By Fr. Michael O’ Neill, ssc

Slavery continued in Brazil long after it had been abolished in other countries. The slaves originally wrenched from Africa became the underclass of society. They kept alive their African religions and these are reemerging today as a challenge to the Church.

“I’ve never before seen an 18 year-old fellow dance totally unselfconsciously in the middle of the street as a hi-fi played music from just outside a window. He was totally preoccupied, totally caught up in the dance and didn’t even notice anyone pass-by. He was just absorbed. And this was at 11 o’ clock in the morning.”

That was how Fr. Adrian Carbery described the importance of rhythm and dance in the Afro Brazilian culture of Salvador, a city of about two million people of whom 85 percent are black. In the total population of Brazil (more that 150 million people) 44 percent are black. They are the descendants of slaves brought from Africa through the port Salvador, the original capital of Brazil, to work for the early Portuguese.

Links with Africa

“The type of music they play and even their hair-styles have a lot of links with Africa and there are black consciousness movements very similar to the anti-discrimination and anti-racist campaigns that occurred in the United States and the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa,” added Fr. Colin McLean.

I was visiting the Columban parish of Malvinas and talking with Frs. Colin McLean, Adrian Carbery and Cyril Lovett about the uniqueness of Salvador. Even to the visitor like myself Salvador is quite evidently not just Brazilian but Afro-Brazilian. The great footballer, Pele, for so long a folk hero to all Brazilians is black and therefore Afro-Brazilian.

No Black Faces

The poor, the deprived and the discriminated against in Salvador are almost always Afro-Brazilian who live in the squatter settlements, the favelas, on the outskirts of the City. If they are lucky enough to have jobs (the unemployment rate among them is very high) they are nearly always in the menial occupations. “You rarely find blacks faces you see are those sweeping the corridors, cleaning the toilets and serving at the fast food counters,” says Colin McLean. “Many people arrive at the airport and find it difficult to believe that Salvador is such a black city because it is not immediately visible to them.”

You rarely find black faces in the government or even in the church. Job advisement will often have the phrase, applicants must be of good appearance a not very subtle euphemism for if you are black don’t apply.’

For the missionaries the great challenge in Salvador is to realize and be aware of who these people are and the African roots from which their culture and religious sense comes.

Candomble

Candomble is the Afro-Brazilian religion of most black people in Salvador. It is derived from the religion of the Orixas, or intermediary spirits of West Africa, principally Nigeria and Benin. Slaves brought to Brazil from these areas by the Portuguese colonist were automatically baptized on arrival in Salvador but here was no instruction.

They kept their original beliefs which were condemned and forbidden by the Church. When they gather together in secret as a subterfuge they gave their Orixas the identity of popular Catholic saints.

“The intermediary spirits of Africa took on the personality of our saints and angels,” says Fr. Colin.Candomble would seem to be a monotheistic religion. The one, supreme Olorum created the world. Then he created the Orixas to interact with nature and deal with human beings. It is easy to se how Catholicism, with its spiritual hierarchy of angels and saints, found a ready home for the religion of theOrixas.

Serious students of Candomble find an inculturated African religious experience that merits respect. The problem, of course, enters when the Candomble devotee, if asked, professes to be a catholic. Very few of them will profess to be devotees of Candomble: after all this religion was officially prohibited by law until 1976.

Dialogue Necessary

It seems to me that the problem we face is an inability to recognize that the African religions are religions in their won right”, says Cyril. “The only sound starting point is to respect that religion and to treat it as worthy of dialogue. Catholicism in Europe, “he went on to say “has its own folk elements, its own popular devotions and a certain amount of superstitions built into it, too.

The second steps, he believes, should be “to look at what is most valuable in this religion which has come from a totally different environment in Africa, which has passed through the suffering of slave culture for 300 years but is still alive and well flourishing.

“We should approached dialogue from the point of view of what do we have learn from this religion which speaks so deeply to these people. Learning something from them would enable us to fulfill better our task of evangelizing them.”

Ecology

Candomble is very much a religion tied in with ecology. Its spirits are guardians not just of people but also of all the forces of nature; the forest, the winds, the fire, the seas. “There’s a whole dimension here that over the centuries of Christianity we have lost. It’s certainly something we can learn from Candomble,” says Colin.

Participation

What strikes Cyril is the total contrast between the two liturgies, Catholic and Candomble. In the latter there is a high level of participation by practically everybody present but, unlike Catholicism, practically no importance is given to the Word. On the other hand some Catholics are shocked at the suggestion that there could be some body movement even as we sing. That is our condition.

Compares Brazil and Philippines

For Fathers Cyril and Colin, both of whom worked for eleven and ten years respectively in the Philippines, the only common elements between the Philippines and Brazil is their poverty. Says Colin: “Although many Filipinos wouldn’t participate a lot in church services, they have a knowledge of the story of Jesus, which has been passed on to them through their Passion plays.” In the Afro-Brazilian peripheries of Salvador this is not so. “I even had some kids in our community asking me: What is the picture of the Last Super? What does it mean? What is the story behind it?”

Cyril, contrasting his experiences of the value systems of Brazil and the Philippines, says: “In Salvador the Church has the opportunity to help the people to empower themselves by the formation of small Christian communities so that little by little they will begin to take charge of their own destinies, make themselves agents of their own liberation. Community is very important among Afro-Brasilians whereas I would put smooth interpersonal relations at the top of the Filipino scale of important values.

Oxossi, Nana & Yanza: Some of Candomble’s Orixas. These African intermediary spirits in a syncretised version correspond to the Catholic saints: St. George, St. Barbara and St. Anne.

Job advertisements will often have the phrase, applicants must be of good appearance; a not very subtle euphemism for ‘if you are black, don’t apply’.