de História Religiosa de Portugal, vol.2 (C-I), Centro de Estudos História Religiosa da Universidade Católica & Circulo de Leitores, Lisbon, 2000, p.53. Philippe DENIS, The Dominican Friars in Southern Africa. A social history (1577-1990), Leiden, Brill, 1998, p.63 Dom António BARROSO (Bispo de Himeria), Padroado de Portugal em África. Relatório da Prelazia de Moçambique, Imprensa Nacional, Lisbon, 1895, p.25-26. Ibid, p.26. Félix LOPES, Missões Franciscanas em Moçambique, 1898-1970, Braga, 1962, passim.

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the 1950s. Be it as it may, the fact is then that period of liberalism shaped profoundly the thinking and acting of the church for the following decades and even up to the 1940s. Yet this is precisely when the church started to be launched anew in Mozambique. Before we talk of the Republic and the second period of Catholic renewed expansion, let us turn to the first period of church relaunching.

THE REGENERATION PERIOD, 1850S-1910 The liberal revolution in Portugal made enemies and saw many internal divergences which eventually led to its demise. To talk only of the latest events, an urban uprising took place in 1836 in Lisbon, an event which the military refused to quell and used instead to foster a military coup. The coup brought Costa Cabral to power and some ten year of reformed liberal stability. The politics of the new regime were of compromise and the situation of the church did not change much during those years. Relation with the Vatican were re-established but anticongregational laws were not repelled and the church was not restored to previous status. In the early 1840s however, another uprising began in northern Portugal led by women. The movement, known as the Maria da Fonte revolt, fought against communal land redistribution and the excessive presence of Englishmen in the countryside. Most importantly for us, the revolt allied with the church and went to contest the latter’s marginalisation. When the protest spread to the towns in 1848, Costa Cabral’s government fell and a cabinet of reconciliation came to power. The latter fell quickly, in 1851, following a military coup by the Duke Saldanha. A grandson of the Marquis of Pombal, Saldanha epitomised what David Birmingham calls “a tradition of aristocratic military politicians”. Therefore Saldanha put an end to the liberal revolution and he opened an new era called the Age of Regeneration. After various years of slow improvement in church-state relation, this new Age marked — ironically since Saldanha was the grandson of Pombal — the return of the Catholic church to some prominence in both society and politics. It also marked the beginning of the Catholic church’s relaunching in Mozambique.21 As I have just said, the improvement of church-state relations in Portugal had begun almost as soon as the liberal regime finished nationalising religious properties and cut its relation with the Vatican in 1834. Indeed, the new government was eager to stabilise the regime at the same time as undermine its (armed) opponents’ social basis among whom many Catholics. Additionally, the liberal regime did not aim at finishing with the church and religion as we noted even if there were influential anti-clerical and Masonic elements. The liberal regime aimed instead at controlling the Catholic institution’s actions and turn it into a national church. Last but not least, it has to be said that the Vatican had retaliated to the liberal attacks by undermining the Padroado in 1838. Indeed, it handed various areas of Asia previously controlled by the Padroado to the English Catholic church and Propaganda Fide. As a consequence of all these factors, the Portuguese government was quick then to began talks with the Vatican. These began as soon as 1841 and a first agreement was reached in 1848 with the signing of a Convention between Rome and Lisbon — interestingly, just when Costa Cabral 21

For the ending of the liberal revolution, see BIRMINGHAM, A Concise history of Portugal, op.cit., ch.4 and José M. SARDICA, “A politíca depois da era das Revoluções”, História, Ano XXIII (III série), n°36, June 2001, pp.20-31.

