Vicente Berenguer

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Father Vicente Berenguer. Photo from 2018.

Father Vicente Berenguer Llopis (born July 5, 1937 in Teulada, Spain ) is a Spanish religious who worked in Mozambique for 50 years and not only devoted himself to his pastoral work there, but also had a special influence on the Mozambican education system. This effectiveness extended to the phases of the liberation struggle, the civil war and the post-war development in Mozambique.

Life

Vicente Berenguer was born in Teulada as the son of a piano teacher, organist and magistrate in the middle of the Spanish Civil War . In 1955 he entered the Valencia seminary . From 1960 he continued his theology studies at the "Instituto Español de Misiones Extranjeras" ( IEME ) in Burgos , the seminary of the Spanish Catholic Church for missionaries working abroad. He interrupted his studies in 1964/65 to live and work with street children in the circus of the “Ciudad de los Muchachos”. A year after his ordination in 1966, his first missionary position began in Mozambique, which at the time was a "Portuguese overseas colony".

Here, in Moatize (Tete Province), he was quickly confronted with the colonial reality. In the coal mining area of ​​Moatize his parish consisted mainly of Belgian and Portuguese employees with their families. School training opportunities were also reserved exclusively for whites. There was formally compulsory schooling up to the age of 15, which in fact could only be attended by white children. There were no school buildings or staff in Moatize for the local children. After eight months in Mozambique, the father opened his own small school exclusively for the children of local blacks in an empty house. During this time the first contacts with the FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) came about . He immediately came into conflict with the Portuguese colonial administration , which ensured that Vicente Berenguer was forcibly transferred to a small mission station near Changara, also in the province of Tete . Here, too, he founded a boarding school for 60 children in 1969: it was financed by operating a corn mill. In addition, the priest dealt with the native Bantu languages . In 1972 this boarding school was closed by the Portuguese and Berenguer was transferred to an administrative post. Even now he immediately started another boarding school. At the beginning of the 1970s, the Portuguese colonial power in Mozambique, as in its other African colonies, was confronted with increasingly strong independence movements , which it countered with military means, but above all with extremely cruel attacks on the civilian population. In Europe they tried to cover up this. In the vicinity of Berenguer's place of activity in the province of Tete at that time, a whole series of such slaughters took place on various village communities, about which the world public hardly learned anything. Then, on December 16, 1972, the Wiriyamu massacre took place a little later in Europe . Padre Vicente Berenguer learned of this through direct personal reports from survivors and witnesses. In 1973 the priest returned to Spain for his first vacation after 6 years. There had already been threats from the Portuguese secret service PIDE . When Berenguer wanted to return to Mozambique after four weeks, he was refused a visa by the Portuguese authorities.

