The Movement for Freedom in Mozambique - Page 8.
The Role of the Church in Mozambique
Earlier in this paper, we hinted at the rationalizations
given by the Portuguese government as to why it insists on pushing
the Catholic Church into the forefront in the education of the
African people.  The Portuguese government claims that it has two
1 purposes in Africa:  one is to improve the material life of the
African, while the other is to encourage the Portuguese Catholic
missionary to improve the Africans' spiritual and intellectual
life.  Whatever there is in the form of concrete programmes for
putting into effect the first part of the Portuguese colonial
policy was discussed, at least in part, in the outline above.  The
second part of the policy is being realized through the use of the
Roman Catholic missions.  While the Colonial Act provides for the
freedom of conscience and the freedom of the various religions,
at the same time and in a contradictory manner, it provides for
a special protection and assistance to the Roman Catholic mission
programme.  Departing from an earlier attitude held during the
first two decades immediately following the establishment of the
Republic, the Portuguese government recognized the rights and
special functions of the Church, which are "to Christianize and
educate, to nationalize and civilize the native populations".
In Mozambique this policy is governed by appropriate constitutional
provisions, beginning with the Missionary Accord of 1940, which
spelled out in some detail the principles contained in the Concordat
of 7 May 1940 between the Vatican and Portugal, and the Missionary
Statute of 1941.  Included in these agreements, the Portuguese
government was committed to subsidize the Church's missionary
programme, limiting the activities of non-Catholic foreign
missionaries, and discouraging the influx of Catholic foreign
missionaries.  In the estimated population of Mozambique of 7
1 million, the number of people who subscribe to the Roman Catholic
jfaith is estimated at 500,000.  These are served by about 100
mission and parish churches, led by secular priests and fathers
of various orders, including Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines,
Lazarists and those of the Holy Ghost Congregation.  In 1959
there were in Mozambique 2^-0 priests and fathers.  Of these only
three priests were Africans.  Seme of the most important activities
of the Catholic Church are "the founding and directing of schools
for European and African students, elementary, secondary and professional schools and seminaries. . .as v/ell as infirmaries and
hospitals".  The whole responsibility cf educating the African
people has been entrusted to the Roman Catholic Church, exclusive