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post-liberal government fell and Saldanha came to power. In 1857 a Concordat was then signed and yet another Concordat in 1886 — ratified only three years later. Between the 1857 Convention, the 1857 and the 1886 Concordats, the situation of the church in Portugal was not restored as such. But we can say that it was normalised. The Padroado was almost reinstated to previous levels and the church’s social and religious works were allowed to proceed almost normally again. This was just when, and eased by the fact that, the church in Portugal began to apply the principles of ralliement of Pope Leon XIII.22 The accords between the government and the Vatican permitted the return to Portugal of exiled anti-liberal clergy after 1857. It also allowed for some schismatic bishops to retake the leadership of their dioceses. Further it permitted again the formation of religious men and women in noviciates and, last but not least, it allowed the return of religious orders to the country. Thus the Jesuits made it back to Lisbon in 1858 and they restored their religious province in 1880.23 The Franciscans followed suit in 1861 to re-establish their own province in 1891.24 By the first decade of the 20th Century, there were eventually to as many as 154 religious houses active in Portugal again, with an unknown number of religious men and women.25 Secular clergy on its side continued to grow, ever more, at a rhythm of some 30% after 1879 — a growth which is most significant even though one should not forget that this clergy had been little affected by the liberal revolution (in numerical terms at least). Be it as it may, the fact is that a restoration, or regeneration, of the Catholic church was underway, if at a slow pace. It took place at a relatively slow pace because regalism continued vigorous in the regime and because anticlerical and Masonic elements remained vocal and influential in both Portuguese state and society. Tellingly, a national religious affair exploded in 1901 when the daughter of the Brazilian consul in Oporto tried to flee and enrol against her parents’ will into a religious order. The women was withdrawn from the congregation by the police and the government had to take measures against religious orders again to appease public opinion. The measures were not very severe, but they reminded everyone that the religious situation might have improved but one had not returned therefore to previous times.26 As we noted earlier, the Vatican responded to the attacks of the liberals by diminishing the right of Patronage of Portugal over Asia. This was done by Pope Gregory XVI in two steps — in 1838 and in 1853 in two different bulls which gave control to Propaganda Fide and the English church to some areas previously under Padroado control. This decision was grave for Lisbon because of national pride which saw Portugal as a conqueror state and imperial power — a sentiments particularly acute among liberals. It was also grave because imperial competition was rife, not least over some of Portugal overseas possessions and notably Mozambique. Portugal lost some of its territorial claims in central African and it even feared loosing some of its actual colonies. Last but not least, Portugal began in the 1870s, in the face of an economic downturn, to think of its colonies as potential market. For all these reasons, the Portuguese government needed the church to occupy colonies and it decided thereafter to 22

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V. NETO, O estado, A Igreja, op.cit., ch.3 and Manuel BRAGA DA CRUZ, “A Igreja e o Estado” in Carlos MOREIRA AZEVEDO (dir.), Dicionário de História Religiosa de Portugal, vol.2 (C-I), Centro de Estudos História Religiosa da Universidade Católica & Circulo de Leitores, Lisbon, 2000, p.405. Joaquim DA COSTA LIMA, A Acção missionarária dos Jesuítas Portugueses. Conferência com projecções realizada no I Congress Missionário Nacional de Barcelos, 4.09.1931, p.33. António MONTES MOREIRA, “A restauração da província Franciscana de Portugal em 1891”, Itinerarium, vol.XXXIX, 1994, pp.163-234. See also F. Félix LOPES, Missões Franciscanas, op.cit.. F. TAVEIRA DA FONSECA, “Demografia Eclesiástica”, op.cit, p.54. Eduardo DOS SANTOS, L’État portugais et le problème missionnaire, Junta da Investigação do Ultramar & Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, Lisbon, 1964, pp.20-22.

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create secular seminaries in Lisbon, Luanda, São Nicolau and Moçambique under its own direction (not that of the Vatican). The seminary in Mozambique lasted two years, that of Luanda vegetated. The seminary in Lisbon called Cernache de Bonjardim opened in 1856 and it educated and eventually sent abroad no less than 317 missionaries up to 1910. The first missionaries from this seminary to be sent to East Africa arrived there in 1875. As there had been hardly four priests left in Mozambique by the 1860s, their arrival marked the opening of a new era for Mozambique. Better yet, their arrival marked the relaunching of the Catholic church in Mozambique. Over the next two decades secular priests from Cenarche de Bonjardim continued to arrive in reasonable number, constituting on average about 50% of the clergy in Mozambique.27 The end of the 19th Century bore yet more pressure on Portugal and its colonies, hence pressure in favour of the church. The Brussels Conference took place in 1876 and that of the Berlin in 1884. Portugal’s dream of the “rose coloured-map” (its having the land across Africa from Mozambique to Angola) collapsed at once and pressure appeared over the limits of its colonies as we have noted it. Concretely, Cecil Rhodes advanced north from South Africa towards Cairo, eyeing on the way over the Manica region inside Mozambique. To prevent losing this area, Major Paiva de Andrade, a Portuguese explorer and coloniser, decided to invite in 1880 (in co-ordination with the Portuguese ministry of foreign affairs) the Jesuits back to the Zambezi area. The latter were invited to occupy the land claimed by the British.28 In the same token, two other Portuguese explorers (Cardoso and Serpa Pinto) invited the White Fathers a couple of years later, in 1889, to open a mission in the Shire valley which the British claimed as well and which these explorers tried to guarantee for their metropolis — to no avail in the end and with the consequence that the White Fathers had to withdraw in 1891.29 Such openings towards regular missionaries remained limited and tactical however. Indeed, if Lisbon accepted the Jesuits and White Fathers and even financed them after 1889, it refused on the other hand the entry of other various religious orders with no strategic interest. This was the case of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the fathers of the African Missions of the Lion who wanted to settle in secure Southern Mozambique.30 The final impetus for the renewed expansion of the Catholic church in Mozambique came as a direct consequence of the British Ultimatum and the loss of the Shire Valley to the English in 1890. If they had been any doubts about the role the church could play in colonialism, the issue was settled on that occasion. The Portuguese draw the conclusion of the event and decided to support the church in the colonies without restraint. Thus the following year, in 1891, the Portuguese government chose, and managed to have the Vatican nominate, father António Barroso to head the Prelacy of Mozambique. Lisbon chose him for he had an experience and excellent reputation as a missionary in the Congo. Possibly more important, Lisbon chose him because he had served as an adviser for religious affairs to the Minister of the Marine & Overseas Territories in previous years, hence being know we can imagine as a good nationalist and not an Ultramontain.31 In his task as Prelate of Mozambique, Dom Barroso was given full 27

