UPON THIS ROCK: SUDAN'S CATHOLICS WEATHER THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KHARTOUM 001159 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR AF/SPG AND DRL/IRF NSC FOR INBODEN E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/16/2016 TAGS: PHUM PGOV KIRF SCUL SU SUBJECT: UPON THIS ROCK: SUDAN'S CATHOLICS WEATHER THE POLITICAL STORM REF: KHARTOUM 884 Classified By: POLITICAL/ECONOMIC CHIEF ERIC P. WHITAKER; REASON: 1.4(B ) AND (D) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The Catholic Church in Sudan has fared relatively well during years of civil war and persecution, due largely to the strength -- and longevity -- of its leaders. With as many as six million followers, the Church accounts for over half of all Sudanese Christians; three-fourths are Southerners, but small communities remain in the North, including a few redoubts of Eastern Rite Catholicism. Though disputes continue over church property, Church leaders say the real crisis is in education, and the erosion of Christianity's place in society. Regardless of what happens between the North and South, the Church is sure to survive, say its leaders. But can it survive without them? This is the second in a series of reports on religious groups in Sudan, and the challenges they face in the future. End Summary. The Church's Big Man -------------- ¶2. (C) Gabriel Zubeir Wako is a kind of African "big man." Standing well over six feet tall, with a slight paunch and roaring laugh, Wako quickly dominates any room he enters. But unlike other big men on the continent, Wako's realm is not temporal, but spiritual. For the past twenty-five years, Wako has served as Archbishop of Khartoum, and spiritual leader of Sudan's Catholics. In 2003, Pope John Paul II recognized his leadership -- and his stand against Islamist rule -- by making Wako a cardinal, a first in the Church's long history in Sudan. Though Franciscan missionaries worked along the Red Sea coast as early as the seventeenth century, Catholicism reached the interior only in 1846, when Rome established a vicariate apostolic in Khartoum. The Italian Comboni Fathers opened missions and schools throughout the North and South until Christianity was suppressed during the Mahdiyya; they resumed their work under British rule, principally in the South, and remain active in Sudan to this day. In fact, despite periodic campaigns to expel foreign missionaries, the Church in Sudan continues to have strong ties to the universal church: two of the nation's nine bishops are Italians, the Missionaries of Charity of Calcutta minister to the poor of Khartoum, the Community of 
Sant'Egidio has been involved in the Darfur peace negotiations, and an American Jesuit was until recently rector of the country's only seminary. ¶3. (C) Before the outbreak of the Second Civil War in 1983, the Church estimated there were between four and five million Catholics in Sudan. Today, no one knows for sure, though Cardinal Wako guesses the number may be close to six million ("certainly more than the others," he laughed, referring to the Protestants). The Archdiocese of Khartoum includes the northeastern third of the country, and has jurisdiction over the Diocese of El Obeid, which comprises another third. The nation's remaining seven dioceses are huddled together in the South, under the Archdiocese of Juba. "The Cardinal is an important figure, but he's just a figure; he's been marginalized by the Government," confided Rev. Msgr. Christophe El-Kassis, of the Apostolic Nunciature in Khartoum. "The most powerful person in the Church here is really the Archbishop of Juba," The Most Rev. Paulino Lukudu Loro. (Loro, like Wako, is another ecclesiastical stalwart; he came to the archbishop's throne in 1983). Over three-fourths of Sudan's Catholics are Southerners, including several senior members of the SPLM, like First Vice President Salva Kiir; many live in IDP camps around Khartoum, grouped into what Cardinal Wako calls "parishes of the displaced." But there is also a small but hardy group of indigenous Catholics in the North, descended from European and Near Eastern trading families. Khartoum even has a Melkite Catholic parish with a resident priest, plus a Maronite congregation that gathers weekly at the Nunciature. Government Control Over Education is Biggest Problem -------------- -------------- ¶4. (C) Like other Christian groups in Sudan, the Catholic Church has endured persecution by successive Islamist regimes. Unlike other denominations, however, the Church seems to have forced the Government into a stalemate on issues like confiscated property and building permits -- no doubt thanks to leaders like Wako and Loro. The Government KHARTOUM 00001159 002 OF 003 seized the Catholic Club in Khartoum in 1998 and a youth center in Gedaref the following year, but its recent tactics have been more subtle. According to Msgr. El-Kassis, the Government now has decided to "wipe out Christianity" from Central Khartoum, and is pressuring the Church to sell an older office building it owns near the city center; the Church would prefer to tear down the building