LIFE OF THE CONGREGATION
Alban Pascal Noudjom Tchana, scj
I have chosen to entitle this article as follows: S.C.J. Presence in the Archdiocese of Yaoundé. My objective, in the lines which will follow, is to try, for better or worse, to show the reasons which led the Priests of the Sacred Heart to the Archdiocese of Yaoundé, to demonstrate how the various communities were set up, and then to show how this presence is lived today in the various places where we are.
I shall try to answer the following questions:
- When did the first Dehonians first come to the Archdiocese of Yaoundé?
- Who was it due to? What are the reasons which justify it?
- How is this presence lived in the various communities and parish sectors?
In my opinion, one of the issues which has led to this presence is the concern for fidelity to the intuitions of our charism. This is expressed in our Constitutions in a double way:
The first comes from Constitutions 26, 27, 28. They say: “As Priests of the Sacred Heart, we live the heritage of Father Dehon in our Institute today. We are religious consecrated to the Lord by vows, with a spiritual goal recognized by the Church, the goal of our Founder.
Like every charism in the Church, our prophetic charism places us at the service of the saving mission of the people of God in today’s world.
Eager for the Lord’s intimacy, we search for the signs of His presence in the lives of people, where His saving love is active”.
The second is to be found in Constitutions 87:
“Called as we are to bring Father Dehon’s charism to fruition, we want to participate in this activity of the Spirit. We shall respond to Christ’s exhortation: “Ask the harvest master to send workers to his harvest” (Luke 10:2); at the same time we shall be attentive to the Church’s various initiatives in the ministry of vocations”.
This is what I perceive from these two requirements: one duty for the Dehonian is to go wherever there is need, as apostle and as pastor, to preach the kingdom of love which the Sacred Heart of Jesus brings; the other duty is intimately linked to the former and demands of him also the work of carrying out a ministry for vocations. This ministry will be able to guarantee the continuity of this apostolate in the service of the Heart of Jesus. The apostolate in the service of the Church comes first, the ministry for vocations is only a consequence of the first duty, which desires that there will be a posterity in order to perpetuate the work.
As we shall subsequently see, these are the two concerns which mobilized our Fathers in the perspective of a presence in the Archdiocese of Yaoundé.
We all know that a text, whatever it is, keeps its credibility, its value in relation to history, from the reality of events in time. I thought that basing my article on writings alone would be not very communicative and concrete. I have thought it right to have direct recourse to three human sources, three old men, who were participants, or at least witnesses, at the moment when this missionary site developed. To this end, therefore, I met with Fr. Léon Kamgang and Fr. François Siou. I sent Fr. Félicien, priest of Mfou, a questionnaire which he was kind enough to reply to. To be honest, once I had all these elements in my hands, I simply set myself to putting things together like a patchwork quilt or a jigsaw puzzle. Arranging the different sources and establishing the links between them is what kept my work afloat. I was very sorry that Fr. Zerr was not there, I could have gotten a lot of information from him. He is, as we shall see, the force behind our presence here.
How long have we been here? What are the reasons and the circumstances which justify our presence? I think that for such an adventure one must put on the glasses worn by historians, and that is what I am going to do.
