Nigerian Christianity and the Society of African Missions. History, Strategies and Challenges

By Francis Rozario SMA S. I

The Church history of Nigeria from the time of the Portuguese explorations till today is narrated with special focus given to the last 150 years, where the Catholic Church started proper establishment and expansion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Francis Rozario SMA S. I
• Release date: Mar 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301777341

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Nigerian Christianity

and the

Society of African Missions

History, Strategies and Challenges

By S. I. Francis Rozario SMA

Copyright 2012 S. I. Francis Rozario

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved to the author.

Ibadan, 2012.

Cum permissu superiorum

Fr. Jean-Marie Guillaume, SMA

Superior General

Rome, 18 October 2012.

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Table of contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

PART I. TILL THE ARRIVAL OF THE SMA INTO NIGERIA

1.1 INITIAL CONTACTS OF NIGERIA WITH CHRISTIANITY

1.1.1Political situation around Africa in 15th century AD

1.1.2 Portuguese Attempts to evangelise Nigeria

1.1.3 The Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith [Propaganda Fide] (1622)

1.2 THE ARRIVAL OF PROTESTANT CHURCHES AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY

1.2.1 Bishop Samuel Ajai Crowther (1809 – 1891)

1.2.2 Protestant Churches and the native African Churches

1.2.3 Analysis of the strategies and the situation of this stage

1.3 THE SOCIETY OF AFRICAN MISSIONS (SMA) BEFORE ENTERING INTO NIGERIA

1.3.1 Melchior de Marion Brésillac, the Founder of the Society of African Missions

1.3.2 The Founding of the Society of African Missions

1.3.3 First Mission Steps of The Society of African Missions

PART II. THE SOCIETY OF AFRICAN MISSIONS AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NIGERIA

2.1 WHERE WAS THE FIRST MASS CELEBRATED IN LAGOS?

2.1.1 Significance of the Mass on 9 March 1862

2.1.2 What SMA missionaries recorded

2.1.3 Facts and theories in Lagos today

2.1.4 Reconstructing the history

2.1.5 Locating the place of the first Mass

2.2 FIRST MISSION ESTABLISHMENTS

2.2.1 Lagos

2.2.2 Epe

2.2.3 Abeokuta

2.2.4 The Famous Trek of Frs. Chausse and Holley

2.2.5 Oyo

2.2.6 Ibadan

2.2.7 Lokoja

2.2.8 Onitsha

2.2.9 Asaba

2.2.10 Issele-Uku and Illah

2.2.11 Kingdom of Benin

2.2.12 Shendam

2.3 DEVELOPMENT OF DIOCESES

2.3.1 Erection of the first few jurisdictions

2.3.2 Development inside each Ecclesiastical Province

PART III. MISSION STRATEGIES AND CHALLENGES

3.1 THE STRATEGIES USED BY THE EARLY MISSIONARIES

3.1.1 Language

3.1.2 Caring for the Sick

3.1.3 Schools

3.1.4 Redeeming slaves

3.1.5 Topo experimental farm

3.1.6 Strong commitment towards the formation of indigenous clergy

3.1.7 Relationship with political authorities

3.2 STRATEGIES OF THE MODERN ERA

3.2.1 Continuity of the early strategies

3.2.2 Strategies of Kontagora - a sample

3.3 CHALLENGES OF TODAY

3.3.1 At the service of faith

3.3.2 Dealing with the devil

3.3.3 Challenges of the Nigerian clergy

CONCLUSION

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the SMA Regional Superior, Fr. Maurice Henry and the members of the Region of Nigeria for their confidence and support which made this book possible. I thank in a special way Fr. Edward Hartnett whose interest in history was a source of inspiration to me.

I am grateful to Fr. Jean-Marie Guillaume, the Superior General of the Society of African Missions, who not only accepted to write the foreword for this book but also offered some very valuable corrections and suggestions on certain details.

I thank Frs. Renzo Mandirola SMA and Pierre Trichet SMA for their special support and assistance.

I am grateful to Fr. Trinkson Debres SMA, the Parish Priest of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church for his fraternal assistance. It was with his help that I was able to start my research on the location of the ‘First Mass’ celebrated by Fr. Borghero on 9 March 1862 and on the identity of the owner of the house where the Mass was celebrated. I am grateful to the many parishioners who offered their assistance.

