In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Catholic Pentecostalism and the Paradoxes of Africanization: Processes of Localization in a Catholic Charismatic Movement in Cameroon
  • Patrick Claffey
Ludovic Lado . Catholic Pentecostalism and the Paradoxes of Africanization: Processes of Localization in a Catholic Charismatic Movement in Cameroon. Leiden: Brill, 2009. viii + 245 pp. List of Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. $142.00. Cloth.

The remarkable expansion of Pentecostal Christianity in African dating back to the 1980s has been widely examined in the literature relating to the study of religion in Africa. One aspect, however, that has to a great extent been overlooked has been the development of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement (CCRM), which claims to be part of the broader Pentecostal movement.

The subject of this book is the Cameroonian charismatic movement Ephphata and its founder, Fr. Meinrad Hebga, SJ (1928–2008). Hebga was widely known and quite influential across Francophone West Africa. His reputation as a man of charismatic power was widespread, and in my experience, the subject of some intriguing speculation, particularly regarding his relationship with the sociopolitical elites of President Paul Biya's government, including his relationship with Biya himself. This subject is not broached openly in this book, although it is certainly significant that among the favorite targets of Hebga's ire were Rosicrucians, Freemasons, and the various esoteric movements so popular among West African elites seeking spiritual enlightenment and support for their power.

This is a book of nine chapters with a brief introduction and an equally brief conclusion. Seven chapters are taken up with the origins, history, and [End Page 229] an ethnography of the Ephphata movement, while the final two chapters—titled, respectively, "Paradoxes of Africanization" and "Anthropology and Philosophy in Africa"—are more theoretical. The author is clearly from a generation younger than that of his Jesuit confrere, and this age difference becomes very apparent in the final critical chapters.

Chapter 1 deals with the origins and history of Ephphata, and here we encounter the first of many paradoxes: that a movement that claims to be an inculturated response to the needs of African Catholics had its origins in the CCRM in North America, where Hebga spent some time, rather than in African-initiated prophetic or spirit churches. Hebga's own baptism took place in an Assemblies of God church in the U.S.

In chapter 2 the author examines what he aptly describes as the "misfortune narratives" (41) that make up the main preoccupation of the movement. These are often narratives of frustrated lives, or life projects that are bloqués (blocked) or hindered. These very often involve the frustration of individuals unable to reach what the author describes as "imagined havens" in the West and achieving the "breakthrough" (such as a failure to obtain a visa to France or the U.S.) that they believe to be their "destiny." These also very often involve serious health problems that fail to respond to modern medicine and that are often believed to have their source in the malefic occult interventions of family members or others in the person's immediate circle, resulting in a wide variety of misfortunes.

Chapter 3 presents a detailed typology of spirit possession as it examines "Hebga's agency as he mediates between normative discourses and popular needs" (71). Lado presents Hebga as a "cultural broker" who draws on his knowledge of his patients as "he introduces local idioms of possession into the Christian system" in order to "make the problems of his patients meaningful and solvable within a Catholic context…" (71). Here again, however, one encounters another paradox as this staunch advocate of Africanization often seems to end up demonizing "some aspects of African religions and cultures" (71).

Chapters 4 and 5 examine "the two major components of ritual practice in Ephphata: Charismatic prayer and ritual healing" (93) as exercised in the immensely popular charismatic prayer sessions, and the more intense "therapeutic strategies" pursued in his treatment center at Mangen. Here the author draws largely on recorded narratives from his fieldwork.

Chapter 6 looks at the question of religion and magic, noting Hebga's rehabilitation of many sacramental rituals that have fallen out of fashion elsewhere in the Catholic Church as well as ritual innovations...

pdf

Share