Fr. Goustan Le Bayon notes in his book that in 1910 the Priests of the Sacred Heart were numerous in Germany. It was at that very time that Fr. Dehon directed his thoughts to having a German colony, particularly in Cameroon where he saw a vast missionary field. Between 1910 and 1911 an exchange of letters was established between Fr. Dehon and the Pallottini Fathers, who at that time were under the leadership of Msgr. Vieter, who was responsible for the apostolic vicariate of Cameroon. The conclusion of these primary steps was that the Congregation for the Propagation For the Faith granted the mission of Adamaoua to the Dehonians. This area extends from Bonaberie on the coast, and passes through Adamaoua as far as Lake Chad. It is to this area that the name of the apostolic prefecture of Adamaoua was attributed. In 1912 the Dehonians reached Douala. In 1914 the First World War broke out. The fighting made it so that German soldiers were looked upon as being ominous and, as a result of the principle of the Berlin Conference (1884-1886), which desired that evangelization should be ensured by priests or religious coming from the colonizing country, the German Fathers were told to leave. On leaving they went and set up a foundation in Spain. In the meantime they were replaced by Dehonian Fathers of French origin. This on masse departure of the German Fathers was to create a deficit of Fathers who were available for the mission and it reduced the S.C.J. missionary field to what was called the apostolic vicariate of Foubam. This vicariate embraced half of Adamaoua and extended as far as Bonaberie. Msgr. Plissoneau and Msgr. Bouque, both S.C.J., were to succeed respectively to the leadership of this vicariate. In 1955 the vicariate of Foubam became the diocese of Nkogsamba. In 1964 Msgr. Bouque passed the torch to the diocesan clergy. On August 16, 1964 Msgr. Dogmo thus became the first indigenous bishop of this new diocese. Msgr. Nkuissi succeeded him on January 29, 1973. It is then that the period of direct and inflamed confrontation between him and the Dehonians began. This is the part of history which must be followed in order to get to the crux of the question.
At a meeting of the bishops in Bamenda, Archbishop Zoa told Msgr. Thomas Nkuissi: “If one day you hear that the Priests of the Sacred Heart are in the archdioceses of Yaoundé, you should know that it has been done at my request”. To which Msgr. Nkuissi replied: “Take them all if you wish”. I heard this little story from Fr. Siou. It is another fact which demonstrates the tense state of the relationship between him and the Dehonians. Msgr. Nkuissi had given Fr. Goustan Le Bayon 48 hours to pack his bag and leave his diocese. This was being done, according to Fr. Léon Kamgang, to a man who had arrived as a missionary in Cameroon when he was 25 years old and had spent all his life there, and let us recall that he was 75 when this incident took place. Fr. Le Bayon wanted to stay a missionary when he left the diocese of Nkongsamba, and this is what brought him to the diocese of Douala. Once there, he obtained the nomination as vicar of the cathedral from Msgr Victor Tonye. He subsequently created the parish of Congo. It was then that he requested the support of one of his brethren, someone who could work with him in Douala. But since, at that time, certain people felt that anyone going to Douala was “fleeing difficulties”, the principle of spreading the information around the Congregation was “frozen”. The situation caused Fr. Le Bayon to return to France and there he obtained a parish in his diocese at Vanne, at Kevin to be more precise. I am telling you all these little stories so that you can try to evaluate the context and the circumstances which predominated the birth of going elsewhere. It should however be noted that the idea of going to another diocese had been thought of long ago: Msgr. Lambert Van Heghen, bishop of the Diocese of Bertoua, had already requested the presence of our Fathers with him. And the same applies with regard to the bishop of the Diocese of Kumbo and Douala. If we return to the information on the Diocese of Nkongsamba, we can gather that with Msgr Nkuissi, the problem was ambiguous: he was not on good terms with the Dehonians, he wanted them to leave his diocese and, at the same time, he did not wish to see them establishing themselves elsewhere. Another mistake in the diocese of Nkongsamba was to think of the Congregation as being the private property of the diocese. Seen from this angle it did not have the right to go elsewhere without having previously received permission from the ordinary of the place.
Time passed, and in Fr. Zerr’s thoughts the idea of establishing a foundation in another diocese was born. When he finished the exercise of his mandate as Regional Superior in 1978, he told himself that it was time to go to other shores, to open himself up to other perspectives, in order to propose our charism there. After his return from Congo he decided to set off for the diocese of Yaoundé, where he had already made contact with Msgr. Zoa. Three proposals had been made to him: Mvan, Nkongoa, Nkilzock. Fr. Zerr preferred Nkongoa, since this parish was the right size for him and they already had a presbyter that had been built by a German Father. Thus it was that after his return from Congo in September 1978, he established himself in Nkongoa. Fr. Jean Bosco Van den Berg joined him two months later, because it was considered necessary not to leave one of the brethren completely alone. When Msgr. Nkuissi learned that Fr. Zerr had established himself in Yaoundé, he met with Fr. Siou, who was then Regional Superior, and told him: “By what right have you gone into the Archdiocese of Yaoundé?” and the reply was: “We are an international Congregation and, as such, we are, in fact, not attached to any diocese. We have the right to establish a foundation anywhere, but without in any way harming the diocese in which we work”.