I thank Mgr. Pedro Martins and Mrs. Efunjoke Coker, two of the senior most citizens of this country for their sharing about the old Lagos. Mgr. Pedro Martins wished to tell me as much as he could remember. One day he told me how he wished to accompany me to trace the location of the ‘First Mass’.

I am grateful to Mgr. Francis Ogumodede, Mgr. Paschal Nwaezeapu and the people of the Lagos Chancery for their assistance during my research.

I am particularly grateful to Fr. Tim Cullinane SMA, one of my community members who patiently read the draft and made excellent suggestions.

Foreword

In 2006, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Society of African Missions (SMA), Father Francis Rozario SMA issued a small booklet entitled, You Filled Our Cup (The Role of the SMA in the History of the Catholic Church in Nigeria). For the 150th anniversary of the celebration of the first Mass on Nigerian soil, in modern times, which was celebrated by Father Francesco Borghero SMA on 9th March 1862, Father Rozario has produced this new and larger publication, outlining the activities of the Society of African Missions in Nigeria.

It is a very interesting survey of the evangelization of the Northern and South Western territory of Nigeria, which had been given over to the SMA. The style is simple and makes the text easy to read. Father Rozario was born in India, in the diocese of Salem, where Bishop Melchior de Marion Brésillac, the Founder of the Society of African Missions, was a missionary for a while. He has developed a great love for and knowledge of the Founder and knows well the beginning of the SMA story.

His pastoral experience over a three year period, alongside many other SMA members in the Apostolic Vicariate of Kontagora (New Bussa and Agwara), has given him the opportunity to have a ‘hands-on’ knowledge of the strategies and challenges which the SMA and the Nigerian Church have had to implement and handle. These continue into the present day.

Rozario’s book shows a great knowledge and an appropriate use of Scripture, which is not surprising since he graduated from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome after his pastoral experience in Nigeria. He has returned to Nigeria, a country that he loves, where he is teaching Scripture in the Major Seminary of SS Peter and Paul, in Bodija, Ibadan. He is, also, a member of the Formation Team at the SMA Formation House in Ibadan.

However, due to the genre of this publication it can only be a brief reminder of what has been the history of the Catholic Church in Nigeria since its beginning up until now. It highlights the main landmarks. It reminds of the origins of the Society of African Missions, and of the life of Bishop de Marion Brésillac, who began as a French missionary in South India where he spent twelve years.

It recounts the difficult beginning of the mission in Dahomey, which was undertaken by Father Borghero. It goes on to outline the beginning of the implantation of the Church in Lagos under his initiative (Lagos was, for a few years, an outstation of Porto Novo) and of his visit to Epe and Abeokuta, the gate of the North.

It describes the work undertaken by the missionaries in Lagos and along the coast and underlines the rapid movement by these first missionaries into the interior of the country, up as far as Ilorin and Oyo and notes that nowhere else was this much of a welcome recorded at that time and then on to Lokoja, Asaba and, later, Shendam. The first Bishop in Lagos was Bishop Jean-Baptiste Chausse who was consecrated on 12th July 1891. Father Rozario mentions, too, the various stages and dates relating to the creation of the dioceses in the territory entrusted to the SMA.

The initial response from the people was slow; the first adult baptisms started only twenty years after the arrival of the first missionaries. Father Rozario, however, points out that the first missionaries had a great love for the people and they were full of energy and zeal and the people recognized that they were different from the other whites. They had a good reputation for their care for the sick. They did not settle down like landlords, but they had to work and survive. There was no Christian community to help them

Several times in his book Father Rozario outlines what the strategies and challenges for the missionaries were and, in some ways, still are: the re-buying of slaves to ensure their freedom, was important in the beginning; the learning of the local language and customs, illustrated by the examples of the life and work of Father Carlo Zappa and Father Eugène Sirlinger; the knowledge of traditional customs and a feeling for the African soul as expressed through art and in the work of Father Kevin Carroll; the love for and proximity to the people, which was different from that of the colonizers or the merchants; the care for the sick as seen through the work of Father François and Father Coquard in Abeokuta; the great work of education in all its various guises, as seen in the work of Father Denis Slattery in Lagos; the commitment to the promotion of the local clergy, illustrated by mentioning the first ordination of a Nigerian priest, Father Paul Obodoechine Emechete, who was ordained on 6th January 1920 by Bishop Broderick SMA; the efforts at financial self-sufficiency for the local Church, with the example of the farm in Topo; the independence of the Church before the political power with the possibility of its intervention for the good of the country. In the midst of these challenges collaboration with the Sisters was of prime importance. The SMA had already invited a female Religious Congregation to Porto Novo by 1868. Soon after, the Sisters of our Lady of the Apostles (OLA), a Congregation that was born within the context of the SMA came in a big number.