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E. DOS SANTOS, L’État portugais et le problème missionnaire, op.cit., ch.2 and Francisco Augusto DA CRUZ CORREIA, “Moçambique (1498-1975)”, op.cit., p.246 Francisco Augusto DA CRUZ CORREIA, O método missionário dos Jesuítas em Moçambique, 1881-1919. Um contributo para a história da Missão da Zambézia, Livraria A.I., Braga, 1991, p.62-64 Ian LINDEN, Catholics, Peasant and Chewa resistance in Nyasaland, 1889-1939, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1974, ch.1. F. LOPES, Missões Franciscanas em Moçambique, op.cit., p.58. Amadeu CUNHA, Jornadas e outros trabalhos do missionário Barroso, Ministério das Colónias, Agência Geral das Colónias, Lisbon, 1938, p.71-73.

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support of the state and he managed to improve significantly the situation of the prelacy. Under his impetus and that of his successors (after 1897), the church opened various new missions and recruited many new clerics. Thanks to the Prelate’s initiative as well as state’s support, various new religious orders made their way to Mozambique. Thus the Sisters of Cluny arrived in 1890, the Franciscans in 1898, the Franciscan Missionary sisters of Mary in 1897, the Trappist in 1900 and the Salesians in 1907. The improvement was such that by 1909, the Prelacy counted no less than 71 fathers and tens of sisters, a figure never reached before in Mozambique and not to be reached again before… 1939 (the year before the signing of the Concordat).32

FROM THE REPUBLIC TO THE CONCORDAT, 1911-1940 The era of Regeneration came to an end in 1910 with a coup d’état by Republican officers. The two decades before 1910 had been of economic crisis and the rise of Republican ideas. Strikes and street demonstrations thrived in the 1890s and Republicanism gained ascendancy as Brazil overthrew its king and established a republic as well as because the working class grew numerically. The coup d’état was carried out on October 4 by army officers from a neo-Masonic society called carbonari. It seems Republican politicians were unaware of, or unprepared for, the coup d’état. They none the less inherited what eventually amounted to a revolution and carried out their policies thereafter. They thus opened a new era in the history of Portugal. Anticlericalism was to be a most important feature of the regime. Not just one important feature, but the regime’s “battle-cry” and “unifying urban slogan” to use David Birmingham’s qualification.33 The regime went thence to attack the church. The attack was in part this was the result of the prominent role of the freemasons in the regime who aimed at secularising Portuguese society at once as I have just said. In part though it was also a consequence of the church’s close alliance with the Monarchy, an alliance which had been passed at the end of the 19th Century following the principles of ralliement predicated by Pope Leon XIII.34 As soon as the Republican government came to power, it started passing anti-religious laws. It resuscitated the Pombalian law expelling the Jesuits from Portugal, resuscitated the 1834 decree prohibiting religious congregations in the country, it prohibited the use of religious dress and religious swearing, it abolished religious teaching in schools and it closed the faculty of theology of the University of Coimbra. As the mood was positively anti-religious, popular assault on religious houses and a hunt for Jesuits took place — some violence was seen in the process. Religious men and women were arrested, the Jesuits and some feminine orders were expelled from Portugal and many religious fled the country on their own initiative.35 In April 1911, the state went further with the passing of a “law of separation”. The latter terminated the regime of Concordat in place since 1886 and established a new framework for church and state 32 33 34

