The Holy See's Agreement with São Tomé and Príncipe places the Catholic Church into a Stronger Position as Africa Confronts its Colonialist Past

On Tuesday, the Holy See and São Tomé and Príncipe signed an agreement that would lay out the legal jurisdictional personality of the Catholic Church in São Tomé and Príncipe. 

This may seem like menial news for many reasons.

For one, it may seem like menial news because you may not be aware of what the Holy See and São Tomé and Príncipe are.

Another reason could be that this sounds purely administrative and thus, inconsequential for everyday life.

But, this is actually quite an important deal if what these reports suggests are true. 

The Holy See is the entity that generally represents the Catholic Church overseas whether it be in the USA, Nigeria, or even Italy. 

The Holy See is the entity that has diplomatic ambassadors and embassies assigned to it, while the Holy See itself exports their diplomatic corps and services under the terms apostolic nuncios (ambassador) and apostolic nunciatures (embassies) abroad. 

Therefore, the Holy See is in effect, a sovereign country and this can be seen in their treaties called concordats and their permanent observer status at the United Nations.

São Tomé and Príncipe is a regular sovereign country like the USA or Nigeria and is located in the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean, just barely north of the equator with a little land south of the equator and just off the coasts of Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, very close to Cameroon and Nigeria on the Central West Coast of Africa. It consists of two main islands, the larger São Tomé, and the smaller Príncipe, plus archipelagos surrounding these two islands. These two main islands are a staggering 150 km (93.21 miles) apart from each other.

São Tomé and Príncipe has a unique history considering that it was uninhabited before the Portuguese founded the island in 1470, thus meaning that São Tomé and Príncipe is one of the few African nations whereby people of European descent were the first to settle it.

These Portuguese connections and future colonization led to São Tomé and Príncipe gaining a unique culture.

Demographically, their people can be quite mixed, but religiously, the country has traditionally been very Catholic, usually above 80% Catholic.

Recently however, many estimates have shown a steady decline to the point that now, São Tomé and Príncipe appear to only have just above 50% Catholics. Other estimates still suggest a high number at around 70%.

Not only is there a decline in Church membership, but there has also been a decline in Catholic actions and a threat to Church freedoms in recent years.

In terms of the decline in Catholic action, it has been reported that São Tomé and Príncipe has been suffering a heavy and alarming rise in child molesting at the hands of family members. These cases of incestual molestation often goes unreported because the breadwinners of the family are often the perpetrators, and no one wants to risk financial ruin.

The country is poor, and there are not lots of people (~225,000). This means that opportunity is very limited. And then when you take into effect geography, unfortunately, what you see is a case where dependency is high leading to those with power capable of abusing those without. 

Teachers have even started to sexually exploit their students in exchange for a higher grade.

And elderly people are now being abused, via burning and other physical violence, especially the elderly that are poor. The reasons for this are due to accusations of witchcraft, as people believe their deteriorating health is tied to them being a sorcerer. 

Therefore, the Church has been trying to combat these shortcomings of society by creating partnerships and using their own resources to create safe houses and to provide aid and development, such as with Santa Casa da Misericórdia de São Tomé e Príncipe (Holy House of Mercy of São Tomé and Príncipe). This is an example of the Catholic Church, the State Government of São Tomé and Príncipe, and cooperation from Cooperação Portuguesa (Portuguese Cooperation), a branch of Portuguese foreign policy (State Government of Portugal) meant to provide development and to invest into friendly nations such as those of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries or the Lusophone Commonwealth, a network of the former Portuguese Empire that includes both Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe, coming together to help. This house also provides medical assistance and education.

Now, the Catholic Church in São Tomé and Príncipe seeks to gain a formal partnership with the Minister of Education in São Tomé and Príncipe to provide more quality education to the country.

You can find out more about these developments from this link by Sheila Pires of ACI Africa and her interview with Sister Romilsia Perreira, F.d.C.C. 

But, providing development to São Tomé and Príncipe and promoting Catholic morals are not the only thing the Church wishes to preserve in this small nation, the second smallest sovereign country by both land and population in Africa. The Church also hopes to gain more legal rights within São Tomé and Príncipe's justice system so that our Church can ensure their rights beyond merely a promise or friendship. The reasons for this stem from a complicated history.