A large part of the final chapter is given over to the development of mission strategies and challenges for the modern era: an open minded attitude towards the emergence of multiple churches which are signs of a search for spirituality and for God - for nobody can deny the hand of God working outside its (the Church’s) administrative boundaries as long as power does not block people from coming to know Jesus; the protection of God’s people from false prophets, dangers and snares of today; the training of the laity who could be more involved in outreach initiatives and in the leadership of the nation; the important role of education, with catholic schools at the service of people, especially the poor, and not with the aim of making money; a genuine pastoral care for the people, including the long struggle against evil, witchcraft and the devil. This will require strategies with trained specialists in Exorcism and a solidly trained clergy.

We are grateful to Rozario for producing this book on the occasion of an important anniversary of the Church in Nigeria. We can only hope that a future celebration of a similar anniversary will give him the opportunity to deliver a more complete book on the history of Christianity in the South West and North of that great country.

18th October 2012, Feast of Saint Luke, the Evangelist to the Nations

Jean-Marie Guillaume SMA,

Superior General.

Introduction

Every anniversary helps us to revisit the past and every such revisit of the past energises us for the present ministry and clarifies our vision for the future. We are now celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first Mass celebrated by Fr. Francesco Borghero SMA in Lagos, on 9 March 1862. Nigeria received Catholic missionaries from the 15th century but due to various factors the Church could not really take root in the country. When the Society of African Missions (SMA) was founded, it had only one target and that was Africa and the people of African origin. Because of this clear focus, the Church was established in spite of numerous difficulties, including the fact that the Founder and his companions all died within a few weeks of their arrival in Africa. Only one of the first missionaries was sent back to France and all the others fell in Sierra Leone and were buried there.

The first official missionary visit of an SMA priest to Nigeria was on 8 of March 1862. It was Fr. Francesco Borghero from Italy who came to Lagos from Whydah and celebrated the first Mass on 9 March 1862 in the house of an Italian merchant called Mr. Carena. At that time in Lagos, there were a few hundred Catholics who had returned from Brazil after having been liberated from slavery. The Catholic Church started growing from that day onwards. We have a very well established Church in Nigeria today. All Dioceses have indigenous bishops. Each Diocese has a good number of indigenous priests and seminarians. Nigerian priests and sisters are going out to various parts of the world as missionaries.

To commemorate the arrival of the SMA in Nigeria and the beginning of the establishment of the Catholic Church in the country, the Regional Assembly of the SMA Fathers held in April 2012 mandated me to develop the book I had written in 2006 titled You Filled our Cup. The Role of the SMA in the History of the Catholic Church in Nigeria. As I finished the work I noticed that over three quarters of the present book is new.

Since we are marking the event of the first Mass of Fr. Borghero in Lagos, a full chapter has been written on the exact location and identity of the owner of the place of the Mass. The general intention of the book is to trace the history of the establishment of the Catholic Church in Nigeria. The history of the Society of African Missions in Nigeria is an important part of that history. This is done against the background of all previous attempts as well as the establishment of the non-Catholic denominations in Nigeria. Hence the title, Nigerian Christianity and the Society of African Missions. We talk of past history to enrich our present and future. We learn from the experiences of the past, get inspired and energised looking at the commitment and sacrifice of the early missionaries and we are helped to plan our future. As we talk of the history, we analyse various strategies used by missionaries and the challenges the Church faces today. Hence the subtitle, History, strategies and challenges.

The first part of the book talks of the initial contacts of Nigeria with Christianity and the life of the Society of African Missions before its arrival in Nigeria. The second part talks of the arrival of SMA Fathers in Nigeria and the establishment of the Catholic Church. The third part is dedicated to an analysis of some old and new strategies and to