35

F. DA CRUZ CORREIA, “Moçambique (1498-1975)” in Carlos MOREIRA AZEVEDO (dir.), op.cit., p.242-43. D. BIRMINGHAM, A concise history of Portugal, op.cit., p.148 José Miguel SARDICA, “A ‘questão religiosa’ durante a I República”, História, Ano XXI (Nova Série), n°14, May 1999, p.43; Manuel CLEMENTE, “Clericalismo e anticlericalismo na cultura Portuguesa”, Reflexão Cristã (Lisbon), n°53, February-March 1987, p.48. J.M. SARDICA, “A ‘questão religiosa’ durante a I República”, op.cit., p.44

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relation. The framework was spelled in a diploma with no less than 196 articles. If many articles drew conditions which can considered normal nowadays, various other clearly aimed at submitting the church to the state and severing the Vatican link. Thus the hours of mass were decided by the state, the clergy was deprived of some civil rights and all salaries for the clergy were to be paid by the state administration and not by the church. As the Catholic hierarchy counter-attacked with pastoral letters and correspondence to the President, the authorities demanded in June that both the Catholic clergy and hierarchy made a declaration of “formal and unconditional” adhesion to the Republic.36 In Mozambique the Republican anti-clerical laws and decrees took a strange turn. The Jesuits, sisters of Cluny and Salesian fathers were all expelled from the colony, but calling on the Berlin Congress and freedom of religion, the latter managed to be able to leave the country only after a replacement for them had been found. Among others, Germany supported the Jesuits most vehemently, even sending a military vessel to the mouth of the Zambezi river to ensure Portugal would respect international treaties.37 Eventually the expelled religious orders left Mozambique after 1912 when German and Austrian Verbi Divini fathers began to substitute the Jesuits, when German and Austrian sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit started to replace the sisters of Cluny and when secular priests succeeded the Salesian brothers.38 The Franciscan orders, both male and female, were in contrast not affected by the Republic. It seems that this was the result of they being Portuguese religious as well as their working in the territory of the Company of Mozambique which had autonomous administrative power and which refused to take measures against the church.39 A final element why the anti-clerical laws and decrees took a strange turn has to do with the fact that the Governor General of Mozambique decided to suspend the application of the law of separation in the colony. The suspension coming in 1913, it did not prevent the expulsion of missionaries but it still resulted in the remaining orders starting to receive state subsidies again.40 Although the colonial administration eventually altered these laws, the Republican anti-clerical policies had a negative impact on Catholic missions in Mozambique none the less. First, some problems were seen in Lourenço Marques on 9 October 1911 when religious sisters were harassed and insulted in the streets. In Beira, as a consequence, fearful religious men over remained locked inside their house subsequent days while most Franciscan sisters fled to Rhodesia.41 Second, financial aid to the mission was stopped for two years in territories under direct Portuguese administration until the law of separation was suspended in 1913. Thirdly, the Republic allowed Protestantism to gain firmer ground in Mozambique at the cost of, if not to undermine purposely, the Roman church which saw reformed churches in those days as a real competitor. Fourthly, the decision to close seminaries in Portugal was to have lasting effects again on the “production” of missionaries for the colonies, whether secular or religious — in the case of the Franciscans the effect were felt in the 1960s still as we already noted. 36

37

38 39

40 41

V. NETO, O Estado, a Igreja, op.cit., ch.6 and J.M. SARDICA, “A ‘questão religiosa’ durante a I República”, op.cit., p.45-46 Paul SCHEBESTA, Portugals Konquistamission in Südost-Afrika. Missionsgeschichte Sambesiens un des Monomotpareiches (1560-1920), Steyler Verlag, St. Augustin (Germany), Studia Instituti Missiologici Societas Verbi Divini n°7, s/d, [1966 ?], p.355 F. DA CRUZ CORREIA, “Moçambique (1498-1975)” in Carlos MOREIRA AZEVEDO (dir.), op.cit., p.243. The administration of the Mozambique company continued to subsidise the church at the same level throughout the period. See Dom Rafael Maria DA ASSUNÇÃO, “Missões Franciscanas da Beira”, Missões Franciscanas, n°161, May 1957, p.3. E. DOS SANTOS, L’État portugais et le problème missionnaire, op.cit., p.56-57 Dom Rafael Maria DA ASSUNÇÃO, “Missões Franciscanas da Beira”, Missões Franciscanas, n°181, March 1959, p.6.

