African Catholics in the United States: Part 3 of 3

Africans find familiar liturgies help ease transitions

PATRICIA ZAPOR | CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

Posted: 03.27.09

Ruth Gyamfi places an offering in a basket during Mass for the Washington-area Ghanaian Catholic community March 22 in Falls Church, Va. During the liturgy offerings were brought to the sanctuary by each individual rather than being collected by ushers.

CNS | NANCY WIECHEC
Ruth Gyamfi places an offering in a basket during Mass for the Washington-area Ghanaian Catholic community March 22 in Falls Church, Va. During the liturgy offerings were brought to the sanctuary by each individual rather than being collected by ushers.

WASHINGTON (CNS) | A chapel in North Carolina sways with the Swahili lyrics “Bwana awabariki, Bwana awabariki.” A large church in California rings with the Igbo–language song “Chineke onyeoma.”

An Eastern–rite Washington parish brings the familiar rituals and archaic Ge’ez language each week to immigrants from Ethiopia and Eritrea who left their home countries decades ago.

In Catholic churches far from Africa, liturgies celebrated in Swahili, Igbo, French and Ge’ez provide a familiar style of worship, as well as connections to communities of fellow immigrants and first–generation Americans whose roots are in Africa.

About This Series

In part one of this three–part series, Catholic News Service’s Mark Pattison writes about the shift in the migration pattern of missionaries who, in generations past were sent from the US to places like Africa, are now being sent from Africa to serve in the United States.

In part two of this series, Catholic News Service’s Jackie Taylor explores how parish twinning programs are connecting US Catholics with African communities.

Dominican Sister Jamie Phelps, director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans, said that, much as Irish, German, Polish and Italian immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries formed ethnic parishes in cities such as Hartford, Conn., Chicago and Philadelphia, today’s immigrant Catholics from Africa are finding that liturgies similar to those back home can help ease the transition to the United States.

As earlier generations of immigrants found, when it comes to Catholic worship there is no “one size fits all.”

“Each country has its own religious traditions,” she said. While liturgies lasting two hours or more, music with lots of drums and shakers, and ululating voices typify an African–style Mass for some people, that’s not necessarily the case for all.

“In some parts of Africa the churches are more European than they are African,” Sister Jamie observed. Differences are defined by more than 50 countries in Africa, dozens of different languages and even varied histories of evangelization –– some by French missionaries and others by Spaniards, Belgians or Germans.

For instance, she said, many Catholic Nigerians are theologically quite conservative and are used to a church in which much more deference is paid to priests and religious women than is common in the United States. The role of the laity in leadership is more developed in the U.S. and in some African nations than is the norm among Nigerians, she explained.

Such differences can make it difficult to adjust to a typical North American parish with strong lay involvement and a more subdued role for priests and nuns, she said.

But on an even more basic level, being able to participate in a Mass in the language and style of home is what makes the difference for someone trying to find a place in the church, Sister Jamie said. The growth of worship communities for African immigrants in the United States is a positive trend, she said, as are multicultural liturgies that combine elements of various immigrant communities within a parish.

“It is costing us as a Catholic community, because we are not being attentive enough to the specific cultural world view of African immigrants,” she said.

In the Diocese of Raleigh, N.C., Lauren Green, director of African ancestry ministry, said monthly Masses in Swahili, Igbo and French were organized several years ago, after it became apparent that Catholic immigrants from Africa were either not attending any church or had joined non–Catholic churches.

“We were feeling like we were having our lunch eaten by the Protestants and nondenominational churches that were offering services in their native tongues,” Green said. In a diocese with few African–American Catholics, immigrant Africans are an even more conspicuous minority at predominantly white parishes, she explained.

“And if you’re used to hearing drums and shakers, organ music is not going to remind you of home,” she said.

The Swahili Mass attracts people from Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania and other East African countries. Igbo draws primarily Nigerians, and the French African Mass is popular with immigrants from Congo, Benin, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and other former French colonies. They each draw as many as 150–200 people a month, Green said.

Elsewhere, immigrants from Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, most of them with decades in the United States, make up Kidane–Mehret Ge–ez Catholic Parish in Washington. Father Abba Arain Ghebray said the 26–year–old Eastern–rite parish has about 400 parishioners who meet in rented space at St. Vincent de Paul Church. The parish has a full program of religious education, marriage preparation and other typical parish functions.

With the Divine Liturgy celebrated in what he described as “a dead language, like Latin,” he said the Ge’ez–language liturgy in many ways resembles an Orthodox liturgy rather than the boisterous Latin–rite Masses familiar to those who grew up in Catholic churches in Ghana, Tanzania or Cameroon.

The Kidane–Mehret Ge–ez parish is part of the Alexandrian rite, one of the Eastern Catholic churches.

People who were raised in an Eastern Catholic church find such parishes are especially rare in the United States. Kidane–Mehret parishioners come from as far away as Richmond, Va., more than two hours away, Father Ghebray said. The next closest Eastern–rite parish for Catholics using the Ge’ez language is in Boston, he said.

Even within the Latin rite, people travel many miles to reach a parish with a Mass that resonates of home. In North Carolina, Green said people come from across the state for the African Masses.

But Sister Jamie said providing liturgies in the language and style that is familiar to immigrants is just one step toward a global community approach for the church.

“Having separate cultural expressions within one parish is a beginning,” she said. “But there should be some places where all the cultures come together. As a liturgist, I tried to use Pentecost liturgies in that way,” she said, with readings, prayers and music in the range of languages represented in the parish.

Or, there’s the approach Green takes in Raleigh. She, her husband and their three children attend the Swahili Mass most months, though their family roots in Africa go back many generations.

“We went initially as a way to take our kids somewhere where they don’t look different from all the other people at Mass,” she said. With the low ratio of African–Americans among North Carolina’s Catholics, few parishes have more than a handful of nonwhites, Green explained.

Now, “my kids really enjoy it. It’s the one time a month where they don’t feel like they stand out,” she said. They’ve had to adjust in other ways; for example, the Swahili Mass typically takes about an hour longer than the one they otherwise attend, and the sign of peace means greeting pretty much every person in the church.

“But they’ve made great friends,” Green said, “and they know on the second Sunday of the month we leave for Mass at noon and we may not be back until 4.”

PREVIOUS: Part One | Part Two

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