He thus asked that respect should be shown for the Statute of Religious Congregations as instituted by the Holy See on February 24, 1969. It was a statute which grants religious institutes the right to establish themselves in a missionary area:
“The right to keep their own character and their legitimate autonomy, the faculty to set up houses ad normani juris, and to encourage vocations for their religious family”1.
Fr. Siou reported another case of friction, but this time with the Abbé Bernard Nkuissi. When Abbé Nkuissi was sent to Kousseri in North Cameroon, he asked to meet with Fr. Siou.
“I am leaving” he said, “But I have to reproach you for something. You should not have left the diocese of Nkongsamba”.
Fr. Siou responded: “We are free to go where we wish, where we think is the best place to be, for us and for the Congregation”.
To sum it all up, we can say that the will to establish a foundation in the archdiocese of Yaoundé was born from the desire to open ourselves up to new perspectives (apostolate, vocational ministry), and from the care to maximize the international character of the Congregation which, because of accumulated misunderstandings, was tending to be seen as the private property of the diocese of Nkongsamba. Msgr. Zoa was the first to ask for an S.C.J. presence in his archdiocese, and Fr. Zerr, in 1978, concretized this presence by setting up there.
Before leaving for Yaoundé it was necessary to get things in perfect order. Setting up a foundation in Yaoundé, as Fr. Siou noted, could be taken as seeking a refuge, an escape route. That is why it was necessary to view this presence under a positive sign. If a foundation was to be set up in Yaoundé it was not being done in order to run away from the difficulties in the diocese of Nkongsamba, but because our statute as an international institute also demanded our presence in other dioceses.
“One does not set up a foundation “ said Fr. Siou, “out of spite. One does so because one desires that the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Priests of the Sacred Heart should be known elsewhere, as well as in the diocese where they were the pioneers. It is not good to shut oneself up in a single place, one risks suffocating there. It is necessary to go towards new roads, which offer new prospects for apostolate and for vocations. Even Fr. Dehon sometimes went to other places. One must go where one is called with the means which one has. Going to other places, that is really an evangelical attitude; the whole life of Christ was made up of little departures”.
Once they were in the archdiocese, let us consider see how the installment of the first brethren took place. Where did the desire come from to open a scholasticate in Ngoya?
In the presence of Bishops André Wouking and Thomas Nkuissi, the noviciate was founded in Ndoungué on October 1, 1979. Before 1980, the year of the profession of the first group of novices, there had been a discussion regarding where those who were to make their vows should go. It was then that contact was made with the Province of Zaïre (New Republic of the Congo). The plan was made to establish a scholasticate in Kinshasa, in the parish of Christ Molobeli2, and, in October 1980, four rooms were built to accommodate the three newly professed. Later on, the question of theology was raised. The first two students of theology went to work in the community of the C.I.C.M. in Ngoya. During the weekends, they were to rejoin their brethren either at Nkongoa or at Nkilzock. After discussions with Zaïre (New Republic of the Congo), Yaoundé was chosen to accommodate the theology school. Why Yaoundé? Because of the structures which were already in place, and also because of those which were planned: there was already the big seminary and the Theological Institute of Ngoya, and the Catholic Institute was in the planning stage. Since there were already several Congregations who were in a great rush to establish themselves there, it was decided that we should purchase a house in Yaoundé.
In 1984 Fr. Léon Kamgang replaced Fr. Siou and became the new Religious Superior. Taking advantage of a stay in the provincial house of Nkongsamba, Fr. Leon Kamgang told Fr. Lesenne, a Jesuit, about his desire to obtain some land in Yaoundé for the young people who were then being trained. It was then that Fr. Lesenne told him that his people had a house which was of no use to them. The land and the house had a value of 50 million: a property of 2000 square meters, it was to be called Maison André Prévot.
