The Church of Women: Gendered Encounters between Maasai and Missionaries

2. Men of the Church

68 2 MEN OF THE CHURCH The people of Africa will not be converted by the work of clever and capable missionaries, but through the holiness and sacrifices of their priests. —Father François Libermann, 11th General Superior of the Spiritans (Koren 1983: 260) Although Catholic Spiritan missionaries1 waited until the 1950s to begin systematic evangelization of Maasai in Tanzania, they had a long history of missionary endeavors throughout the world, especially in Africa. This chapter investigates the origins, history, and agendas of Spiritan missionaries, focusing on their establishment and expansion in East Africa. My purpose in this chapter, in part, is to consider these men as human beings, to provide glimpses of their motivations, assumptions, expectations, and experiences in a manner that seeks understanding, not immediate condemnation. Like some of the best current work in colonial studies and critical development studies (for example, Cooper and Stoler 1997; Pels 1997), I try to move beyond simplistic morality plays of good and evil to expose and analyze the nuances, ambivalences, and tensions that informed, shaped, and were produced by the encounters between these men of the church and Maasai men and women. My task is made easier by my longstanding personal and work relationships with many Spiritans, as described in the preface (cf. Beidelman 1982). The missionary encounter was not just a matter of the interplay of the “religion” of the missionaries and the “culture” of Maasai, but of the cultural, religious, political, economic, social, and gendered beliefs, interests, and practices of all involved. It is therefore essential to excavate and understand as much about the “culture,” background, social status, gendered assumptions, and practices of Spiritans in general and individual missionaries in particular as it is to do the same for Maasai men and women. Moreover, given the often solitary nature of their work and the tremen- Men of the Church 69 dous impact of their individual personalities and practices on their relationships with Maasai, I seek to understand and distinguish Spiritans as much as possible as individuals—like all of us, imperfect, fallible, and products of their place, time, and training. Spiritans share a common vision and mission, as exemplified in their constitution and rules of order and instilled in their seminary training and socialization.2 At the same time, however, they are divided by personal, political, theological, and generational differences. Thus the second part of the chapter compares the lives, thoughts, and experiences of three American Spiritans from different generations who were central to Maasai evangelization efforts in the Monduli area at different periods: Father Eugene Hillman, the first Spiritan to begin systematic evangelization of Maasai in the 1950s; Father Girard Kohler, who served as head of the Monduli parish from 1985 to 1993; and Father William Christy, one of the latest (and, it seems, last) generation of American Spiritans to work in Maasai areas. Although many Spiritans, primarily from the United States but also from other countries, have been involved in evangelization work with Maasai , I have selected these three men because they exemplify three different generations of missionaries and three distinct approaches to and experiences of mission and Maasai. The Early History of the Spiritans3 Founding and Charism The Congrégation du Saint-Esprit (the “Congregation of the Holy Spirit,” or the “Spiritans”) was founded by Claude-François Poullart des Places4 in 1703 in France as a seminary and religious society to train impoverished students for the priesthood so that they could serve poor and marginalized peoples in France and overseas. In 1848, the Congregation merged with an explicitly missionary society, the Societé de Sainte-Coeur de Marie (the “Society of the Holy Heart of Mary”), to become the Congrégation du Saint-Esprit et de la Sainte-Coeur de Marie. Father François Libermann,5 the founder of the Societé, was elected the first superior general of the newly formed Congregation (he was the eleventh superior of the Congregation). He is perceived by the Spiritans as their second “founder” because of his revitalization of the organization and the continuing salience of his missiological teachings (e.g., Libermann 1962–1964; cf. Kohler 2002). Father Libermann was the son of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, and his experience as the member of a disparaged religious minority in heavily Christian THE CHURCH OF WOMEN 70 Alsace informed his ideas about evangelization (Kieran 1969a: 344). He argued that missionaries should never force anyone to convert to...