and re-develop the site itself, but the Government will not give it a building permit. El-Kassis is particularly concerned that the Government will also use a new bridge now under construction over the Blue Nile as an excuse to seize part of St. Matthew's Cathedral, which adjoins the site. "The Catholic Church is stronger here than the Anglicans or the other Protestants," admitted El-Kassis, "but that just means the Government sees it as a bigger threat." ¶5. (C) Still, Cardinal Wako does not view property disputes as his biggest problem with the Government. "They won't give us permits to build 'churches,' so we build 'activity centers,' but they know what they really are. Sometimes they play games and tear them down, but there's not too much interference with worship." The real challenge, Wako believes, is with Government control of education, and its impact on public attitudes towards Christianity. "The NIF (National Islamic Front) raised the Islamic flag as a means of gaining power, and Christians were seen as an obstacle. Relations between Christians and Muslims used to be very good, but now a whole generation has been raised to think that Christians are infidels. Our own Catholic children are taught in school that Islam was here before Christianity, which is ridiculous." Catholic schools in Sudan are required to teach Islam as well as Catholicism, and all courses are taught in Arabic. Catholic students often have trouble gaining admission to colleges, because their Arabic or Islamic history scores are too low -- or so they are told. Most worrisome for Wako is the steep decline in vocations to the priesthood, a trend he attributes to Government influence over religious education. "We rely more on foreign priests now than we did in the 1960s." Surviving the CPA, and the Aftermath -------------- ¶6. (C) Wako might be less than upbeat about the Church's future in Sudan, but he's far from desperate. The Church continues to work with other Christian denominations in the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) to press the government on religious freedom, though without much success; the Cardinal, however, attributes this failure more to corruption and incompetence within the SCC than to government intransigence. (Wako described the Catholic Church as an "inactive member" of the Council). The Church also works with the Sudan Inter-religious Council (SIRC) to promote Christian-Muslim dialogue and reconciliation, though again, at arm's length. "They keep wanting me to send them someone high ranking. They're upset that other churches' representatives aren't educated, and that ours aren't important enough." Wako credits the SIRC with recently obtaining two plots of land next to St. Stephen's Church in Hajj Yousif, on the eastern edge of Khartoum, in partial compensation for the seizure of the Catholic Club six years ago. Still, it may be the case of too little, too late. "What have they really done?" he asked rhetorically. ¶7. (C) But despite his doubts about the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the Cardinal has faith that the Church will survive, even in the North. "Things are moving very slowly now, and the leadership of the SPLA is not strong enough to push the NCP," he reasoned. "The referendum will be rigged, so that North and South are officially unified, but in practice separate, and that separation will increase over time." But many Southerners will choose to remain in Khartoum even after separation, says the Cardinal -- a native of Wau -- if only because there are no jobs in the South; the Church will remain with them, too. Others are not so sure. "The Government doesn't recognize the Church as a legal entity, so the Cardinal actually owns the Cathedral and most of the Church's property in Khartoum," notes Msgr. El-Kassis. "If something happened to him, it would be a disaster." Wako turned 65 in February, leaving him another ten years before the mandatory retirement age for Catholic bishops. But even within that time it will be hard to find a successor for the Church's "big man." Comment: Upon this Rock -------------- KHARTOUM 00001159 003 OF 003 ¶8. (C) The Catholic Church seems to have weathered political and religious strife in Sudan better than some of its sister churches (reftel). In part this may be due to its size -- it is by far the largest Christian church in the country -- and its links to the broader church, but it is also no doubt due to the leadership of men like Gabriel Cardinal Wako. Along with Archbishop Loro of Juba, he has led Sudan's Catholics for over twenty years, through five successive regimes; the hierarchical nature of the Church has only magnified his power, and added to his strength. He is not afraid to resist or even defy the Government -- to build churches without a permit, or re-build them after they've been destroyed -- and his faith has given him the determination to survive civil war, a difficult peace, and an unknown future. The real question is not whether the Catholic Church in Sudan will survive the division of the country, but how it will survive without Gabriel Zubeir Wako. HUME