In 1985 the idea of a consortium was launched; it was decided that it should be composed of Scheutistes, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and the Priests of the Sacred Heart. On all sides there was the desire that this should be in the center of the town, because it was said that Ngoya was in the bush and, in fact, did not offer good prospects for the apostolate. A half hectare piece of land was available. It was said that each of the Congregations involved should give 50 million, not including the money for the expenses of construction. The whole thing was estimated at about 300 million Fcfa. Fr. Léon opposed the accomplishment of such a project. He was for the idea of leaving the theological institute in Ngoya. His idea made progress and was, in the end, adopted. The first Dehonian students were to leave the Maison André Prévot for the Institute of Ngoya. It was a round-trip of approximately 50 Km. In anticipating the number of young people who were arriving, it was thought advisable to buy some land opposite the Maison André Prévot in order to build some extra rooms there. Fr. Léon thought it more economical and practical to buy some land near the Institute in Ngoya. After a debate a good number of them thought that they would have to sell Maison André Prévot and then buy some land in Ngoya with the money. Fr Léon once again thought it would be a good thing to keep Maison André Prévot and buy another piece of land in Ngoya; because he thought that it was very necessary to keep a presence in the town. It was only in town that they would best be able to spread our charism. His way of thinking made people call him a man who was inconstant, thoughtless, etc. But, in the end, it was decided to keep Maison André Prévot and to buy another piece of land in Ngoya. And it was Fr. Cyprien Mbuka, at that time Superior of the Scheutiste community, who was to help Fr. Léon in the acquisition of the site where we now are. The first Superior of the scholastics at Maison André Prévot was Fr. Lapaw. When they had established themselves at Ngoya the first Superior was to be Fr. Carlo Biasin, assisted by Fr. Felicien, who was professor of Holy Scripture, and Fr. Georges. The first group of scholastics numbered three: Frs. Engelbert, Lutété and Leonard. Fr. Carlo liked to call them the three “musketeers”3. This is just to show you how the number of students grew: in ten years they grew from three to twenty and there were two students of theology. It should also be said that starting from 1997, young men from the Province of Mozambique came to further color the international character of the community. To this group of students of theology should be added eighteen students of philosophy. In our everyday joys and trials we are accompanied by our teachers; in this way we live the joyous life which Christ proposes to us through our charism. We are well aware that the future of the Dehonian religious life in Africa will also depend on us.
What can be said about the Parish of Elig-edzoa?
At the start the parish was in the hands of the priests of foreign missions. At the moment they are at Ngousso. So what justifies our presence at Elig-edzoa? According to a principle very dear to Msgr. Zoa, each Congregation which was established in his diocese should have a parish to look after. The site at that time was not the one of today. One Sunday a journalist stopped at Elig-edzoa to attend the Mass. When he returned to his work he prepared an article for the weekly Cameroon Tribune. He entitled this article The Devil and the Good God at Elig-edzoa. He used the expression ‘Good God’ because it is there where Mass is said, he used ‘Devil’ because while the Eucharist was being celebrated certain people played “love music” at a very loud volume. With this cutting from the paper Fr. Léon went to see the government delegate at the urban community of Yaoundé. The latter granted him some land: not because of the fact that he was interested in Church business, but rather because of the persistence of this brother who had never ceased to pester him.
What about our presence at Mfou?
Our presence at Mfou dates from 1979-1980. This presence can be considered to be in connection with that of the birth of the parish mission dedicated to “Mary, Mother of God”. The first priest was one of our Dutch brethren, Fr. Cornelius Van den Berg. The parish counted approximately 1,400 Christians of over 20 years of age. It extends over four quarters of the town and nine villages in the bush. What Msgr. Jean Zoa asked of our Fathers was a ministry of nearness, meaning one in which we had to go out to the people. It is a parish which is in movement. It is in movement because of the travel: there are eight confraternities of young people and nine groups of adults. Fr. Felicien, the current parish priest, tells us of the difficulty of dealing with the lamentable situation of relationships between men and women, the restricted number of marriages, the innumerable irregular households, the abandoned children. In his opinion these pastoral fields remain impervious because of the apparently ineradicable weight of custom.
