Chapter XXVI · MODERN MISSIONS (continued 2)

Leo XIII had ordered the General, Father Beckx to begin a seminary at Cairo. It was opened with twelve pupils. Three years afterwards occurred the Turkish massacre of Damascus and Libanus and the bombardment of Alexandria by the English. In consequence of all this the seminarians fled to Beirut, and after the war a college was begun at the deserted establishment of the Lazarists at Alexandria. Cairo was near by, but there was such an antagonism between the two cities that two distinct colleges with different methods and courses had to be maintained. Cairo was Egyptian in tone; Alexandria was French. Meanwhile, a mission was established on the Nile at Nineh which was some distance south of Cairo. In this mission the young priests trained at Beirut were employed, and they proved to be such excellent apostles that Leo XIII made three of them bishops and thus laid the foundation of the United Coptic hierarchy. In 1905 there were 20,000 United Copts in Egypt, four-fifths of whom had been reclaimed from the schism. This is all the more remarkable because the Protestants had spent enormous amounts of money in schools, hospitals, and asylums.

Madagascar was originally called the Island of St. Lawrence, because it was first sighted on the festival day of the great martyr by Diego Diaz, who with Cabral, the Portuguese discoverer, was exploring the Indian Ocean in the year 1500. A Portuguese priest was massacred there in 1540; in 1585 a Dominican was poisoned by the natives, and in the seventeenth century two Jesuits came from Goa with a native prince who had been captured by the Portuguese. Their benevolence toward the prince secured them permission to preach Christianity for a while, but when their influence began to show itself, they were, in obedience to a royal order, absolutely avoided by the natives so that one starved to death; the other succeeded in reaching home. The Lazarists came in 1648, but remained only fourteen months, two of their number having died meantime. Other attempts were made, but all ended in disaster to the missionaries. Nothing more was done until the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1832 Fathers de Solages and Dalmond were sent out, but they had been anticipated by the Protestant missionaries who, as early as 1830, had 32 schools with 4,000 pupils. De Solages soon succumbed and Dalmond continued to work on the small islands off the coast until 1843, when he returned to Europe to ask Father Roothaan to send him some Jesuits. Six members of the Society together with two Fathers of the Holy Ghost responded to the call, but they could get no farther than the islands of Nossi-Bé or St. Mary's and Réunion, or Bourbon as it was called.

The Queen Ranavalo, who was a ferocious and bloodthirsty pagan, had no use for any kind of evangelists, Protestant or Catholic, but there was a Frenchman named Laborde in the capital, who was held in high esteem by her majesty, because he was a cannon-founder, a manufacturer of furniture and a maker of soap. Besides these accomplishments to recommend him, he had won the esteem of the heir-apparent. Incidentally Laborde put the prince in relation with the missionaries off the coast. A short time afterwards, there appeared in the royal city another Frenchman who could make balloons, organize theatrical representations, and compound drugs. He was accepted in the queen's service. He was a Jesuit in disguise. His name was Finaz, and he continued to remain at Tananarivo until 1857, when the violence of the queen, who was insanely superstitious, brought about an uprising against her which was organized by the Protestant missionaries. She prevailed against the rebels, and as a consequence all Europeans were expelled from the island, and among them Father Finaz. He could congratulate himself that he had at least learned the language and made himself acquainted with the inhabitants.

Four years later (1861), the queen died, and King Radama II ascended the throne; whereupon six Jesuits opened a mission in Tananarivo. They soon had 2 schools with 400 pupils and numberless catechumens, but their success was not solid, for the Malgassy easily goes from one side to another as his personal advantage may dictate. Radama was killed, and then followed a forty years' struggle between the French and the English to get control of the island. The English prevailed for a time and, in 1869, Protestantism was declared to be the state religion. The number of evangelists multiplied enormously, but they were merely government agents and knew next to nothing about Christian truth or morality. The confusion was increased, when to the English parsons were added American Quakers and Norwegian Lutherans. The Evangelical statistics of all of them in 1892 were most imposing. Thus the Independents claimed 51,033 and the Norwegians 47,681, with 37,500 children in their schools. The names were on the lists, but the school-houses were often empty, and in the interim between the different official visits of the inspectors often no instruction was given. Against this the Catholics had only 22 chapels and 25 schools, and they were mostly in the neighborhood of Tananarivo.