Despite São Tomé and Príncipe being one of the most stable democracies in Africa for a long time now, their poverty rates have exacerbated a lot of the traditional support for the establishment which the Church can often seem a part of.

And, this has extended the seeds of distrust into the present.

São Tomé and Príncipe quickly became a plantation economy dominated by slave labor following the Portuguese discovery in 1470. 

This was due to its rich volcanic soil that made cash crops like sugar, cocoa, and coffee major exporting industries on the two islands.

Due to these industries, slaves dominated the islands.

This dependency on cash crops and slavery created many periods of economic and social turmoil. 

Perhaps, it is in this expansion of slavery where the Catholicness already started to faulter on the islands. 

But, it appears to have began in 1500, when young Iberian Jewish children were brought in from Portugal to work on the plantations. They were considered "undesirables" and they and others under this term would become the majority population on the island early on.

And then, in 1502, the state became more important than religion symbolically as Príncipe would change its name from São Antão to Príncipe after the Prince of Portugal to whom the sugar duties were paid. 

By 1515, São Tomé and Príncipe had become a major slave colony as the Portuguese would take many African slaves from the continent to the islands.

But, soon, Catholicism would once again supplant the island. 

By 1534, the Roman Catholic Diocese of São Tomé and Príncipe would be erected! 

This was quite impressive for such a remote and small territory at the time.

However, the stain of the slave trade plagued São Tomé and Príncipe as their economy largely depended on transporting and trading slaves all over to Portugal, the Americas, and nearby African nations such as the Kingdom of Kongo.

But, despite these lows, São Tomé and Príncipe quickly became very equal as a society for the time, creating many pathways to freedom for both mixed ("Mulatto") and full Black people. For example, in 1515, African wives of White settlers became freed. In 1517, the original Black male slaves on the island were freed. In 1520, property owning free Mixed people were allowed to hold public office. And by 1546, a royal decree granted civil equality to Whites and free Mixed people and Blacks thus allowing all to own property, compete in business, and participate in local politics. 

But, there was still widespread slavery and this caused social upheaval among the local politics, especially with those seen in charge like the Governor and Bishop. 

And slave revolts pursued. 

So much so that there were wars and also Maroon populations. 

Maroons are a term most commonly used in the Caribbean for slaves that escape and form their own settlements, usually into the mountains and tropical rain forests that exist on many of these islands. This is what the Maroons did in São Tomé and Príncipe too. 

They would then wage slave revolts that would lead to many citizens being killed of all demographic groups: White, Black, and Mulattos.

In 1595, the Bishop and Governor came into a dispute, and this allowed for one Maroon group to dominate the islands. This group were the Angolares, often believed to have ruled part of the island as a free nation called Kilombo under Rei Amador Vieira. They would win their revolt in which they allied with slaves and would rule the islands for two years or three weeks with Rei Amador Vieira as King. Yes, that is quite a difference in time, but we are not sure how long he ruled and those are the two estimates. Portugal eventually returned to power.

Later, in the 17th and 18th centuries, other slave revolts would follow. These centuries saw the sugar industry on the island largely decline and the islands mainly operated as a stop along the slave trading routes.

In the 19th Century, coffee and cocoa were the hot commodities for the islands' economies. And by 1908, São Tomé and Príncipe was doing so well with cocoa that it became its largest producer in the world.

Unfortunately, this led to a new abuse of power and great income inequality.

Why?

Because companies and absentee landlords would begin to dominate all the good farmland, and they became so powerful that they could continue to effectively force their African workers into labor. Slavery may have been abolished in 1876 across the Portuguese Empire, but it effectively continued under this "roças" system.

What followed was a massacre! 

Reports would continue to emerge of abuses to African laborers at a point in time when slavery now was considered a great evil.

This led to uprisings and riots, and eventually the Batepá Massacre of 1953. 

This massacre centered around a major point of contention between the Forros or creoles and the plantation owners who operated the "roças" system. The Forros are the descendents of Black slaves who were freed by abolition.

The "roças" system relied on mainland Black Africans and Cape Verdian Blacks who would come into São Tomé and Príncipe to work as "contract laborers" (Serviçais) in a quasi-feudal like relationship. 

The Forros refused to do this form of manual labor because they saw it as slavery.

