(Analecta OFM Cap., Vol. 108, nn.1-2, Jan-May 1992, pp.140-144. A shorter version of this article also appeared in BICI, January-February 1992, pp.15-17)
The biggest event in the life of the friars in Zambia since coming here in 1931 took place recently in Lusaka when the Minister General, Flavio Roberto Carraro, accompanied by Definitors General Ayelé Teklehaymanot and Eustace McSweeney declared the setting up of a Zambian Vice-Province of the Order.
This step was announced on Wednesday 22 January 1992 at St. Bonaventure, Formation College, Makeni, about 15 km south of Lusaka, the Zambian capital. (The college is run jointly by the three branches of the first order as a centre of initial formation for young Franciscans from East Africa.) In making his announcement, Flavio spoke of the new Vice-Province as a sign of unity and fraternity among Zambians, Irish and New Jersey friars. It would enable young Zambians joining the Order to look towards Zambia as their home in the Order.
The new vice-province, which is under the patronage of Saint Francis, includes the whole of Zambia and the Caprivi Strip of Namibia. The professed friars are made up of 9 Zambians, 6 from New Jersey in the USA, and 28 from Ireland, making a total of 43.
A consultative vote had already been taken in 1991 among the friars in regard to the choice of a vice-provincial and council. Eustace McSweeney announced the names of those appointed, namely,
James Connolly – vice-provincial
Kieran Shorten – first councillor
Declan O’Callaghan – second councillor
Noel Brennan – third councillor
Charles Hanley – fourth councillor
In his address to the friars, Eustace spoke of the new structure as representing a change of emphasis in the life of the Order and its implantation in Zambia. He urged the friars to face the challenge of the new situation, saying, ‘Fear knocked at the door; faith answered it; fear was nowhere to be seen.’
Ayelé warmly welcomed the vice-province as a further sign of the commitment of the Order to Africa. The fact that the ceremony took place at Bonaventure Formation College where over forty young Franciscans were in initial formation was confirmation of this.
A further sign of the implantation of the Order in Africa was the presence at the meeting of various regional superiors, namely, Brother Pelagio from Kenya, Isidor Peterhans from Tanzania, and Leonardo from as well as brothers from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zaire, Malawi and Namibia. The birth of the new vice-province took place in an atmosphere of fraternal cordiality and relaxed good humour which augurs well for its future. Brothers Vincent and Robert, definitors from New Jersey, represented their provincial who was prevented by illness from attending, while Brother Angelus, the Irish provincial, was accompanied by Brothers Kevin and Donatus. The evening of the birth of the new vice-province was ceremonially concluded by our sharing a delicious pizza washed down with beer!
On the following day, Thursday 23 January 1992, the friars were guests of the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus in their church of Saint Ignatius where we gathered for concelebrated Mass. Some 80 friars of the three branches of the first Order took part, while representatives of several Franciscan and other congregations of sisters, members of the Secular Franciscan Order, and other religious joined in the celebration. The choir, drawn from Bonaventure Formation College, sang beautifully in Lozi, Nyanja (Chichewa), Bemba, English, Latin and Swahili.
Brother Flavio was the principal concelebrant of the Mass with Archbishop Adrian Mung’andu of Lusaka and Bishop Raymond Mpezele of Livingstone also sharing. In his homily Flavio urged the new vice-province to be outward-looking, taking to heart the work of evangelization. He quoted the words of Pope Paul VI at Kampala, Uganda, in 1969 to the African people, ‘You must be missionaries to yourselves.’
After the Mass, at a meal for all the participants in the adjoining Saint Kalemba Hall, named after one of the martyrs of Uganda, Archbishop Mung’andu, who is well-known to the friars since the days when he was bishop of Livingstone, where most of the friars work, urged us to be faithful to our Constitutions and to our Franciscan charism.
That could serve as an appropriate agenda for the new Vice-Province of Saint Francis in Zambia.
The Background to the Formation of the Vice-Province
The Capuchins first went to Zambia (then the British Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia) in 1931. They were assigned a territory of over 200,000 sq. km. in the far west of the country under the terms of the ius commissionis then in force. At about the same time Italian Conventuals also arrived in the country. The Apostolic Delegate of the day, Archbishop David Mathews, mistakenly assigned the wrong areas to the two groups. The Irish Capuchins, all of whom were English-speaking, were supposed to have gone to the Copperbelt, a mining area with many English-speaking workers, while the Conventuals were supposed to have gone to the west where no English was needed. The mistake resulted in the Italians having to learn English as well as the local language, while the Irish, who already knew English, didn’t need to use it!
The undertaking of a new mission in Northern Rhodesia was a big step for the Irish province as it already had two missions, one in California and Oregon in the USA, now the West American province, and the other in Cape Town, now the South African vice-province. It was an expression of the strong missionary commitment of the Irish province stimulated in part by the energetic drive of Pope Pius XI in missionary work. (That commitment is still there: the Irish province, in addition to being responsible for the Zambian and South African vice-provinces is also responsible for a New Zealand vice-province and a mission in Korea. During the 1960’s, over 60% of the membership of the Irish province lived outside Ireland.)
