São Tomé and Príncipe

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São Tomé and Príncipe

POPULATION 170,372
ROMAN CATHOLIC 89.5 percent
OTHER CHRISTIAN 6.3 percent
BAHAI 2.1 percent
AFRICAN TRADITIONAL 1.1 percent
NONRELIGIOUS 1 percent

Country Overview

INTRODUCTION

The Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe consists of two small islands in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of west central Africa. Their total land area is 386 square miles. Uninhabited at the time of their discovery by Portuguese mariners in the 1470s, São Tomé and Príncipe bears the mark of five hundred years of Portuguese colonial rule. The distinctive creole society, language, and culture of the islands are the product of importations of slaves from the African mainland, as well as smaller migrations from Portugal, including expelled "New Christians" (converted Jews), civil and political criminals from Portuguese African colonies, and planter-settlers.

The Roman Catholic Church has been present in São Tomé and Príncipe since the end of the fifteenth century. Catholic clerics participated actively in the slave trade and factional struggles that characterized the early colonial history. Because the islands were far from Portugal, their society and culture developed for long periods of time in isolation from Lisbon and Rome.

São Tomé and Príncipe gained political independence in 1975. In 2000 more than three-quarters of the population was Roman Catholic. Adherents of other religions include Evangelical Protestants and Seventh-day Adventists, a handful of Jehovah's Witnesses, a growing number of Bahais, and followers of African traditional religions.

RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

Freedom of religion in São Tomé and Príncipe is guaranteed by the 1990 constitution and upheld by the government. Religious organizations must register with the government, but no group is denied registration, nor is any unregistered group restricted.

Major Religion

ROMAN CATHOLICISM

DATE OF ORIGIN 1499 c.e.

NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS 152,000

HISTORY

The history of Roman Catholicism in São Tomé and Príncipe is inextricably linked to Portuguese colonial expansion and the Atlantic slave trade. By the late fifteenth century Portugal sought to convert the islands into sugar-producing colonies based on slave labor. By 1504 the first church and slave plantations had been established. In the sixteenth century São Tomé prospered through sugar production and the slave trade. The early history of Catholicism in São Tomé was complicated by a number of factors, including high mortality rates, departures of priests for the mainland, active involvement by priests in the slave trade, and political tensions between colonists and Portugal and between competing factions on the islands. Nonetheless, by 1534 São Tomé was named the seat of an enormous new diocese that stretched from Cape Palmas (in present-day Liberia) to the Cape of Good Hope. No bishop resided in the islands, however, until the 1550s. These years were characterized by ideological and power struggles between local priests, planters, and slave traders, as well as outside bishops and clerics sent from Portugal. In 1612 much of the territory of the diocese was lost to the new apostolic administration of Mozambique.

With the rise of the Brazilian sugar economy and the waning of Portuguese control of the slave trade in the seventeenth century, the economic fortunes of the islands diminished. The Catholic clergy continued to play a prominent role in political affairs, even during periods of relative isolation from Portugal. For long periods in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the church was run entirely by local clergy. In the nineteenth century the economy was revived with the introduction of coffee and cocoa. Portugal officially abolished slavery in 1875 but replaced it with a highly exploitative plantation economy that depended on contract labor from other Portuguese colonies, including Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde.

During five centuries of Portuguese intervention, a complex, hierarchical society arose based on a number of sociocultural groups: filhos da terra (sons of the land), who descended from mixed unions of slaves and slave owners; Angolares, descendants of fugitive slaves; forros, descendants of freed slaves; serviçais and tongas, contract laborers who worked on the coffee and cocoa plantations; and finally descendents of Portuguese. After independence in 1975 São Tomé and Príncipe adopted a secular Marxist ideology for a time, but this did not weaken Catholic or other Christian religious practices.

EARLY AND MODERN LEADERS

Although not the first bishop appointed to the diocese of São Tomé, Gaspar Cão, who served from 1554 until his death circa 1572, was the first bishop to reside in the islands. A Portuguese-born Augustinian professor of theology, Cão struggled to enforce civil and ecclesiastical laws, to provide some protection and religious instruction to slaves, to fight prostitution, and to impose observance of Sunday as a holy day.

In the eighteenth century Father Manual do Rosário Pinto, a black priest from São Tomé and one of the most powerful men on the island, was archdeacon of the diocese, counselor to the governor, and a close ally to Bishop João de Sahagum. Pinto fought against mixedrace clergy who discriminated against black clerics.

MAJOR THEOLOGIANS AND AUTHORS

São Tomé and Príncipe does not seem to have produced major theologians, but a number of priests and missionaries have written on the history and religious life of the islands. In 1734 Father Manuel do Rosário Pinto published History of São Tomé, a valuable text that covered the first two-and-a half centuries of Portuguese presence. In contemporary times António Ambrósio, a missionary on the islands from 1963 to 1973, drew on published and archival church materials in his 1983 Contributions towards the History of São Tomé and Príncipe.

HOUSES OF WORSHIP AND HOLY PLACES

Augustinian missionaries built the first church in São Tomé, Nossa Senhora da Graça, in 1504. This church later became the cathedral for the diocese of São Tomé and still stands.

WHAT IS SACRED?

Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion on the islands, but continual influxes of African laborers over the centuries have shaped this Portuguese-African creole culture. Qualities of Catholic and African belief systems combine in supernatural beings. For example, Sum d'Océ (Lord of the Heavens) is both the Christian creator and the controller of wealth and people. A number of island churches are also devoted to Mary, a senhora Mãe de Deus (our Lady Mother of God). In the early twentieth century plantation laborers built tiny chapels in which they placed rough-cut crosses surrounded by African charms.

HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS

The people of São Tomé and Príncipe are deeply religious but depart in certain ways from Catholic orthodoxy. Major Christian holidays are celebrated, and individual communities hold festivals on the day of their patron saint. Baptisms, festivals, processions, funeral masses, and mourning ceremonies are crucial. At the same time, however, Sunday Mass and Communion are less central to religious practice.

MODE OF DRESS

Catholics in São Tomé and Príncipe do not dress distinctively. Western-style clothing predominates.

DIETARY PRACTICES

With the exception of standard Catholic Lenten dietary restrictions, which include abstinence from meat on Fridays and fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, there do not appear to be specific Catholic dietary practices in São Tomé and Príncipe.

RITUALS

In addition to the Mass and Catholic sacraments, a number of adaptations involving music, dance, and processions are also practiced. Individual towns throughout the islands celebrate their patron saint's day by holding festivals that combine religious ceremonies, traditional cuisine, music, and performances.

RITES OF PASSAGE

In São Tomé and Príncipe baptisms, funerals, and mourning practices are important. Church marriages, however, rarely occur.

MEMBERSHIP

Beginning in the fifteenth century Catholic missionaries sought to convert and instruct slaves. By the time Portuguese colonial missionaries arrived in 1878, São Tomeans had been Catholics for almost four centuries. During the plantation era in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, little effort was made to evangelize the usually non-Christian contract laborers imported from the African mainland. Because of a long Catholic tradition on the islands, membership today is derived primarily within families rather than from proselytizing.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

During the early slave era in São Tomé and Príncipe, Catholic clerics both participated in the slave trade and sought to provide religious instruction, hospital care, and schooling to win souls and mitigate suffering. During the cocoa and coffee plantation period, priests performed Mass, baptisms, and marriages on the plantations but did not seem to have challenged the harsh working and living conditions of contract laborers. The main challenge to colonial era oppression seems to have come from secular intellectuals trained in Europe. Today São Tomean society remains permeated by inequality, including sexual inequality. The Catholic Church has continued to sponsor education and health care while denouncing political irregularities and corruption that have benefited certain politicians in the country.

SOCIAL ASPECTS

Despite Catholic views about marriage as a sacrament, few São Tomeans either desire or can afford the major expense of a church wedding. In practice both men and women tend to have multiple liaisons in their lives, and polygamy is prevalent. While formally opposed to polygamy and childbirth out of wedlock, the church accommodates these practices. Mothers frequently shoulder the economic burden of supporting children and running households in polygamous unions.

POLITICAL IMPACT

During the early centuries missionary and local priests played an active and sometimes leading role in the factional struggles that characterized political life in São Tomé and Príncipe. During the plantation period of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Catholic Church did not dispute the dominant plantation owners. Since independence in 1975 the church has been run primarily by expatriate priests who have not played an official political role.

CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES

São Tomé and Príncipe inherited pre-independence Portuguese laws prohibiting abortion, which reflected Catholic condemnation of the procedure. Abortion was, nonetheless, permitted to save the life of the woman. In practice abortion policies are more liberal; abortion is allowed for medical reasons and in cases of rape, incest, or fetal impairment. Although the country has a strong Catholic orientation, birth control is practiced. Divorce is frequent in spite of Catholic interdictions against it.

CULTURAL IMPACT

The devil, angels, and the Virgin Mary have been incorporated into an elaborate traditional dance, danca congo, which entails drumming, colorful costumes, and the enactment of old folk tales. Another art form, tchiloli, draws on a sixteenth-century Portuguese play honoring the Christian King Charlemagne. Another play from the Charlemagne cycle, Auto da Floripes (Drama of Floripes), is performed in Príncipe on the feast day of Saint Lawrence. The elaborate spectacle reenacts battles between the Christians and Moors.

Other Religions

The presence of Protestant and independent Christian denominations in São Tomé and Príncipe has grown, particularly since the 1930s, when an exiled Angolan Christian initiated the Evangelical Church and Portuguese Seventh-day Adventists began missionary efforts. Today Seventh-day Adventists have six churches on São Tomé and one on Príncipe. Membership in the Assemblies of God and, particularly, the New Apostolic Church has increased significantly since independence. In 1990 Brazilian missionaries with the interdenominational "Youth with a Mission" began proselytizing.

Since the 1970s the number of Bahais has grown rapidly through conversion. In 1995 there were 18 local spiritual assemblies.

In the popular creole culture of São Tomé and Príncipe, both Christian and African beliefs and practices are evident. Beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery are widely held. African ancestors, Nén ké Mu (the dead), provide protection for their descendants and receive offerings of food, wine, and clothing.

John Cinnamon

See Also Vol. 1: Roman Catholicism