Let us now tackle the last point to see how the Dehonian presence in the archdiocese of Yaoundé was lived: its relationship with the people and its relationship with the hierarchy.
The Relationship With the Local Hierarchy
If I can believe what I have been told by Frs. Léon and Siou, the relationship during the time of Archbishop Zoa was good. Msgr. Zoa was on good terms with the Dehonians. Let us not lose sight of the fact that it was first of all on his initiative that we came to Yaoundé. He was very close to the Priests of the Sacred Heart. He knew our charism and that is what may even justify the fact that he said to Msgr. Thomas Nkuissi that if he heard that the Priests of the Sacred Heart were at Yaoundé it was because he had called them. He gratefully esteemed our ministry, which makes us very close and in solidarity with the people to whom we go. He was favorable to our settlement in Ngoya which, at the time, depended on his dioceses. It was he who gave all the necessary authorizations for our setting up there. All this was probably due to our attitude towards him. Here are some concrete examples:
Fr. Léon had obtained some land from Michel Archange D’Elig-edzoa and gave the deed to Msgr. Zoa. He obtained that of Ntem-assi and gave Msgr. Zoa the title deed. He obtained the land of Nkolebogo and also gave Msgr. Zoa that title deed. And the same thing happened at Mfou: Fr. André Gravejat obtained some land and gave Msgr. Zoa the title deed. And with regard to all these gestures which seem so to be so ordinary, Msgr. Zoa said, “You Priests of the Sacred Heart are wonderful”. One day he sent for Fr. Léon and said: “There is only you, the foreigner, you who are Bamiléke4, who knows how to get things from me for the archdioceses”. At another meeting he confessed: “While I am at Mvolye5 you will be at my side”. What struck me personally in all this was to see the impression or the idea of these people who could make an entire Congregation, starting only from the positive behavior of two individuals. Quite recently, at Ndoungué, I asked Fr. Léon what, in his opinion, could be seen as the specific contribution of the Dehonians in the archdioceses. He replied to me sincerely that he did not know of a specific contribution which we could attribute to ourselves. Friday prayers and eucharistic adoration had already been instituted by the Holy Spirit Fathers. But, still and all, he told me that if any of the Christians were asked to name the difference between the Priests of the Sacred Heart and the other priests, they would certainly say that the Sacred Heart Priests were the ones who were truly devoted to their task and that they encouraged the people to spirituality and to devotion. Then he reminded me that the Priests of the Sacred Heart have often been reproached for being too rigorous and severe. He told me that, although the people who made those accusations did not know it, these were good points for the priests to have: it was positive evidence of the seriousness with which they observed their commitment to the religious life and to their ministry.
Within the archdiocese of Yaoundé we are currently present in three towns, Yaoundé, Mfou and Ngoya. We lead a religious life in communities of two, three or more members. Our two main occupations are the parish apostolate and the theological formation of young religious in Ngoya. After a short time the philosophy students, who had not been able to go to the Republic of the Congo because of the country’s political situation, took over the house as “squatters”. As the Father Provincial always reminds us, we other philosophers, continue to have our hospitality house for philosophy in Kisangani. While awaiting our eventual repatriation we philosophize at the Mokassa Institute. In brief, this is the way we best serve with our presence in the archdiocese. The Dehonians attempt to propose to everyone: men, women, young people, that they live their life in the spirituality of the pierced Heart. This is our way of loving that part of the world where we find ourselves, this is how we heal its ills and participate in the ideal of reconciliation among all mankind. It is in that, in this quest for the Sint Unum, that we affirm ourselves as disciples of Fr. Dehon. We live without using any startling gestures, leading an ordinary but centered life. Little by little, as Fr. Siou loved to say, we are plowing our little furrows in the archdiocese. Nkongoa, Nkilzock, Yaoundé, Ngoya, Mfou: these are the fields which we have cultivated. The fruit of this labor can be measured by the number of vocations that already fill those formation houses which were considered too big at the beginning.
