[continued from previous message]

unwilling to be assigned to other parishes. The dispute was never
resolved. Despite suspensions and controversies – including
accusations (and counter-accusations to their white clergy accusers)
of sexual misconduct and drunkenness – they remained priests until
their deaths.

Ngidi found an outlet for his development work interests in the
Catholic African Union (CAU), a self-help movement started by the
liberal Mariannhiller Bernhard Hüss as an alternative to the
Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), a black trade union
perceived by many in the church (wrongly) as dominated by the
Communist Party. He and Mbhele were also highly regarded for their
work in Zulu linguistics and Bible translation. But, in a church still dominated by foreign missionaries and rooted in European Catholic
culture, they were lonely figures.

Apart from these few “turbulent” pioneers, very few black men were recruited to the priesthood. A trickle were recruited by the mid-20th
Century into religious orders – but more often than not as brothers.
Among many male clerical religious congregations at this time, the
vocation of the brother was seen as a kind of spiritual “second prize”
for men who were deemed not quite fit for the priestly state. This
reflected again the kind of mentality (which was then, as now,
contrary to the theology of vocation) we have seen played out above:
the African priest as culturally “Other”, possibly unsuited for the Catholic clerical life.

Well into the 20th Century, black clergy still struggled to fit into
the Catholic church. The first African bishop in South Africa,
Bonaventure Dlamini of the diocese of Umzimkulu (which he served from 1954-1968), had less confrontation in his life than the first four
priests mentioned above, but no fewer problems. Once the diocese he
would lead was carved out of Mariannhill, most of the missionaries
withdrew. Finances were tight and frequently mismanaged – in fairness, Dlamini had not been trained to run diocesan finances. Staffing was
difficult and some of his appointments were questioned as nepotism, particularly by white laity deeply hostile to their black bishop.

By the 1960s the training of local African clergy was largely done
within South Africa at a number of seminaries – though the seminaries
were still segregated until the mid-1970s. Seminarians and some black
priests in the 1960s drew strength from the Black Consciousness
Movement, formed black solidarity groups and started to openly and
vocally challenge the hierarchy about the disparities between black
and white clergy. More than that, many argued for a more inculturated
church in line with the new ideas that had emerged particularly after
Vatican II (1962-1965). Many still felt subordinated – in diocese or religious order – to white clergy. Even as seminary formation came to
include courses in anthropology, religious inculturation, liberation
theology and engagement with racism, the underlying atmosphere of
formation remained Eurocentric.

Today, in the post-apartheid era (where local clergy are almost
entirely black and the vast majority of missionaries come from other
parts of Africa), the church still battles with the question of extent
of inculturation, institutional culture, shifting demographics in
parishes and church organisations. As Mukuka concluded in 2008: many
things have changed, much remains to change.

Back to 1957

Having examined this rather unpleasant aspect of the church’s history,
it is worth returning to the 1957 Statement on Apartheid. The
excellence of its analysis and critique notwithstanding, the latter
parts of the text are deeply flawed. Its prescription in a decade
where all progressive nationalist movements were demanding an end to discriminatory laws and universal franchise – either immediately or
very soon – is equivocal. The SACBC calls for moderation and
gradualism. They say:

“A gradual change it must be: gradual, for no other kind of change is compatible with the maintenance of order, without which there is no
society, no government, no justice, no common good.”

The key to this is found earlier in the document where they
acknowledge black frustration, but warn against anarchy and the
possibility of “atheistic communism”, having noted that there were “profound differences between sections of our population which make
immediate total integration impossible”. They observe that:

“People cannot share fully in the same political and economic
institutions until culturally they have a great deal in common. All
social change must be gradual if it is not to be disastrous.”

In this the SACBC seems to have placed itself – knowingly or
unknowingly – in the camp of opposition parties like the United Party,
its later breakaway the Progressive Party, and the Liberal Party, all
of whom endorsed gradualism – from very gradual (United Party),
through moderately gradual (the Progressives) to rapid gradualism (the Liberals). The Liberals by 1960 would reject gradualism in favour of
immediate universal franchise and by its state-enforced demise in 1968
embrace social democracy very close to the African National Congress.

Beneath whatever conscious or unconscious alignment, however, we see
the dynamics of race at play in this statement. When the statement
speaks of having culture in common, the underlying assumption is that
the common culture is western and European (as Biko would later
remark). This is not crude racism based on pseudo-science, prejudice
or simply a battle for economic supremacy, but formed by religious
cultural assumptions that lead nonetheless to a kind of racism.

If one wants further confirmation of this let us look to the final
part of the document, an appeal to white Catholics. Given the economic
strength of white Catholic laity at the time, the appeal – in effect
to work towards greater integration in the church – was courageous,
but shows limitations. The SACBC commendably admits that though
segregation in principle was rejected in all Catholic institutions, in
practice it existed and urged that Catholics “pursue more vigorously
the change of heart and practice that the law of Christ demands. We
are hypocrites if we condemn apartheid in South African society and
condone it in our own institutions [my italics].” The SACBC
acknowledged that there were cultural and linguistic differences
between black and white Catholics and appeals for working towards
unity, concluding, “A different colour can be no reason for separation
when culture, custom, social condition and, above all, a common faith
and common love of Christ impel us towards unity.”

But what was the underlying culture of Christian unity? Though not
stated, because in so many ways it was taken for granted, it was the
European culture of mid-1950s Catholicism, which held not only its
theology as normative but also its expression – its most obvious
feature being its worship conducted in a (dead) European language,
Latin, and its theology interpreted through the lens of Greco-Roman
philosophy. It would take the church’s renewal at Vatican II
(1962-1965) to weaken (but not break) these cultural assumptions that prioritised the European over the cultures of the rest of the world.
Worship in vernaculars, theology interpreted through other cultures,
the use of African music and dance – all of this would be pursued in
the South African church. Up to a point.

Theological orthodoxy (right doctrine) and orthopraxis (right actions)
had – have – their limits. These limits were and are decided
ultimately from Rome and from a European mindset.

As often happens, extreme positions on the Catholic church and race in
South Africa – whether that it was (and is) a racist institution,
conversely that the church is not now nor ever has been racist – are mistaken. There were many cases where Catholics, whether individuals
or institutions, were racist, sometimes horrendously so. To their
credit, leaders of the church did their best to stamp out such
behaviour and attitudes.

Yet, ironically, the official discourse of the Catholic church was –
and is – framed within a dominant European cultural and intellectual framework that most who lead the church took – and take – for granted. Sometimes the subtle and unsubtle merged into hurtful practices at
variance with the universal and inclusive vision of Christianity. Even
today, within the limits of orthodox Catholic thinking, Eurocentric
assumptions still privilege European over non-European culture. If the
church is to move beyond racism, Catholics and other Christians need
to be conscious of these assumptions and the tensions they create in a pluralistic society and world. The Catholic church’s struggle with
racism and apartheid, to be discussed in future articles, was at a
certain level “a struggle within”. DM

ANTHONY EGAN
South Africa


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com

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