France was subsequently the dominant influence in Madagascar but, as in the mother country religion was tabooed, there was little concern about it in the colonies. When the Franco-Prussian war showed the weakness of France, the respect for the alleged religion of France vanished, especially when a crusade began against the Catholic schools. Nevertheless the faithful continued to grow in number, and in 1882 they were reckoned at 80,000 with 152 churches, 44 priests, 527 teachers and 2,000 pupils. War broke out in 1881, and the missionaries were expelled but returned after hostilities ceased, and found that their neophytes, under the guidance of a princess of the royal blood, had held firmly to their religion, notwithstanding the closing of the schools and the sacking of the churches. After these troubles, conversions increased, and in 1894 there were 75 Jesuit priests in the island; and, besides the primary schools which had increased in number, a college and nine high schools as well as a printing house and two leper hospitals were erected. Added to this, an observatory was built and serious work began in geographical research, cartography, ethnography, natural history, folklore and philology.

Just at the height of this prosperity, a persecution began. The missionaries were expelled, their buildings looted, and the observatory wrecked. In 1896 the bishop counted 108 of his chapels which had been devastated, but in 1897 General Galieni arrived, and the queen vanished from the scene. After that the faith prospered, and in the year 1900 alone there were 94,998 baptisms. In 1896 Propaganda divided Madagascar into three vicariates: one entrusted to the Lazarists; another to the Fathers of the Holy Ghost; and a third to the Jesuits of the provinces of Toulouse and Champagne. In the Jesuit portion, the latest statistics give 160,080 Christians and 170,000 catechumens, with 74 priests, 8 scholastics and 11 lay-brothers. The chief difficulty to contend with is the gross immorality of the people who are, in consequence, almost impervious to religious teaching, and at the same time easily captured by the money that pours into the country from England and Norway. The French officials, of course, cannot be expected to further the cause of Catholicity.

In 1877, when Bishop Ricards of Grahamstown in South Africa asked the Jesuits to accept the Zambesi Mission, Father Weld ardently took up the work, and in April, 1879, Father Depelchin, a Belgian, started from Kimberly, with eleven companions for Matabeleland, over which King Lo Benguela ruled. It was a five months' journey and the missionaries did not arrive at the royal kraal until September 2. But as the prospects of conversion of the much-married king and his followers were not particularly bright, only one part of the expedition remained with Lo Benguela, while two others struck for the interior. There several of the strongest missionaries sickened and died. The work went on, however, for ten weary years when the king told them to stop teaching religion and show the people how to till the soil. Otherwise they must go. They accepted the offer, of course, for it got them a better means of imparting religious instruction.

Then a quarrel broke out between the British, the Portuguese, the Boers and Lo Benguela for the possession of Mashonaland. The British as usual won the fight, but when Cecil Rhodes came to the kraal, to arrange matters, Lo Benguela ordered all the whites out of his dominion and the Fathers withdrew. A new difficulty then arose between the English and Portuguese, and the mission was divided between Upper and Lower Zambesi, the latter being assigned to the Portuguese Jesuits. There was trouble with the natives of both sections for some time, and then the Anglo-Boer war broke out, so that for twenty-five years very little apostolic progress was made. In Upper Zambesi or Rhodesia, as it is called, there are at present 40 Jesuit priests and 24 brothers, and 3 missionaries of Mariannhill, with 115 nuns, 20 churches or chapels, and 30 schools of which 26 are for natives, and about 5,000 Catholics. Naturally speaking the result scarcely warrants the outlay but the purpose is supernatural and intelligible only from that point of view. In Lower Zambesi, which was given to the Portuguese Jesuits, there have been no troubles because it is garrisoned by Portuguese soldiers; the four stations in that district with their thirty-five Fathers were doing splendid work when the Portuguese revolution occurred; the Jesuits were then expelled, but twenty-six Fathers of the Divine Word took their place.