The area assigned to the friars included Livingstone, then the capital of the country, and Mongu, close to the capital of the paramount chief of the Lozi, the dominant tribe of the region. A small number of Catholic policemen (askaris) of the Bemba tribe stationed in Livingstone had prayed together for several years without a resident priest, while in Mongu a Catholic schoolteacher had worked in a similar way. In the west of the territory, a vast area of roadless savannah, inhabited by over twenty tribes, there had been virtually no missionary work by and Catholics.
Numbers of Friars
Friars began to arrive in increasing numbers and directed their efforts at building up a school system, where none existed before, as the main vehicle of evangelization. A glance at some statistics gives an indication of the growth and decline in the number of Irish friars committed to the Livingstone mission, as follows:
1932: 6; 1942: 13; 1952: 28; 1962: 41; 1972: 50; 1982: 34; 1992: 28.
In addition, friars came in 1965 from the New Jersey province to help in the northern part of Livingstone diocese. Since then, their number has remained relatively constant at its present level of six.
Schools
Despite many setbacks the work of building and staffing schools went ahead vigorously, so that, by 1942, the friars had responsibility for 66 schools. This reached a peak, some thirty years later, at about 150. From the beginning, the friars set out to train teachers and administrators with the intention of handing over the school system, to local control when the opportunity arose. They set up secondary schools and a teachers’ training college. In all this they gave special emphasis to the education of girls and young women, and had to face an overcome a great deal of opposition in doing so. By 1965, the localization of the management of the primary school system was virtually complete, and a full hand over of the Catholic primary education system to government control took place in 1974.
The schools were the principal means of evangelization in the early years of the mission. Religious instruction was a normal part of the school curriculum and the entire school programme took place in a Catholic environment. It was part of an attempt to create a kind of mini-Christendom, a Catholic alternative society in which the faith would grow, protected from pagan influences. While it is difficult to evaluate statistically the influence of Catholic schools in this period, it is probably fair to say that, without them, the growth of the Church would have been very much slower.
Small Christian Communities
With the completion of the process of the transfer of control of the school system to local authorities in 1974, it was clear that a new mission strategy would have to be developed. Fortunately, at this time, the episcopal conferences of East Africa (AMECEA) adopted the policy of small (or basic) Christian communities as the basic units of Church life and activity. More than a merely organizational or structural change they have the potential to be a new way of living the Christian faith. They involve a shift of emphasis of emphasis from the school to the local community, from the child to the adult, from the expatriate priest to the local lay leader. They are a means of enabling small groups of people at local level to share their Christian faith, to become self-ministering, self-supporting and self-propagating communities. For laypeople, they mean a change from being the passive recipients of the benefits of church membership to being directly responsible for a church which they lead; for missionaries, they mean a change from control to cooperation, from leadership to partnership, from talking to listening.
It is probably too early yet to effectively evaluate the results of the adoption of the small Christian community pastoral policy. In some places little has been done beyond changing the names from “outstation” to “small Christian community”; in others, the structures have changed without a change of attitude or theological understanding, while, in still other places, particularly those less visited by priests, the idea has taken root effectively among local people.
Bishops
While pastoral policy has changed, so has pastoral leadership. The first superior of the mission was Brother Casimir Butler, who had spent many years in the California custody. In 1936, one of the first friars, Killian Flynn, was appointed Prefect Apostolic of Victoria Falls, the official ecclesiastical territory assigned to the friars. He remained in office until 1950, when another one of the pioneers, Brother Timothy Phelim O’Shea, was ordained bishop and appointed Vicar Apostolic. In 1959, with the canonical erection of the hierarchy of Northern Rhodesia, he became the first bishop of Livingstone diocese. Bishop O’Shea, as he was universally known, continued in office until his retirement in 1975, when he was replaced by a diocesan priest from Lusaka archdiocese, Father Adrian Mung’andu. On his transfer to Lusaka as archbishop in 1985, his place was taken by another Zambian priest, Father Raymond Mpezele.
Priests
There have also been substantial changes among the priests of the diocese. For the first 25 years all of them were Irish Capuchins. Then came the New Jersey friars, followed by Holy Ghost missionaries who had been expelled from Nigeria at the end of the civil war there. Now there are also Fidei Donum priests, as well as priests from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Society of the Divine Word. These men come in all from 13 different countries, so that the diocese is now more “Catholic” than “Capuchin.” We Capuchins see this as a step towards the achievement of our goal, the establishment of the local church. A major weakness is the as yet small number of Zambian diocesan priests in Livingstone diocese; they number only four at present.
Vocations
From the early years there were efforts to foster vocations both to the Capuchins and the diocesan priesthood. In the 1940’s, when the mission was still in infancy, Msgr. Killian Flynn, the Prefect Apostolic, set up in Lukulu alongside the teachers’ training college, a system whereby promising young men who showed an interest in the priesthood were trained first as teachers. The purpose was to give them a good general education, and also to ensure that, should they decide not to continue studying for the priesthood, they would have a secure job to return to. Having established themselves for some years as reliable teachers they could then progress to the seminary at Chishawasha in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). However, none, in fact, did so continue, and the scheme was dropped after some years.
