Mary and the Saints in Kinshasa, DRC

One persistent topic of interest for the Catholics & Cultures site’s comparative research is how Catholics in various cultural contexts are alike or different in their relationship to the Virgin Mary and the saints. In different contexts, Mary and the saints assume more or less central importance in typical Catholics’ prayer lives, and even where they might be equally significant, their importance can manifest differently. Mary can be perceived in different ways, and so can the saints, who might primarily be perceived as miracle workers, patrons, or role models.

Belief in God is remarkably strong in Kinshasa. As one person put it, “every Sunday, Congolese people know that they have to go to church. It's rare, it's rare, to see someone staying home on Sunday. They go to church, to pray, they know that their, their God is protecting them, and they… realize that they have to go to church, they have to pray, so that's part of the culture.” Actual church attendance numbers in Kinshasa, given the enormous size of the population, suggest that this is not quite true, but this sentiment does speak to how Kinois (Kinshasans) imagine themselves.

Devotion to Mary seems to run quite strong, judging from conversations, observations at prayer grottos, and the frequency with which images of Mary are for sale in Catholic stalls. Kinshasa’s cathedral is dedicated to her as Our Lady of Congo. Some suggested that devotion is stronger among older Catholics, who are more likely to say the Rosary, but visual observations at Marian grottos suggested that people of all ages spent time there.

Lay women frequently spoke about Mary, men less so. One man explained, “From my observations, it seems that women are generally more drawn to having Marian statues. Men, on the other hand, are less likely to have such statues… If you come across a young man devoted to Marian devotion and Marian prayer, it's often due to his parents' influence, such as a mother involved in the Légion de Marie... It's uncommon for men to independently develop this calling without such a background. [M]y mother was involved in the Légion de Marie, was a Maman Catholique, and served as a maman assistant in groupe KA. Despite her deep devotion, I never felt a personal calling to Marian devotion and prayer.”

Saints, on the other hand, seem to play a quite marginal role, by all accounts. This is not to say that interviewees couldn’t name many saints and even say something about their lives and witness. Parishes and schools are often named after saints. But lay interviewees rarely talked about saints as part of their devotional life, even when prompted. One young man responded, “Here, praying to the saints is not really strong. Because we don't see the impact. We don't really see the impact because there is already Jesus Christ. Saints can be seen as role models, yes, but there is already Jesus Christ. So, praying to these saints... We don't know. Even the question of Mary, the True Mother. We can go directly to Jesus Christ because when we pray to Jesus Christ, we have everything. So the saints, Mary…” Catholic mothers, perhaps especially those who participate in the movement of the same name, “are there for Mary’s prayer. They are there to defend belief in Mary.” Two interviewees noted that Sacred Heart devotion had become more popular again for prayer groups.

A Congolese priest-interviewee ascribed the relative marginality of saints in part to a 1971 crackdown when the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko ordered that every person in what was then Zaire had to use African first names instead of the European saint’s names that they might have been baptized with. The Church, facing many challenges from Mobutu, did not push back on this policy. Many people chose African names with religious resonances, such as names like Esperance (Hope). The edict was eventually retracted, but the bond of protection that linked many Catholics to saints was significantly weakened, according to the priest’s account.

One explicit effort at association with saints is a form of religious education for children called Kizito and Anuarite, commonly called groupe KA, which encourages boys to model their lives on the witness of St. Kizito, the youngest of the Ugandan martyrs, and girls to model their lives on Blessed Alphonsine Anuarite Nengapeta, a Congolese religious sister who was martyred in 1964.

Despite the size of the Congolese Church, there are still no canonized Congolese saints. Of seven persons with Congolese links who have been declared Blessed by the Vatican, three were martyred Italian missionaries. Two are Congolese laypeople: Blessed Isidore Bankanja, a bricklayer and catechist, was fatally beaten at age 22 by his Belgian overseers in the early 1900s for preaching and wearing a scapular, and Floribert Bwana Chui, a Congolese layman and member of the Sant’ Egidio community killed in 2007 for battling corruption who is described as a martyr for justice and will be beatified in 2025.

In seven parish settings, only once was there a public image that depicted Mary with a potentially African visage. The others were always extremely white, traditional European images, whether of Our Lady of Lourdes or the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The images above, for example, show one example of several where the image of Jesus in a parish was portrayed in an African embodiment, while the image of Mary was notably white. Interestingly, too, in a context where motherhood is highly extolled, none of the images observed were Virgin and Child images—instead, she always stood alone, praying for and receiving the prayers of devotees.