Church Leaders Now Satisfied After Years of Difficulty in Mozambique

In improvised classroom sheds in the yard behind their dormitory, 35 young men study for the priesthood at Mozambique’s only Roman Catholic seminary.

Church officials would prefer other facilities, such as the larger complex that housed the seminary before the Marxist government turned it into a teachers’ college.

Despite some grievances, however, Catholic leaders and those of other faiths express cautious satisfaction with current church-state relations in Mozambique.

Clergymen say the government has virtually eliminated harassment of churches, affirmed its commitment to religious freedom, and acknowledged that churches can play a major role in alleviating the suffering caused by a 10-year-old guerrilla war.

Improvement Seen

Anglican Bishop Dinis Sengulane said church-state relations have improved steadily over the last five years, following a difficult period after independence from Portugal in 1975.

“There never was persecution,” Sengulane said. “There have been challenges. We were told that religion was rubbish, and we had a chance to prove it was not.”

Many Catholic, Anglican and other churches were closed in the late 1970s, although most have reopened. Sengulane said clergymen at one point were required to get written authorization to hold services.

Several Catholic seminarians were drafted into the army, including one who was required to serve seven years, said Father Vincent Bailey, a Scot who runs the seminary in Maputo.

‘Feeling of Freedom’

“There was a difficulty for quite a period,” Bailey said. “Now, more and more, there is a feeling of freedom. The churches are packed. Young people are going to catechism.”

A Sunday morning visit to the Catholic church in Quelimane, capital of the central province of Zambezia, bore out Bailey’s comments. Our Lady of Deliverance, a modern concrete church with abstract stained-glass windows, overflowed with more than 1,000 worshipers. Late-comers stood in a front hall, unable to see the altar.

After the service, many lingered in an anteroom, browsing through a display of religious literature. On a bulletin board were rosters of church-sponsored soccer and basketball teams.

A Western diplomat posted in Maputo for several years said that during his many encounters with government officials, “none has ever made any derogatory remark about any religion.”

Dialogue Denounced

He predicted that the government’s rapprochement with the churches would continue despite the ruling Frelimo party’s denunciation of a call by Catholic bishops for dialogue to end the war.

This appeal, contained in a pastoral letter read in May to congregations nationwide, was assailed by Frelimo as “profoundly anti-patriotic.” The government refuses to negotiate with the Mozambique National Resistance guerrillas, contending that they are controlled by South Africa.

A Catholic leader from the West, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “I can see the government’s point. Talks would confer upon Renamo (the guerrillas) a legitimacy that in the eyes of most of the world they don’t have.”

Of Mozambique’s 14.5 million people, about 2.5 million are Muslims and 2.5 million are Christians, including about 1.8 million baptized Catholics. Many of the others are peasants who follow traditional animist beliefs.

Rocky Relationship

The government’s relations with the Catholic church have been rockier than with other denominations, in part because the church was viewed as a defender of Portuguese colonial rule during Frelimo’s guerrilla war for independence.

Pope John Paul II, who met President Joaquim Chissano at the Vatican in May, plans to visit Mozambique next September, and the government reportedly would like to establish diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

Of the churches that were closed in the late ‘70s, many were Catholic churches that ran parochial schools. All religious schools were either shut down or nationalized following independence, although the government now says it has no objection to the training of priests.

Sengulane said congregations at some of the affected Anglican churches were bigger than ever when they reopened.

Service Interrupted

The bishop recalled a baptismal service he conducted in 1977 that was interrupted by two Frelimo members shouting slogans and telling him it was illegal to baptize anyone under 18.

Sengulane said he proceeded with the service after reminding them that the constitution guarantees the right to practice religion.

He and Bailey said a key element in the government’s changing outlook was its appreciation of the role churches can play in relief programs.

“There’s a desire to work together,” said Bailey, citing a recent meeting in which Chissano’s wife, Marcelina, urged clergyman to help the state work with orphans, the mentally handicapped, and other groups.