Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06KHARTOUM1159
2006-05-16 10:36:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Khartoum
Cable title:  

UPON THIS ROCK: SUDAN'S CATHOLICS WEATHER THE

Tags:  PHUM PGOV KIRF SCUL SU 
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RR RUEHROV
DE RUEHKH #1159/01 1361036
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 161036Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2836
INFO RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT 0004
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO 0126
RUEHROV/AMEMBASSY VATICAN 0003
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
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)

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