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Fifthly, the church was once more traumatised, a trauma which not only marked the new generation of clerics and bishops but which, added to the trauma of 1834, left sociopsychological marks on Portuguese Catholicism almost up to today. Finally, the decision to replace the Jesuits and sisters of Cluny by German and Austrian proved of ephemere duration as the beginning of the Second World War led the Portuguese government to intern them (in Mozambique and then Portugal), never to let them come back to Mozambique.42 With the departure of the German and Austrian missionaries, the Mozambican church lost no less than 41 clerics, that is more than half of its clergy.43 Thus the church reached a new nadir in 1918, the total of missionary reaching then a mere 33 missionaries, various of which were about to leave the colony.44 The military coup of Sinónio Pais in Portugal in September 1917 marked yet another shift in the state’s religious policies. Sidónio Pais had been a freemason and a Republican, but now a military with authoritarian views and ways, he reversed many anti-clerical laws and decrees written by the 1st Republican government. On the 4th day of his new regime, Sidónio Pais annulled all the measures taken against prelates and two weeks later he reversed all the decisions concerning religious congregations and religion in public space. In 1919 the government of the 2nd Republic took additional measures concerning the church in the colonies. It decided to subsidise the latter again at the same time as it demanded missions to have a “civilising mission”, i.e. it had to work at the Portugalisation of the colonies and its people (language, culture, etc.). An additional decree in 1921 reinforced and gave precision to this decision. Then in 1926 another coup d’état took place, leading one the one hand new militaries to power and better church-state relation on the other hand. The new regime, led by Catholic military, soon attributed indeed an “Organic Status” to the church in the colonies and it soon allowed it to reopen seminaries in the metropolis as well. Old and new religious orders started to return to Portugal and to Mozambique as a consequence. But the results were to take years to show. Indeed, in 1927, Mozambique could still only count some 56 priests, less still than the times before the advent of the 1st Republic.45 The improvement of relation between the Catholic church and the Portuguese state after 1917 did not mean the end of tensions and conflicts however. The Vatican not having cancelled the Portuguese Padroado during the first Republic, it made good use of it after diplomatic relations were re-established in 1918. The Vatican put pressure on the Padroado in the 1920s, seemingly to stimulate Lisbon to support the church further. Thus in 1922, fathers from the society of Montfort moved from Malawi into Mozambique, in the district of Niassa. Their pretension was not just to settle there, but to create missions which subordinated to their own Vicariat and not to the Prelate of Mozambique — an aim agreed with Propaganda Fide it seems.46 The government in Lisbon, and the Prelate of Mozambique, reacted most vehemently though they 42

43

44 45 46

It can be debated whether this event is a (direct) cause of the Republic or not. I consider so here because the this was an indirect consequence of the expulsion of the Jesuits and Sisters of Cluny and because the German and Austrian missionaries were never allowed to come back thought they tried for many years after the war. Most exhaustive on the topic see, P. SCHEBESTA, Portugals Konquistamission, op.cit., ch.12. Schebesta was himself a German Verbi Divini missionary who worked in Mozambique. See also the Archives of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Ministerio dos Negocios Estrangeiros (MNE) - Secrétaria de Estado (SE), 2° Piso, A48, M 195: Kaiserlich Deutsche Gesandtschaft, Aide mémoire, Lisbonne, 15 février 1923. MNE-SE, 2° Piso, A48, M 195: Memorandum da Nunciatura Apostolica di Portogallo ào Dr. Domingos Pereira, ministro dos Negocios Estrangeiros, oficio n°3538, Lisbonne, 17 Fevereiro de 1923. F. F. LOPES, Missões Franciscanas em Moçambique, op.cit., p.194. H. PINTO REMA, “A actividade missiónaria de Portugal”, op.cit., p.263. MNE-SE, 2°Piso, A48, M195, Legação de Portugal junto da Santa Sé ào Ministro dos Negocios Estrangeiros, letter n°65A, reservado, 23 May 1922.

