Black Priests, White Church? The Struggle of African Catholic Priests in South Africa (Review)

The Other Side of the Story: The Silent Experience of the Black Clergy in the Catholic Church in South Africa (1898 – 1976), by George Sombe Mukuka, Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications, 2008; ISBN 978 18750 53 68 1; paperback, xiv + 214 pp; R100.00.

If the title of my review seems strangely resonant, that is because this is deliberate: the pun on distinguished African theorist and philosopher Frantz Fanon’s Black Skins, White Masks1 is intended since this new book draws upon many similar themes – race, culture, identity and European hegemony. Mukuka weaves these themes into an informative and theoretically informed history of black Catholic clergy in South Africa.

His account is one that tries to retrieve aspects of church history that many may wish were buried but which in a sense deeply affects the state of the South African church today.

His central thesis is that European missionary control of the Catholic Church in the 19th century was informed by notions of European cultural, educational and political supremacy that demanded the acceptance and compliance of local African cultures and especially the nascent African clergy. Those who bucked the system – who challenged this hegemony – got hurt.

Mukuka submits the evidence he has collected (collected with great difficulty, it must be added) to three theoretical frameworks of interpretation. First, he draws on James Blaut’s theory of diffusionism: that Europeans had (possibly still have) the assumption that they are the centre of history and culture and that this culture should be spread (diffused) to the non-European Other2. Second he draws on anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff’s theory3 of the triangular relationship of ideology, hegemony and culture in contests for power. Third, he draws upon James C Scott’s theory4 of domination and the arts of resistance: dominated people find ways of expressing dissent through subtle exercises of culture (e.g. music, song, satire) that contain within them ‘hidden transcripts’ of resistance.

The story Mukuka recounts can be seen as an account of an ongoing struggle by black African priests for full participation in – and ultimately identification with – the Catholic Church in which they served. It starts in the then Natal in the area around present-day Mariannhill with four young men who travelled to Rome to train as diocesan priests. Returning with doctorates, they found themselves treated very much as perpetual assistant priests, subject to discrimination in state and, as Mukuka points out, the Church. Drawing on very limited documentary evidence – often representing the ‘other side’ of their conflicts – and on interviews (many of which are grassroots recollections of what might be called ‘folk memory’), the author tells of their conflicts with religious authorities and their ultimate marginalisation.

Father Edward Kece Mnganga (1872-1945) was placed as an assistant to Mariannhill priest A T (David) Bryant, who himself had gained eminence as an ethnographer, historian and Zulu linguist. Initially doing very well – popular in the parish and developing a successful mission school – Mnganga began to feel that Bryant was undermining his work. Whenever he was away, for example, Bryant would – Mnganga argued – expel his most promising students. Confrontation ensued and Bryant and Mnganga apparently came to blows. Bryant then accused Mnganga of threatening to kill him, had him declared mentally insane, and had him shipped off to a mental asylum in Pietermaritzburg, where Mnganga remained for 17 years.

For Father Alois Majonga Mncadi (1877-1933) the issue with his superiors was that he was unwilling to live alone. He wanted family members to live with him and – to make matters worse – he bought a farm for himself, which his bishop ruled was against canon law prohibition on priests’ trading. Similar problems arose between Fathers Andreas Mdontswa Ngidi (1881-1951) and Julius uMkomazi Mbhele (1879-1956). Ngidi was also accused of being a radical African nationalist and complained bitterly that his superiors stole his writings and tried to obstruct his pastoral work when it entailed what we would today call development work among the Zulu people. Mbhele, too, clashed with his superiors over pastoral work, his refusal to sell his farm, and was suspended for a while after allegations that a divorced woman was living on his farm.

The first black bishop in South Africa, Bonaventure Dlamini of the diocese of Umzimkulu (which he served from 1954-1968) had less confrontation 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. White laity were also 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). Today, in the post-apartheid era the Church still battles with the question of inculturation and the role of black clergy, Mukuka concludes: many things have changed, much remains to change.

What might one make of this book? To dismiss it as identity politicking posing as revisionist history would be inappropriate. While Mukuka certainly has strong views on the situation in the contemporary Church, his focus is clearly that of a historian who tries to see the present in the light of the past, a past for the most part hitherto glossed over in the established popular and academic histories.

In response to this gap, Mukuka has produced a very important critical history of the Catholic Church in South Africa that deserves serious attention. It is important precisely because he has taken what in previous histories of the Church have been at best short paragraphs, at worst footnotes, and given them new life. To use anthropologist Eric Wolf’s phrase he has given a voice to ‘people without history’5.

Such a step is not without its problems. First, the sources he has used are limited and thus limiting. This is by no means new or particular to his research. Archives6 are deceptive things, as anyone who has ever dug around in one will tell you. They are by no means comprehensive. The data that is collected into an archive is inevitably ‘sifted’ and selected, often according to what the archivist deems important. Moreover archives are usually run by those who enjoy power and privilege in society and one must often assume that not all archivists are above selection according to what they perceive to be important. And this may not even be intentional. In addition, since archives have traditionally held documents, their contents are determined also by what is written and ultimately who writes. A person who does not communicate much in writing will not feature strongly in an archive.

This problem is often ‘resolved’ by the use of oral sources and interviews. These, too, are not without difficulties: human memory is flawed at the best of times and, as is the case in some of the interviewees Mukuka uses, if the memories are second hand (memories of stories told about a subject) the level of objective accuracy is made doubtful. Despite this they can, and in this case are, useful as much for what is perceived reality as subjective memory. Indeed they tell us much about our present, a present that Mukuka clearly sees as far from perfect as regards the status of black clergy7.

My second ‘problem’ with this study is the degree to which it suffers from a common historical weakness, the problem of particularity. Often we think of our historical circumstances as unique. Quite often they are not. The hesitancy of the Church to ordain local priests is by no means uniquely a South African phenomenon. For centuries the Catholic Church was wary of ordaining ‘native clergy’ in countries as varied as Brazil, Peru, Congo and the Philippines, believing that the ‘natives’ were physically incapable of maintaining church disciplines such as celibacy. Many religious orders in the Philippines, for example, only started to admit ‘natives’ in the early 20th century. And clear social and economic class distinctions between foreign and local clergy existed in the Philippines until the end of the 19th century. The point is not to exonerate the local South African hierarchy and religious orders during the time covered by the author. Rather it is to show that problems existed within the way the church was governed at the time, despite commitment from Rome to indigenous clergy, a point Mukuka makes early on in the book.

There is always a tension between theory and practice, and how theory is interpreted. We see this today in many aspects of church life where those favouring inculturation seem sometimes to hit their heads against a theological glass ceiling. Inculturation of liturgy may include translation of rites into local languages, but seldom into local idiom. Liturgical dance may be permitted, but don’t dare substitute maize bread for wheat-based hosts! And questions such as the impact of celibacy on a priest’s standing within his community, or in modern liberal cultures ordination of women, is off the radar screen! Some would say these are issues of the very ‘essence of the faith’; others, like our author, might see it as a matter of European diffusionism and hegemony.

A book that sparks reflection – critical or otherwise – is a book worth reading. George Mukuka has done us a service in his retrieval of a largely forgotten [ignored?] piece of the South African Catholic past. His book deserves careful reading and debate. It is a welcome addition to the field.

Availability: Cluster books are not readily available in mainstream bookstores. Unless you can find an academic or religious bookshop near you it is easiest to order directly from the publishers:

Cluster Publications
P O Box 2400
Pietermaritzburg
3200 South Africa

Tel: (033) 345 9897
Fax: (033) 345 9894
E-Mail: cluster@essa.ac.za This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it