Carlos Gorgulho, who became the new governor in 1945, determined that for the Portuguese Empire's modernization economic policies to flourish in São Tomé and Príncipe, they needed to end their dependence on contract laborers from overseas.

Therefore, Carlos Gorgulho implemented policies that would make it easier for the contract workers to go home, and improved the conditions of the "roças" system to attract local workers.

But, in doing so, he restricted certain products from being sold and raised taxes on others to make it harder for the Forros to enjoy their life, making costs too high, to encourage them to work in the fields to make more money.

In addition, he would also kidnap some of the local population and force them to work on his public work projects and in the fields as he needed laborers for this too.

In 1952, the São Tomé and Príncipe's government continued to suffer from labor shortages, and therefore came up with a plan to resettle 15,000 Cape Verdians on the islands. 

But, the rumors that spread were that the São Tomé and Príncipe Government was going to take away a lot of the Forros' land to give to Cape Verdians to incentivize the Forros to work in the fields.

And, in response to these rumors, the São Tomé and Príncipe government denied this and called those spreading rumors communists and asked their citizens to report these people.

In this conflict, the conservative dictatorial Estado Novo regime of António de Oliveira Salazar viewed the opposition as mortal enemies as his regime very much liked the Catholic Church. It was corporatist, which is not purely capitalist, but is not socialist, and Salazar despised socialism and was not keen on capitalism either. 

For those unaware, corporatism is the Catholic Church's economic system, although our Church does not favor any economic system or deny any economic system without context.

On 3 February 1953, a protest emerged and became violent with one death and a police crackdown.

Carlos Gorgulho alerted the Portuguese authorities, and those in São Tomé and Príncipe, such as the colonists, all the White people, and all the business and plantation owners that they were facing a communist rebellion, and therefore they must form militias to fight. Many of the contract laborers were also put into these militias to fight the Forros and this led to at least 1,000 deaths of mainly Forros as the militias and authorities would rage brutal killings, torture, and other gruesome policies to quash this rebellion.

Portuguese Central Authorities would later be sent there to investigate and found no communist conspiracy that started these protests. Carlos Gorgulho would be sent to Lisbon and was praised by many in the military for quashing this rebellion.

These actions started the independence movement in São Tomé and Príncipe and led to the eventual downfall of Portuguese rule on the islands.

And, the Communist revolution that was supposedly conspired before finally came.

The Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe (MLSTP) would be created in Gabon in-exile and would join the Conference of Nationalist Organizations of the Portuguese Colonies (CONCP), a group of nationalist parties and movements focused on "liberating" their colony from Portugal.

The Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe (MLSTP) was originally Marxist-Leninist Communist and São Tomé and Príncipe Nationalist and was called the Committee for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe (CLSTP). 

This movement began to pick up a lot of momentum and by 1974, was super popular. In this year, the Carnation Revolution ended the Estado Novo Regime in Portugal and brought in an anti-colonial and left wing socialist and communist coalition into Portugal.

This allowed for São Tomé and Príncipe to become independent in 1975, and until 1990, the MLSTP ruled a single-party authoritarian socialist state in route to communism.

They formed alliances with East Germany, Cuba, the USSR, and the People's Republic of China.

But, in 1990, the MLSTP decided to modernize into a democratic country and would hold multi-party elections, and change their party platform to a social democratic party that is center-left, and renamed themselves the Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe – Social Democratic Party (MLSTP–PSD). 

Since this change, São Tomé and Príncipe has been overall improving on many indexes. And other political parties have been winning their elections a lot. 

This has led to high degrees of political, religious, and individual liberties. 

Yet, the Catholic Church is still not out of the woods yet.

The Catholic Church's legal struggles with São Tomé and Príncipe are struggles the Catholic Church has had to face in all countries at a certain point in time.

Being in an impoverished state with many beliefs stemming from Marxist thought, combined with an increasingly national patriotic vibe means that the Catholic Church must always be aware that one day it may be the political boogeyman used by politicians for excuses for failures in their country. We have seen this with so many nations from Vietnam to Nicaragua, and from France to Mexico.

Furthermore, the MLSTP-PSD is starting to regain control in many of the regional seats and this presents a potential shaky future for Catholic freedom.