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were, at the same time, quite embarrassed. Indeed the Berlin Congress allowed foreign missionaries to work in Mozambique and the Padroado had been put in jeopardy by some Republican decree which had not yet been repelled...47 In subsequent negotiation, the Vatican argued its was all a misunderstanding and that the Pope had only allowed the Monfortian fathers because there was a lack of religious personnel in the country and he did not mean to undermine the Padroado and the Prelate of Mozambique.48 But in 1924 the Vatican repeated the experience and sent fathers from the recently created institute of Consolata to Zambezia, again without any warning or authorisation from the Prelate of Mozambique. The fathers being Italian, a country seen as longing for colonies, the uproar in Portugal was even greater than in the Montfortian case.49 It should be said here that the Prelate of Mozambique, a fervent nationalist and a man working above all for his own Franciscan religious order (at time against other orders and against the Vatican) added fuel to the fire.50 Be it as it may, the fact is that the Vatican put pressure on Lisbon and that the Portuguese state understood this clearly, to the effect that it made additional reforms towards more clerical and missionary stances. The final episode of the second period of the Catholic church’s relaunching in Mozambique centres around the Padroado and the Concordat precisely. With pressure on the ground from the Vatican and a desire on the part of the state to settle the “religious question” at once, new negotiations opened between Lisbon and Rome. In 1928 and 1929, two accords were signed prolonging on the one hand some prerogatives of the State in relation to the Padroado and giving on the other hand more social space to the Catholic church in Portugal.51 Then in 1929 negotiations began about establishing a Concordat and Missionary Accord between the Holy See and Portugal. The negotiation lasted a whole decade since there were various important issues to settle. On its side the church wanted legal recognition and freedom of proselytism if not state support. For its part the state wanted to keep a separation between state and church and an integration of the Catholic institution into the regime’s national hegemonic quest.52 The situation of the church in the colonies was an important part of the discussion. The Vatican refused to sign a Concordat separate and even before a Missionary Accord. Lisbon in turn wanted to make sure Propaganda Fide would be kept at large — Salazar saw the latter as showing “a sort of imperialism on the part of the church against the nationalism of states in colonial matters”.53 Most interestingly, Salazar mentioned in this regard the “inconvenient 47 48

49

50

51

52

53

Ibid. MNE-SE, 2°Piso, A48, M195, Legação de Portugal junto da Santa Sé ào Ministro dos Negocios Estrangeiros, letter n°69, reservado, 7 June 1922. MNE-SE, 2°Piso, A48, M195, Legação de Portugal junto da Santa Sé ào Ministro dos Negocios Estrangeiros, letter n°10A, confidencialissimo, 23 March 1936; Cópia do oficio confidencial n°856/C de 23 de Abril de 1936 do Governo Geral de Moçambique ao Minitro dos Negocios Estrangeiros; and Legação de Portugal junto da Santa Sé, letter n°184/A, confidencial e reservado, 12 November 1937. See also Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique (AHM), Fundo do Governo Geral (GG), Caixa 211, passim. He actually even worked at time against the Vatican’s interest. He was eventually punished in the early 1930 by being “promoted” to bishop of Cape Verde. This was in consequence to his opposing the coming of Consolata fathers to Mozambique. See MNE-SE, 2°Piso, A48, M195, “Prelazia de Moçambique e Bispado de Cabo Verde”, Telegram n°5 sent on 19.03.1936, Minister of Foreign Affairs to minister of Portugal by the Holy See, extremely confidencial. For the Franciscan version of the affair, see F.F. LOPES, Missões em Franciscanas, op.cit., ch.9 Manuel BRAGA DA CRUZ, “ O Estado Novo e a Igreja Católica”, in Fernando ROSAS (ed.), Portugal e o Estado Novo (1930-1969), Lisbon, Editorial Presença, 1992, p.204 and António LEITE, “Enquadramento legal da actividade missiónaria portuguesa”, Bróteria (Lisbon), vol.133, n°1, July 1991, p.51. Rita CARVALHO, “Salazar e a Concordata com a Santa Sé”, História, Ano XIX (nova série), n°31, May 1997, pp.4-15. Cited in Manuel BRAGA DA CRUZ, O Estado Novo e a Igreja Católica, Lisbon, Bizâncio, 1999 (collection “Torre de Babel”), p.62.