In the meantime, people in Europe had become aware of the atrocities of the Portuguese colonial troops. The British Catholic clergyman Adrian Hastings reported in London's The Times on July 10, 1973, on the eve of a state visit by the Portuguese Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano . His information was based essentially on the reports of the "Burgos" priests, i.e. the Spanish missionaries of the IEME who were active in the province of Tete. After trying to inform the Vatican without any apparent consequences, Vicente Berenguer and his friar Father Julio Moure went on a 20-day trip through England, Holland, Belgium and Germany to make the European public aware of what was going on in Mozambique . The discussion that this triggered contributed to the weakening of the Caetano government, which was then overthrown on April 25, 1974 as part of the “ Carnation Revolution ”. In 1974 the father accepted a teaching position at an IEME seminary in Madrid. In the same year, at the invitation of the MPLA ( Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola ) Angola and at the invitation of Samora Machel, he visited the FRELIMO headquarters in Dar es Salaam . Machel asked Berenguer, together with another Burgos priest, to draft guidelines for a Mozambican educational system after the aspired independence from Portugal. The guerrilla fights taking place in Mozambique at the same time led to the Lusaka Agreement on peaceful transition to independence on September 7, 1974 and Mozambique's independence on June 25, 1975 with the first Marxist-Leninist head of government Samora Machel. Vicente Berenguer had already returned to Changara in November 1974, where he opened a parish and taught teaching. In 1976 Vicente Berenguer was appointed director of the School of Industry and Commerce, where he taught geography, history and economic policy. He worked closely with the then Minister of Education Graça Machel (wife of Samora Machel until his murder, later wife of Nelson Mandela ) in the field of school development. Despite all his closeness to FRELIMO, he kept a critical distance from increasing fanaticism, which, as a result of a denunciation, earned him three days imprisonment in Tete and Maputo. In the meantime, with Rhodesian and South African support, the RENAMO (Resistencia Nacional Moҫambicana) guerrilla group had formed, whose activities against FRELIMO in 1977 led to an extremely cruel civil war lasting 15 years . Graҫa Machel offered Berenguer a job in the Ministry of Education in 1979, where he headed the school development department for 10 years. In particular, the development of models for the rural school system formed his focus, for this he also traveled to Cuba, Zambia and Portugal. During this time, too, he did not stop at administrative and managerial tasks. He initiated the construction of a boarding school in N'Kondezi / Tete province, which was opened in 1982 with the help of German support groups ( Lennestadt , Hungen ). The buildings of this facility were largely destroyed in the course of the civil war. Since 1985 the priest has been working again as parish priest in one of the Bairros (initially Malhangalene) of Maputo, parallel to his work in the Ministry of Education . During the civil war he tried to build or rebuild various educational institutions in the bairros of the capital of Mozambique. During this time he kept in contact with his support groups in Spain and Germany. Various projects were planned, some of which could only be implemented after the end of the civil war in 1992. So was z. For example, the boarding school of N'Kondezi in northern Mozambique was built for the second time in the 1990s with the help of the Anne Frank School in Lennestadt. The years after the peace treaty in 1992 were marked by several changes of parish in the Bairros of Maputo (Malanghalene, Laulane, Mahotas), with Vicente Berenguer building a large number of both ecclesiastical (churches, parsonages, mission schools) and public institutions (primary , Secondary and vocational schools, kindergartens, old people's homes, residential buildings, etc.) for the Bairro residents. These projects were financed on the construction side with EU, federal and state funds as well as private donations mainly from Spain and Germany. The support groups in Europe also played an important role here. The staffing and management of these institutions was placed in Mozambican church, communal or state hands. After 20 years of extremely successful work in the Maputo Bairros, Padre Vicente moved his place of residence and work to Ressano Garcia . This is a small town on the border with South Africa with considerable structural problems, which are essentially caused by the contrasts between poor Mozambique and rich South Africa (labor migration, smuggling, crime, etc.). In 2005 Vicente Berenguer became the parish pastor of the newly founded parish of San José. In addition to his pastoral work, the priest initiated extensive educational and infrastructure measures in Ressano Garcia. This included the reconstruction of the Ressano Garcia church and the construction of a large school center with a secondary school for 900 pupils including a boarding school for 90 young people. In addition, 2 local primary schools were expanded and renovated, and electricity and water supply facilities were created. In the vicinity of Ressano Garcia, kindergartens, teachers' houses and fountains have been set up in five villages.

Before his permanent return to Spain in 2016, Vicente Berenguer had initiated and supervised school, care and training positions for a total of around 60,000 Mozambican young people.

Theological-political background

The numerous traces of Vicente Berenguer's work make it clear that he did not see his missionary work as a purely spiritual mission in the sense of the Christian-Catholic faith in which he is deeply rooted. The experiences in the struggle for independence as well as the civil war in Mozambique, his proximity to their protagonists Samora and Graҫa Machel, as well as his travels z. B. to Angola and Cuba suggest a reference to “ liberation theology ”. During the struggle for independence in Mozambique, he wanted to improve the existential situation, especially of the people suffering from the Portuguese colonial power in Mozambique: “Before I save the soul of these poor creatures, I have to save their lives, because the locals were nothing different from the slaves of the Portuguese “During the civil war and in the period afterwards, Berenguer always tried to unite the spiritual and material needs of the people in his parishes, considering education and upbringing as central starting points for a humanistic social development. At the end of his activity in Mozambique, he saw the goals under which he had taken on during Mozambique's quest for independence, in view of the current government action, very endangered. “A consumer society has emerged that exploits and excludes the poor. It's about having and not being. The pursuit of political and economic power has created great social differences ”. In the education sector, he particularly criticizes the increasing privatization and the neglect of qualified state training for teachers.