When a country is so poor, fragile, and believes in these ideologies like socialism, quashing Church rights may always be around the corner, especially with our Church's relationship to Portugal and thus the "colonizers". 

While MLSTP-PSD now supports Freedom of Religion, that does not mean they will not try to erode it. And it is not just them! 

Each major political party poses a threat to usurp power from the Church. It could be through burdensome taxes, or it could be through taking Church properties, or restricting what can be said from the altar, or could be done through picking Bishops. This last example is very important for São Tomé and Príncipe because this nation is unique in that there is one diocese for the country meaning that the Bishop of São Tomé and Príncipe acts as the Religious Head of State and Government in the same way as their President and Prime Minister combined. In fact, due to this reason, the bishop here has to coordinate and travel so much and so far that it makes this Bishop's job much harder than many others, hence why their recent bishop, Bishop Manuel António dos Santos, resigned last month. 

And erosion of Church rights slowly creeps towards ever greater control.

This is why it is so important for the Holy See to start signing onto agreements now while the country is still so Catholic.

Especially since this country is known for taking others' assets like it did during the socialist years.

But, if the Holy See were to wait too long, then São Tomé and Príncipe could become like other nations where one has to negotiate already from behind. For example, negotiating for Church rights in certain nations is purely about getting the bare minimum, whereas in a country like today's São Tomé and Príncipe, the Church can negotiate for far more rights that can be enshrined into law.

Henceforth, the Holy See is trying to get agreements signed onto now.

According to the official reports coming out of the Holy See on Tuesday, the agreement will "[establish] the recognition of the juridical personality of the Catholic Church and ecclesiastical institutions and defines the legal framework of relations between the Church and the State." It furthermore will "[consolidate] the bonds of friendship and cooperation existing between the two Parties, which, while safeguarding their independence and autonomy, are committed to working together for the spiritual and material well-being of the human person, as well as for the promotion of the common good."

These agreements were signed by the Holy See Apostolic Nuncio to São Tomé and Príncipe, Archbishop Giovanni Gaspari, and São Tomé and Príncipe Minister of Foreign Affairs, Edite Ramos da Costa Ten Jua.

Therefore, what these agreements will do is better ensure that the Catholic Church stays independent and autonomous in São Tomé and Príncipe via the Diocese and other religious institutions, plus the Holy See. There will be many more details, but surely this agreement must feature guarantees and rights to property, education, aid, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience (conscientious objection), freedom of religion, and other benefits such as no taxation and no tight restrictions on Church wealth.

These legal rights signed into domestic law and international law will provide the Church with the ability to preach freely, own property, and provide aid to those in need if understood correctly. It may also provide legal protections for Priest-penitent privileges that makes Confessions legally confidential. Without these guarantees in law, it could come down to the whims of society at that very point as to whether the Church has the legal right to properly function.

In a future that will see Africa become very populous, it would behoove our Church to continue promoting the Catholic Church through good works and good governance. And, with the best growing economy in Africa, Rwanda, and one of the most free countries in Africa, São Tomé and Príncipe, both being Catholic nations, this looks really good for the Catholic Church in Africa. These two display good Catholic plurality and majority nations, respectively, to follow after, hopefully leading many more Africans in other nations to convert to Catholicism. 

Lastly, São Tomé and Príncipe may be small, but their impact symbolically is huge for African nationalism and the Pan-African movement. Rei Amador is known in many circles for his fight against slavery and colonialism, and his first attack was directed at killing White Portuguese men attending a Catholic mass at Trinity Church in Trinidade, São Tomé and Príncipe. He is so well remembered that former UN Secretary-General and Ghanian, Kofi Annan, inaugurated a statue in São Tomé and Príncipe to him. His importance and the symbolism in starting his struggle at a Catholic mass dehumanizes Catholicism and places it below a racial struggle to bring about African empowerment, as well as places it on the other side of the African struggle to the casual reader, which most of us are. Due to these reasons, it is conceivable to believe in the future that São Tomé and Príncipe could have a nationalist rise to counter the Catholic Church, and some say it may have already begun with many citizens already converting to other denominations and religions, or leaving religion altogether. So, it is important for our Church to signal to this great nation and its people that we are on their side and are proud of their struggles for freedom and how many have kept their Faith! And that is what this agreement accomplishes.