I asked Father Siou why no one at Yaoundé had tried the experience of a work like that of Fr. Bernard Groux (the J.E.D.).6 His reply was extremely edifying. I was given a free and practical course in Pastoral Theology. He started from the basic principle that it is life which dictates the direction or the apostolic choices which are to be taken. He was convinced that a work conceived solely on a rational basis would not resist the test of time. He said that during his mandate as Regional Superior he had never lived any special situation with a young person in difficulty which would make him feel inclined to follow a similar initiative. I thought about this response in relation to what Fr. Antonio said when there was a desire to elaborate on a project concerning the foundation of a group of families who share the Dehonian charism. His thoughts can be summed up in this way: Let the desire to live our spirituality spring from the people. It is not from us that the initiative of founding such groups must come. Our duty is to help with their incubation, to travel alongside them, to correct their aspirations, if necessary, so that they can blossom further.
When we arrived at the end of our meetings, I dared to ask these older people if they had some advice to give us younger generations who are taking our first steps in the religious life. Fr. Léon responded by asking us quite simply to open our eyes and to observe wisely what our elders have done; to learn from their actions, both positive (to improve ourselves) and negative (to avoid falling on our faces over those things which were their obstacles); to share with others, in everything we do, our convinced belief in Christ and to live His life; to follow always the path of Fr. Dehon - also while continuing to keep our work up-to-date. Fr. Siou invited us to work on being and not on having; as a student of philosophy this immediately made me think of my course in metaphysics. “What will help us tomorrow”, he said, “is what we are and not what we have. We might well have the most perfect material that exists for our ministry”, he continued, “but without a personality of our own, and an austere and rigorous life, we have lost control of our direction”. Humility and simplicity: his advice is summed up in these two words. Humility will help us to enter our ministry as little children; it will disarm us of the false reasoning which is given to us by our intellectual baggage, our philosophy and theology, our complex logic and our rational schemes, which often have nothing to do with the reality lived by the people. Simplicity will help us to avoid the dictatorship of reason, which we sometimes utilize too easily with regard to those poor Christians who already have such difficulty in learning the ABCs of the elementary catechism we teach them. Simplicity will give us the boldness to be seated not only in the houses of the rich, but also in the cabins of the poor. In listening to them, in looking at them, we shall learn that it is truly an illusion to believe that one is more right than the other simply because one has studied a lot. Confronted with the realities of the people, with their wretchedness, we will learn that the true homily, the one which touches the heart of people, is not the one we get from books in the evening, it is the one that directly concerns those joyous or sad experiences lived by the people themselves.
I’d like to finish this discourse with some short phrases which Fr. Alphonse Huisken, Superior to the Novitiate in 1997, made to the novices on the Feast of the Sacred Heart: “If we (the old ones) are the dusk of the Congregation, you (the young ones) are its dawn”.
This short sentence said much to me personally. I wrote it down in my journal for that year. It made me aware of the seriousness with which I had to receive my formation as a young Dehonian, if I wanted the torch of our charism to be carried to future generations. And certainly, even today, it reminds me of the responsibility which I must accept for the presence of everyone and everything that has been here before me: the people, the goods put at my disposal, and so many other things.
1 Le Bayon, Goustan, Les prêtres S.C.J. et la naissance de l’Eglise au Cameroun (The S.C.J. Priests and the Birth of the Church in Cameroon), p. 139.
2 In English this means the parish of Christ who speaks for...
3 Cf. The “Scolasticat Ngoya” (The Ngoya Scholasticate) magazine, n. 3, 1991.
4 This is a tribe of West Cameroon. Msgr. Zoa is from the center. For political reasons these two tribes have always been opposed.
5 Mvolye is a neighborhood of the town of Yaoundé. That is where Archbishop Zoa lived. It is also the district par excellence, where a good number of religious communities are situated.
6 What I was referring to was a diocesan work that had been entrusted to the Priests of the Sacred Heart by the diocese of Bafoussam. It was called J.E.D. (Jeunes en difficultés) <Young People in Trouble>.