Another attempt to foster vocations began in 1961 with the setting up of a minor seminary named after Saint Laurence of Brindisi at Limulunga, about 18 km north of Mongu in the Western Province. It continued to function for 15 years but only two of its pupils went on to priesthood or religious life. Among the reasons for this disappointing result were the poor academic qualifications of those admitted, their lack of a serious intention regarding a priestly or religious vocation, and inadequate levels of staffing at the seminary.
As the effort in Saint Lawrence came to an end, a new avenue was tried. Young men who showed an interest in the Order were sent to Tanzania for initial formation. The results here were also disappointing, in part because the arrangements for their continuing formation on their return from Tanzania were somewhat haphazard. It was not until the first mission chapter held in 1978 that a fresh attempt was made to tackle the challenge on a more systematic basis, with the setting up of a postulancy in Limulunga, and a more determined effort to foster vocations. In 1983, a post-novitiate formation house came into operation in Livingstone. This was the precursor to the much larger inter-Franciscan Bonaventure Formation College, already mentioned, which opened in 1991.
The formation picture is a mixed one. While St. Bonaventure Formation College is a sign of hope for East Africa, the picture for Zambia is less bright with only 9 Zambian Capuchins. Of these, only 4 are from Livingstone diocese, a disappointing result after 60 years of work by many friars in that diocese. There are probably many reasons for this, among them the following: the faith, it seems, has not penetrated the culture of the people; Christian marriage and family life are extremely weak; there is little tradition of passing on the faith in the home; individual prayer is not widely practised; and a sense of community is weak. On the part of the Order there were also failings, such as: an inadequate commitment to the promotion of vocations; lack of communication on formation between superiors and formation personnel; failure to follow agreed formation policy; lack of adherence to recognized procedures for admission and profession; a too great eagerness to have large numbers; inadequate numbers and training of formation personnel. Some, at least, of these problems have been addressed though progress has been hard and slow, and lessons taught haven’t always been learned.
Why a Vice-Province?
The first move towards the setting-up of a vice-province in Zambia was made at the Lusaka mission chapter of the Irish friars at the end of 1978 when the chapter recommended to the appropriate authorities in the Order that steps be taken to form a united Capuchin entity in Zambia. (Chapter Report, n.35) Little was done about this in the years which followed apart from inviting the New Jersey friars to send observers to later chapters. Brother Paschal Rywalksi, the then Minister General, wrote encouraging us to go ahead with the move but, even then, the question was effectively allowed to lapse. In part, this may have been due to a kind of passive resistance arising from fear of change, without those concerned being able to clarify what it was that they were afraid of. Maybe some of the New Jersey friars feared being swamped by the numerically larger Irish group, while Irish friars felt that a vice-province might result in their being transferred to the area where the New Jersey friars lived, with the consequent necessity of having to learn a new language.
In 1985, the late Definitor General, Claude Ollukaren, visited Zambia and attended the mission chapter. He gave solid encouragement to the idea, spelling out in detail the reasons in favour and meeting the anxieties that some felt about perceived problems regarding retirement, home leave and financial support. Despite this, the chapter resolution went no further than recommending to the regular superior and council the possibility and advisability of setting up a vice-province. (Chapter Report, p.35, n.1) The matter was allowed to drift until the next chapter in 1988 when a resolution was passed unanimously in favour of having a vice-province. The new administration elected in that chapter pursued the matter vigorously and it was finalized within a relatively short time.
Part of the impetus towards the formation of a vice-province came from the fact that the Irish and New Jersey friars had been cooperating for many years on formation matters and had one shared system of formation. In addition, as the number of Irish and New Jersey friars declined, and their age increased, it became more necessary to think in Zambian terms regarding the Order’s future in Zambia, and it seemed anomalous that young Zambians should be members of provinces thousands of kilometres from their home country. Furthermore, a desire for unity and fraternity highlighted the slightly eccentric situation of having two separate Capuchin jurisdictions functioning independently of each other in an isolated country. In short, the reasons invoked by Brothers Flavio, Ayelé and Eustace at the setting up of the vice-province echoed what many friars had already felt inchoately.
The Future
The future of the vice-province is in God’s hands. It’s not likely to be an easy one, since, among other factors, Zambia is increasingly hard pressed by the problems of AIDS, rapid economic decline and disintegration of public services, and so the prospects for the immediate future at least are not good. Among the expatriate friars there are problems of declining numbers, advancing age, increasing health problems and the very small numbers of new friars coming to Zambia from New Jersey and Ireland (3 in the last ten years). It is understandable, therefore, that the future of the vice-province is seen as being in the hands of the Zambian friars, who are, as yet, few in number and, for the most part, quite young.
We are embarked on an adventure in faith and can only hope and pray that God will lead it to a happy outcome.