I'm going to preface this by acknowledging that I do not know a lot of history about the Democratic Republic of Congo. I've tried reading a few very general, very brief sources to get some background for the death of Francesco -- I'm not sure it helped a lot.
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| Blessed Francesco Spoto |
Blessed Francesco was a Sicilian priest who studied at the Congregation of the Missionary Servants of the Poor. He was ordained in 1951; I think it is fair to say that the 1950s and 1960s were the peak of anti-colonial rebellion in the Third World. Francesco must have been a promising priest; within eight years, he was promoted to Superior General of the Congregation. He apparently worked hard promote the group. In 1964, at age 40, he went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to visit the missions there.
The DRC, formerly the Belgian Congo, was (and still is) an unfortunate place. The havoc that was wrought upon it by the Belgian exploitation accounts for much of the misery; the Cold War antagonism between East and West that used Third World nations as pawns can account for a little more. The balance of the misery is indigenous, and let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that it is an inconsiderable portion.
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| Mobutu Sese Seko |
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| Patrice Lumumba IS Africa |
I won't try to summarize the Byzantine twists of the Congo Crisis that lasted from Independence Day in 1960 until Mobutu Sese Seko's seizure of power in 1966. The country balkanized; the number of generals, presidents, and prime ministers who attempted to seize power is staggering. One such leader, Pierre Mulele, was a former Education Minister under Patrice Lumumba's government. He became a Maoist revolutionary, raising a nationalist rebellion among the animist tribes of the Kivu and Orientale provinces. Known as the Simba Rebellion, Mulele's warriors were led into battle by shamans who told them they would become simbas (lions) in battle and be impervious to bullets. Their initial success allowed them to seize about half the country. Foreigners and native Congolese who had been contaminated by foreign ideas (politicians, police, teachers, etc) were all murdered.
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| Pierre Mulele, leader of the Simbas |
Francesco Spoto was among those who had the misfortune to be captured by the Simbas. The beating they gave him did not kill him immediately. He escaped, and died two weeks later, having lived long enough to declare his forgiveness for the captors who had caused his slow, painful death.
The Simbas didn't fare much better than he did. A combined force of Belgians and Americans invaded to evacuate Westerners and Congolese allies. The internal factions continued to struggle against each other until Mobutu consolidated power and murdered all his enemies. Pierre Mulele escaped to the neighboring Republic of Congo (former French colony), but was lured back by Mobutu with a promise of amnesty. Instead, he was publicly tortured and executed. He eyes were gouged out; then one by one his genitals and each of his limbs were cut off. His parts (can't call them relics since he was a Maoist) were dumped in the river following his death.
I'm accustomed to the worst horrors being perpetrated on the saints themselves. In this case, the commander whose forces killed the beatus wound up getting the worst of it. Mobutu, having been expelled from Catholic school, seems to have been sect-neutral. He allowed Christian priests to continue baptizing in the country he renamed Zaire, but warned of dire punishment if they Christened with European rather than traditional African names.
The history of Congo/Zaire is a brutal one. It's nice to have a beatus like Spoto to read about. It would be nice to know about a Congolese saint or beatus as well.
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