| dc.description.abstract | This study seeks to determine the origin and to demonstrate the growth of the Roman Catholic
Church in western Kenya. The main focus of the study is on the growth of the Church as is
manifest in the Church's crucial strength and spatial expansion. The dynamics of that growth
have been spelt out, namely: European imperial interest in Africa; missionary zeal and
competition for converts demographic attraction; African catechist participation; and the
African's desire for a new identity. Between Christianity and African ways of life; and the
implications of that interaction for the missionary, on the one hand, and for the African convert
on the other. The study is an attempt to delineate missionary approaches and roles in the
propagation of the Catholic faith; indicate new outlooks generated by the missionary presence;
the roles played by the African converts in the course of founding the Church and creating a
Roman Catholic community in western Kenya, between 1895 and 1952; to ferlti1y
characteristics of the emergent Church. The is be tested the missionaries' collaboration with
colonial administrators, coupled with the African initiative and eagerrics or new identity, made
the planting of the Roman Catholic Church in western Kenya possible; secondly that Catholic
missions in competition with Protestant missions was instrumental in the Roman Catholic
Church's rapid numerical growth and spatial expansion. The Roman Catholic missionary society
which introduced Catholicism to the peoples of western Kenya has been identified as St. Joseph's
Society for Foreign Missions, the Mill Hill Mission. This society was founded by Herbert
Cardinal vauqhen in' 1866, following Catholic emancipation in Britain in'1829, and the
restoration of the hierarchy there in 1850. It has been noted that Cardinal Vaughan had
difficulties in recruiting Englishmen for the priesthood, and so had to turn to Holland, where the
Dutch bishops very willingly helped him raise candidates of Dutch priests among the priests in
western Kenya. The invitation of the Mill Hill Fathers to East Africa was to assure the Baganda
that Catholicism was French, while Protestantism was English. To accommodate the Englishspeaking
Hill Fathers, a Vicariate of the Upper-Nile was created out of the large Vicariate of
victoria which was king white Fathers. The new vicariate, which was placed under the care of the
Mill Hill Fathers, covered eastern Buganda, Bus6ga, Bukedi Teso and ~he whole of western
Kenya to a line running from-;lake Turkana in the north, -to mount Kilimanjaro in the South.
Starting their evangelistic work at Nsambya in Buganda in 1895, the Mill Hill Fathers spread
into Busoga and Bukedi before opening work in western Kenya in 1903. The subjugation of
western Kenya by British Imperial punitive expeditions, and the building 6 railway terminus at
Kisumu by 1902, led to unprecedented missionary influx into western Kenya. This influx meant
stiff competition between the Mill Hill Fathers and about half a dozen Protestant missions that
converged on the area. It is argued in the thesis that conversion to Christianity generated a
cultural conflict which became manifest as tension between change and continuity. Whereas the
Hill Fathers had full control over there, converts, thus winning support from the colonial
administrators, the interaction between Christianity and African ways of life, coupled with the
paternalistic attitude of the missionaries, led to conflicts which-later surfaced - in the form of
0chism in the Church polity. Despite the tension and g6station period of the schismatic
tendencies, by 1952 the presence of the Roman Catholic Church had been felt right across the
entire region, and a Roman Catholic community had emerged. The study breaks down, naturally
I into four sections, although these are not indicated in the table of contents. The first section
(Introduction) deals with the nature and scope of the study. The Second section (Chapter One),
covers the origins of section three (Chapters Two to Five), analyze the Church's growth during
the period 1903 to 1952. Section four, (Chapter Six), appraises the Roman Catholic presence in
western Kenya during the period under review. The study ends with a concluding section which
points to the trend the Church's development was taking as its leadership continued to be
indigenized. | en |