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intromission of Propaganda Fide at the margins and above the prelates in the Portuguese colonies”.54 In any case, after 11 years of negotiations and some major concession on the part of the church it seems (e.g. it did not ask the return of all its nationalised property), a Concordat and Missionary Accords were finally signed in 1940. And the following year a more detailed accord, called Missionary Statutes, was signed. Together these three accords closed on the one hand the period of anticlericalism and regalism. On the other hand they opened a new era which was no clean sheet but a new compromise which the Catholic church qualified and saw at the time as one of “religious peace”.55

CONCLUSION The Long Anticlerical century which run from 1759 to 1859 had devastating consequence for the Catholic church in Mozambique as we saw. By the second half of the century, the Catholic institution had a mere four priests left in the colony. The Catholic church presence diminished dramatically as a consequence and the church building became run down if not simply destroyed. The reversal of this situation came in two steps. The first phase of Catholic renewal, or relaunching, came during the period of Portuguese Regeneration, 18501910. During this period the church picked up slowly at first, then quite dramatically. Indeed whereas the church’s situation improved slowly after 1850s, particularly in Mozambique itself, it improved dramatically after 1880s. In fact the church even reached new height in the first decade of the 20th Century. In 1910 though, the coming of the First Republic came as a major setback. The effect of the Republic were not as damaging per se as many have said. But with the advent of the First World War it eventually did constitute a major setback. When German and Austrian religious had to leave the country, the church lost half its personnel. The second period of Catholic relaunching began in the early 1920s. First the Vatican obviously decided to push for missions in Mozambique and its played the Padroado to that effect. Then in 1926 a new political regime led by Catholic militaries came to power in Lisbon. The latter was to be favourable to church and missions and this led the institution to grow again in Mozambique. This second period of Catholic relaunching was to last until 1940 when the state and the Vatican signed a Concordat and Missionary accord to regulate the relation between church and state. Those accord marked indeed a shift in the church’s dynamic. Not that the expansion stopped (quite the reverse), but rather that the church consolidated and took a hegemonic position. The relaunching of the Catholic church did not go without problems with the Portuguese state. The latter, even when not impeding Catholic proselytism, rarely supported fully the church. There were various aspects of the church which were problematic to the Portuguese regimes and which got into the way of a good relation between church and state in Mozambique. The first aspect was the regalist policy of the liberal and then Republican regimes which aimed at separating church and state. A second aspect, related, was the problem of nationalism, the Padroado and Propaganda Fide. Successive Portuguese regimes, liberal, royalist and Republican, were eager to keep the Padroado as a sign (and heritage) of the imperial tradition of the Portuguese nation. In the same token, they did not want to lose control over the church 54 55

ibid, p.60. Anuário Católico de Portugal 1941, Lisbon, p.405.

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to Propaganda Fide. Thus they tried to oppose religious orders and they tried to refuse foreign priests and sisters in Mozambique (like other colonies). Tellingly, the Vatican and the Padroado loomed behind most crisis between church and state. In fact they even did when all went relatively well and the Catholic church tried to expand anew as we have seen in the 1920s for example. This leads me to an additional point, namely that the relation between the Catholic church and the state in Mozambique like in other places cannot be understand as bilateral relations indeed. They really were triangular relations as we have seen, part of the secular clergy working against the Vatican during the liberal period and the prelate of Mozambique working against Rome as well in the 1910-1920s. A last aspect which needs mentioning in this conclusion is the impact of the period on later times. First, Second, the Concordat and its interpretation. As I mentioned it in the introduction, various authors tend to start their analysis of the Catholic church in Mozambique from 1926 or 1940. They see thereafter the Concordat as the basis of church-state collaboration (if not church integration into the state) whereas our approach (seeing the Concordat as the end product of a period) leads to quite a different evaluation. Not that the Concordat did not lead to collaboration and/or a partial integration of the church into the Portuguese Salazarist regime after 1940. But, considering the past of church-state relation, one can see first that the Concordat and related accords came more as an “agreement of separation” than anything else. To a large degree these accords kept indeed the separation which both liberal and Republican regimes had tried to implement.56 One can see, second, that these accords establish in more than one was a “religious peace” as the hierarchy called it at the time. Finally, taking such long perspective, sur la longue durée, one can additionally foresee and possibly better understand some of the conflicts which were to (re-) emerge after 1940, most notably (but not only) around the Padroado, Propaganda Fide and foreign religious orders — conflicts which are not minor but instead .

56

Among others, the church was not allowed to get involved into formal politics and the Catholic faith was not declared the state religion.