Effect in Germany

On August 9, 1973, M. Schulz of the Catholic News Agency (KNA) interviewed the two Burgos priests. B. in " Spiegel ", " Zeit " and " Frankfurter Rundschau " were published. However, there were also dissenting voices. This sparked a debate that contributed significantly to the fact that Portugal was no longer supported in its efforts to cover up the massacres in Mozambique and to continue to pursue an extremely repressive colonial policy. A mood critical of colonialism was also generated. B. also questioned the involvement of West German companies in major projects such as the construction of the Cabora Bassa dam .

During his trip to several European countries in 1973 in connection with the Wiriyamu massacre, Vicente Berenguer made various contacts, including the journalist Elisabeth Becker. In 1975 it published a call for assistance in building schools in Mozambique. This was first followed by the Anne Frank secondary school in Lennestadt , which initially made a significant contribution to the implementation of the boarding school project in N'Kondezi / Tete. This example was followed by other German schools in Hungen , Altena and Weyhe , which contributed in different ways to the realization of the Father's school building projects in the provinces of Tete and Cabo Delgado , in the Bairros of Maputo and in Ressano Garcia. The Bielefeld-based Mozambique Coordination Group played a major role in the integration and support of these Mozambique-focused development policy activities in German schools .

Appreciations

Father Vicente Berenguer received numerous recognitions for his work in Mozambique. He was honored in Mozambique in 1985 for his services during the years after independence, and in 2012 also by the city of Ressano Garcia and the government of Mozambique (Mención de Honor). He was also given several high honors in his home community (Teulada) and home region ( Xàbia ). In 2017 Berenguer became an honorary citizen (Hijo Adoptivo) of the city of Valencia. The visit of the Spanish Queen in 1998 can be seen as an expression of the fact that his work in Europe was honored politically. In 2006 one of the school buildings initiated by Vicente Berenguer in Romao / Maputo was opened by the wife of the then Federal President, Ms. Eva-Luise Köhler.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For this movement see the Spanish Wikipedia article of the same name.
  2. ↑ Puri Naya, 2018, p. 14.
  3. ^ A b Costa Blanca News / Magazine 848 of March 17, 2000, p. M6.
  4. ↑ Costa Blanca News / Magazine 848 of March 17, 2000, p. M8.
  5. ^ Misionesvalencia, 2017
  6. ↑ Annegret Löhr in: Mozambik-Rundbrief 95, 12/2017.
  7. ↑ Ansprenger 1974, pp. 40-48
  8. ↑ Portugal - Temporary Colonies? . In: Der Spiegel 33/1973.
  9. ↑ Gabriele Vensky: murders in Africa . In: Die Zeit of July 20, 1973
  10. ↑ Werner Holzer : Wiriyamu is no coincidence . In: Frankfurter Rundschau of July 19, 1973.
  11. ↑ Herbert Kremp : Wiriyamu is allowed to die now . In: Die Welt from July 18, 1973.
  12. ^ Elisabeth Brüggemann: Joachim Pfeiffer - Pioneer of School Partnerships , In: Mozambik Rundbrief 63, 04/2004 (Ed. Coordination Group Mozambique, Bielefeld).
  13. ↑ Honorary Citizenship of Valencia

literature

  • Before I save the souls of these poor creatures, I must first save their lives . In: Costa Blanca News / Magazine, Alicante, No. 848 of March 17, 2000.
  • Puri Naya and Rafa Andrés: El arbol de los secretos - Un viaje al universo de Vicente Berenguer , Valencia: Ediciones Tívoli, 2018.
  • Franz Ansprenger (Ed.): Wiriyamu - A Documentation on the War in Mozambique , Munich 1974.
  • Annegret Löhr: From friend to friend - Interview with Padre Vicente Berenguer Llopis . In: Mozambik Rundbrief 95, 12/2017 (Ed .: Mozambique Coordination Group, Bielefeld).
  • M. Barroso: The White Father with a Black Heart - Interview with Padre Vicente Berenguer Llopis . In: Mozambik Rundbrief 91, 12/2015 (Ed. Coordination Group Mozambique, Bielefeld).

Web links