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April 14, 2005
Angolan bishop offers African perspective on papal politics
Virgil Wright
When Roman Catholic cardinals flock to the Holy See next week
to elect a new pope, Vatican-watchers expect the rapid growth
of the church in the Third World to influence the choice of a
successor to John Paul II.
The Rev. Filomeno Vieira-Dias, a newly named bishop in Angola
and a rising star in the African church, believes the widely respected
Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze will receive significant support
in the papal enclave.
Asked to predict the results once the wisps of white smoke emerge
from the Vatican chimney, the bishop becomes mischievously circumspect,
raising his expressive eyes to heaven and saying, “It’s
God’s will.”
A more political way of looking at it is to count the ballots
before you count your blessings, the enclave being, after all,
a scarlet-robed ward meeting.
Over 50 percent of the cardinals come from Europe, 17 percent
from Italy alone, despite the fact that it is home to just 5 percent
of the world’s one billion Catholics.
Africa is home to 13 percent of the world’s Catholics and
9 percent of the cardinals, Latin America to 43 percent of the
faithful but just 18 percent of the cardinals.
Having studied in Rome for six years after working as a parish
priest, the 47-year-old bishop knows a number of the front-running
cardinals, including Milanese Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Italy’s
favorite-son candidate.
Good operatives know more than they say and you don’t get
a bishop’s ring by engaging in idle speculation.
To Bishop Vieira-Dias, the politics of papal succession concern
him less than his new assignment in Angola’s Cabinda province,
a proving ground for the power of the church in Africa.
The prelate — a handsome, engaging man with a slight resemblance
to the Brazilian soccer star Pele - sat down to discuss his views
in passable English after spending two months in Boston to study
the language.
“I became a priest at a particularly important moment in
the history of Angola — during the transition from colonialism
to independence,” he said.
“We are now come to another important point for the church
and I look forward to taking up the new challenges.”
Since Portugal granted independence to Angola 30 years ago, a
small but vocal movement in geographically isolated Cabinda has
clamored to cut off ties to Angola, citing differences in language,
culture, and history.
The province, about the size of Connecticut, sits on the Atlantic
coast north of the Congo River valley — territory owned
and vigilantly guarded by the Democratic Republic of Congo as
their only direct sea corridor from the country’s huge interior.
Cabinda has a population of just 300,000 but vast oil resources,
which for decades helped finance the Angolan government’s
fight against a civil insurgency.
A number of parish priests support the independence movement.
It will take considerable pastoral and political skill for the
new bishop to negotiate the literal and figurative minefields
of a cause that could become a major conflict.
Bishop Vieria-Dias has seen war and famine. Another horseman of
the Apocalypse coming over the horizon doesn’t shake his
faith.
“I became a priest because of my conviction that a priest
can help to open the minds and the hearts of the people. The life
of the world is not only about the technological, economic and
psychological realities. The secret of life is its spiritual dominion.
“I have been a teacher, I have sought health care and education
for my people, but my first priority is their spiritual life.
We have many challenges in Angola, but through faith we will endure.”
During his pastoral work over the course of the Angolan civil
war, the bishop not only tended to the souls of his parishioners
but showed great courage in protecting their lives.
In 1992, during a cease-fire between the government and rebel
troops in the run-up to elections, the bishop was saying Mass
in an inner-city parish in Luanda.
A breakdown in the truce led soldiers in a nearby barracks to
exchange fire with guerillas from Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA
forces, who were holed up in a hotel on the other side of the
church.
Small-arms fire hit the stucco façade. Rocket-propelled
grenades whizzed by. Mortars pounded the dirt streets around the
sanctuary. The church, packed with hundreds, was caught in the
lethal cross-fire.
Remaining calm, Father Vieira-Dias finished saying Mass and led
small groups of parishioners out of the church during lulls in
the firing. He was the last to leave.
In 1995, upon his return from Rome, Vieria-Dias became vice-rector
of the newly created Catholic University of Angola, the country’s
first private university.
Angolan Cardinal Dom Alexandre do Nascimento had created the school
in the absence of a functioning state university with the help
of international donors, including Citizens Energy Corporation
of Boston, and funding from the national oil company’s petroleum
sales.
While the cardinal served as titular head of the university, Father
Vieria-Dias ran its day-to-day operations, overseeing construction
of its Luanda campus, the hiring of faculty, the creation of a
library and computer center, and planning expansion.
The use of oil revenues to fund the university shows how petroleum
wealth can act as a blessing rather than a curse in the Third
World, said the bishop.
“We must invest not only in mineral and oil exploration
but in education as well. We are showing how the wealth of the
country can be used for the good of all.”
As for convincing Cabindans of that point, the bishop smiles and
offers his strategy.
“I will work very hard,” he says, “and, of course,
pray very much.”
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