This is a journey through the reality of Sierra Leone, a country in which the Augustinian Recollects have left their mark. The author, with his soul in pain but in love with Sierra Leone after a year in the country, tells us the story sometimes in the first person, other times from the point of view of the objective observer, with traces of humor and dreams for the future of this country.
The parish of Kamabai is like that of the rest of the world: catechesis, sacraments, formation for catechesis leaders, groups for young people, those in charge of the choir and the liturgy. In general, all the Catholic parishes in the world count on this.
Nonetheless, there are some basic characteristics that make this work special, for the concrete circumstances which happen, some of the, already explained in more detail, and which can be named as:
- The Catholics, who are minority in a Christian minority.
- Illiteracy.
- A difficult way of relating to society.
- An amalgam of languages and cultures.
- Poverty.
The Catholic Church has been one of the last to arrive in Sierra Leone. For historical, political and geographical circumstances the first Christianity in this zone of Western Africa was brought by Protestant churches. In the northern zone of Sierra Leone the oldest Catholic parishes have presently completed sixty years of presence.
But it is also that Catholicism is a minority within the other minority, which is Christianity in general. The country is largely Muslim, without signs of fundamentalism. Interreligious coexistence is natural thought the society.
Nonetheless, this social minority means that pastoral work is made difficult. The Catholic population is scattered, which means that you have to travel large distances by bad roads to find Catholics and in very few of these villages Catholicism has a notable social presence. Customs which have not been evangelized exercise a strong influence: polygamy, habitual machismo treatment of man-woman, initiation rites, child marriages…
In this sense, one of the great problems which Christianity and other religions face is the continual presence of animism and fraudulent superstitions.
The number of illiterates in the adult population is very high. Few people can read and write, and as a result, not many can be formed in the faith to lead celebrations in the absence of priests, manage the accounts for the local Catholic community, and arrange the proper functioning.
For what has been said previously it can be deduced that there also exists a grave cultural problem: every one of the tribes has its own language and culture. There are no Eucharistic celebrations with a translator, sometimes more than one.
It is easy to imagine that any reunion, formation program or simple religious message becomes something complicated, difficult and requires a lot of time (double or triple, so that the translators can do their work).
Lastly, for every task, there are certain necessary resources. From petrol, up to materials for the formation, as well as the construction of infrastructures (chapels, catechesis rooms), or the celebration of liturgical feasts, at the end nothing can be done without money.
However, these resources that in any other part of the world come from the community itself, here are very difficult to get hold of. One of the rural communities from Kamabai, after five years of saving in the Sunday collections has achieved… 5,000 Leones! About, one euro.
The misery has its human component. It brings with it a lack of values, the loss of human dignity, egoism in the fight for survival and what is almost worst, a lack of trust because all is reduced to personal interest.
In one of the villages served by the Augustinian Recollects in the zone of Kamalo, twenty years ago the local Chief had a confrontation (for economic reasons, obviously)with the Imam. Until this moment the village had been Muslim. The Chief decided that he, all his family, and the rest of the village would stop going to the Mosque. They had a reunion: “What Church do we want to belong to?”
The answer came from an immigrant to the village who had seen more of the world:”if you want to develop you should go with the Catholic Church”. The adoption of the faith was due to the fact that the Catholic Church would give them a school, a well and other benefits. So it was.
The Church in Sierra Leone has only four dioceses, and the percentage of the Catholic population is estimated to be 2.5%, at a stretch. Nevertheless, it manages 60% of the rural schools, many hospitals, medical centres and universities.
The reason is simple. Much of the money comes from Islamic countries with more resources in “petrodollars” who dedicate themselves only to mosques. Not only that. Gadafi, the controversial Libyan dictator, gave them an immense Mosque. In Freetown you can see the result: it is immense, although it only occupies a quarter of what was planned. The rest of the money went into the politicians’ pockets, angering Gaddafi who crossed the Sahara in a “Hummer” trailer only to see it.
The Wesleyans do not now depend on the United States’ founding Churches, and with great effort maintain the educational and sanitary infrastructures which they created with resources from the United Kingdom and the United States, but there are no new inversions. Other confessions that dedicate resources to development are less important and have fewer numbers, like the Baptists and Adventists who have hospitals.
Catholicism, for its part, does not understand pastoral work as proselytism, looking for the liberation of the person in all its aspects. The huge social work taken on by the Augustinian Recollects in the region have their roots in the evangelization of the human person and their needs: you cannot talk about faith and values to someone and abandon them in their most fundamental and immediate needs.
The religious visit the zones for the celebrations and to get to know the normal life of the Catholic community. In some communities they count on a Catholic majority, formed leaders, catechists, chapels or schools. In others, the Catholics are a small minority. Kamabai has some two hundred villages, but only some fifty have a school, chapel or one or the other that is used for both purposes.
Another aspect is the formation of Catholic leaders that guide the communities day by day. They don’t have civil, traditional or tribal power, and their function is limited to the direction of the community celebrations in the absence of the Priest and in giving counsel and guidance to the Catholic families. They tend to be people with a special charisma, who know how to read and write and normally speak at least Krio and the local village language.
Within some villages, these leaders have been able to have a certain influence in the life of the locality. They tend to maintain good relations with the local Chief and are the most direct link between the missionaries and the villages.
Every two months there is a reunion with all the leaders in the mission centre. Some walk for many hours in order to arrive to the intersection where they are collected in order to make transport easier. They are given formation and information about ecclesial matters, diocesan norms, Magisterial documents. Above all, they are supported and encouraged so that they feel appreciated.
Colleges and promotion of education, sanitary attention, construction of infrastructures, drinkable water and drainage, women’s rights and that of children, eradication of female circumcision, and child marriages…There are also pastoral activities for the Recollect religious in the area of Pastoral Social attention for the Catholic Church in Kamabai.
One of the questions that people tend to ask is if the Catholic Church in Africa does no more “humanitarian work” than that of “pastoral works”. The problem lies not in the answer, but rather in if the question is pertinent.
What is certain is that a revision of the history of the Church and evangelization leaves us without a doubt: the Church never does something merely human, rather that in its pastoral social works announces the Gospel with the same strength that is present in its liturgical or sacramental proclamation. It is not like the job of an NGO or philanthropy, but rather an authentic “pastoral social” work that has as its motivation, cause and end the same Gospel that it announces.