The early days of the Zambesi mission evoked splendid manifestations of the old heroic spirit of the Society. Thus we read of one of the missionaries, a Father Wehl, who was separated from his companions and wandered for twenty-six days in the bush, luckily escaping the wild beasts and finally falling into the hands of some Kaffirs who were about to put him to death, when he was saved by the opportune arrival of an English gold-hunter. But starvation and disease had shattered his health and his mind was gone. Six months afterwards he died.

Meantime his two companions Father Law and Brother Hedley found shelter among the natives, but had to live in a clay hut which was a veritable oven. They both fell sick of fever; little or no food was given them, and they slowly starved to death. They lay along side of each other, neither being able to assist his companion, and when finally the Father breathed his last, all the poor lonely brother could do was to place a handkerchief on the face, but when he removed the covering in the morning, he found that the rats had been eating the flesh. The dead missionary lay there for some time because the superstitious natives would not touch the corpse; when finally a rope was tied around it, they dragged it out of the hut and left it in the forest. For three weeks after this horrible funeral the poor brother had to fight off the rats that were attacking himself; at last the chief took pity on him and had him carried on a litter to a band of other missionaries who were approaching. When his friends saw him they burst into tears. He had not changed his clothes for five months and they were in tatters. His whole body was covered with sores and ulcers and the wounds were filled with vermin. He was in a state of stupor when he arrived, but strange to say he recovered. His dead companion, the priest, had been a naval officer, and was a convert to the Faith and the grandson of one of the lord chancellors of England.

The Congo mission was organized by the Belgium Jesuits in 1885, under the auspices of Leopold II of Belgium, who had established the Congo Free State. His majesty requested the Fathers to assist him, but he gave them no financial aid whatever, though he was pointedly asked to do so. The Congo Free State begins 400 miles from the Atlantic ocean and extends to Central Africa. Leopold's plan was to abolish slavery within the boundaries of this domain; then to make the adult male population his soldiers, and meantime to place the orphans and abandoned children in asylums which the missionaries would manage. Some of these establishments were to be supported from the public revenues, others by charity. The whole hope of the mission was in these orphanages, for nothing could be expected from the adult population. The boys were to be taught a trade and then married at the proper time. These households were to be visited and supervised by the missionaries.

It was an excellent plan, but it was opposed by the Belgian anti-clericals, who objected to giving so much power to priests. A number of English Protestants also busied themselves in spreading calumnies about these settlements and brought their accusations to court, where sentence was frequently given without hearing the accused. The charges were based on alleged occurrences in three out of the forty-four mission stations. The persecution became so acute that the Jesuits appealed to the king and received the thanks of his majesty and the government for the work they had performed, but the calumnies were not retracted, until May 26, 1906, when a formal document was issued by the Free State declaring that it greatly esteemed the work performed by the Catholic missionaries in the civilization of the State. In the following year on May 22, it added: "Since it is impossible to do without the missionaries in the conversion of the blacks, and as their help is of the greatest value in imparting instruction, we recommend that the mission be made still more efficacious by granting them a subsidy for the upkeep of their institutions." At the beginning of 1913, the Jesuits had seven stations and forty missionaries. In spite of all this, however, the work of systematic calumniation still continues.

The great war of 1914 brought absolute ruin on all the missions of Asia and Africa. Thus France called to the army every French priest or lay brother who was not crippled by age and infirmity, and made him fight in the ranks as a common soldier or a stretcher bearer in the hospital or on the battlefield. This was the case not only with the Jesuits, but with other religious orders and the secular priesthood. Nor was this call to the colors restricted to those who were in the French colonies; it affected all priests or brothers of French birth who were laboring in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Belgian Congo, Angola, Zambesi, Canada, Haiti, the United States or South America. Sixty priests or brothers had to leave Japan. Out of forty-three missionaries of the Society of African Missions who were in Egypt, half had to leave. Of the twenty-two who were on the Ivory Coast sixteen were mobilized. Indeed, four bishops were summoned to the ranks, Mgrs. Moury of the Ivory Coast, Terrien of Benin, Perros of Siam, and Hermel of Haiti. There were at the outbreak of the war thirty-five Jesuits from the Levant in the army, besides others from Madagascar, Madura and China.