The Black Bishops

In the slow chess match between the old and the new in Africa, white bishops are being replaced by black bishops. Last week the Most Rev. Robert Dosseh, 37, was made Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lome, in Togo. Ten days before, the Most Rev. Raymond Tchidimbo. 42, in a similar ceremony, was elevated to the see of Conakry in Guinea. Earlier. Hyacinthe Thiandoum. 41, became Archbishop of Dakar in Senegal and Luc Sangare, 36, was named to the diocese of Bamako in Mali. The four consecrations completed something of an ecclesiastical revolution, for all four men are sons of West African tribes, and now black bishops preside over nine dioceses in West Africa.

Since five years ago, 13 West African countries have achieved independence.

During the same period, the Christian churches, both Protestant and Catholic, have turned over more and more authority to native priests and ministers, thereby increasing immeasurably the chance of Christianity's survival in nations where too often it has been Yevu--a disparaging term, meaning European.

First brought to West Africa by the Portuguese explorers of the 15th century, Christianity penetrated the continent only during the heyday of 19th century colonization. Missionaries were eager to convert, but often reluctant to see their converts grow up to join the clergy. The first Senegalese priest was ordained in 1843--but in 1900 there were only ten native clerics in French West Africa.

Church expansion was often excessively cautious. One bishop allowed a missionary to build a school--but forbade him to make the foundation strong enough so a second floor might be added later. The priest disobeyed: the school he founded now has three stories and more than a thousand students. And it is thanks to its schools that Christianity has an influence in West Africa that far exceeds its numerical strength. Although about one-half of West Africans are pagans and only one in a dozen is a baptized Christian, nearly every West African leader, from Ghana's flamboyant Kwame Nkrumah to Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, studied at mission schools. Protestant and Catholic schools of West Africa today have more than 200,000 students--including most sons and daughters of the new nations' urban elite.

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