Tribalism killing dream for African Church

It was a missionary vision of St Daniel Comboni, founder of the Comboni Missionaries, that Africa will be evangelised by Africans.
This in turn shaped his missionary activity: to found and sustain local churches so that they can give birth to their own evangelisers.

Cardinal Charles Lavigerie, founder of the Society of Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers), adopted the same view. But he would not wait till Africans would be able to evangelise themselves. He emphasised the importance of an in-depth knowledge of the people by learning their language and usage as effective means of communicating the Gospel in the very fabric of their life.

Writing to his missionaries, Lavigerie exhorted them to apply methods of evangelisation that would help people become authentic Christians—and not some copies of European models.

When we look around in Africa where these congregations have been, surely we see, touch and smell the traces of this vision put into practice.
Firstly, both founders engaged themselves in buying back slaves to freedom. They catechised and trained these liberated slaves in different professions in order to witness Christ by rendering service to their own people.

It was a vision of evangelisation to be carried out not only by priests or religious, but also by lay people.
Of course, promotion of local clergy as a way of building up the local church was just another important aspect of it. The flourishing of the African Church owes a lot also to the many other missionaries who shared this vision.

Are we making use of this development, or are we squandering it?
Let’s reflect a bit on history. Liberation from foreign colonial to indigenous rule was a revolutionary experience. This coincided with some local priests becoming bishops. To some people that may have seemed to be achieving self-rule in the Church and so, on this basis, there might have been more calls for more African bishops.

Hence, instead of appreciating the development as a growing Church which is ready to evangelise and govern itself, came to be seen more in terms of liberation, some sort of independence. In this way of seeing things, power and to own it become a central motivation. The result is to do more damage than good.

In many African countries tribalism has determined who becomes president and holds important positions. Unfortunately, this has often also been an issue in both the appointment and reception a new bishop. A person from a different tribe, especially when that tribe is a minority, is seen as an intruder coming to take away power.

When we act this way, not only do we abuse the positive development of having a local person as a shepherd, but also lose absolutely the sense of Church. That’s why, without making reference to any particular case, some people would receive it as an insult to have a foreign missionary appointed as their bishop.

Such ill-feeling—a feeling of being insulted—certainly does not come from a desire to serve, but from a craving for the power which is given to someone deemed foreign—a foreigner not in the Church but to our tribe or race. In such mean attitudes, where is our profession of Christ as Universal King?

This is where I think the African Church needs to rise, take up her mat and walk to grow into the spirit of the Church as a family of transformed persons, true disciples of Christ, who will not lend themselves to tearing at each other but rather opt to profit from their racial, ethnic and tribal diversity as sources of mutual enrichment, thereby radiating the true image of the universal Church.

Besides, the idea that Africa will be evangelised by Africans may be true, but it’s not automatic in its profound sense. Only a determined effort and one’s full application to this vision will fulfil the hopes of this statement.

Here we are, African Church; multitudes of lay people, local religious, local clergy, local bishops! What is our African touch to evangelisation?