La Casa Grande (The Big House) and the Senzala were not just social and physical constructs, that separated the Whites, owners of the power, on the one hand, and on the other, the Blacks, turned into slaves. With the abolition of slavery these constructs supposedly disappeared, but they are still present in the mentality of the Brazilian Whites and in the elites. The hierarchies, the social inequalities and the prejudices have their origin in this dual structure, and continue to be fed by it.

The religious life meshed into this cultural soup carries the same dualism and the same discriminations in its internal relations. During the whole time of the Colony, those who had «dirty blood», this is, the Blacks, Indigenous, or Mixed-bloods, could be neither priests nor religious men or women. Besides pure racism, typical of that epoch, it was said that they could never learn to live in chastity. This discrimination was internalized by these dehumanized populations to the point that they did not even consider being priests, religious men or nuns.

The consequences survive even today: chronic scarcity of autochthonous clergy from Brazil.  Judging from the number of Catholics, we should have at least one hundred thousand priests. We only have 17 thousand, many of whom are foreigners.

Even with the revitalization of the Brazilian Church through the Romanic process, inaugurated at the end of the XIX century with the arrival of European religious congregations, Black and Mixed-blood persons continued to be systematically excluded. But there was an inaugural break through: in 1928 the Congregation of the Missioners of Crucified Jesus, a genuine Brazilian foundation, of Maria Villa, a pious lay woman, supported by Bishop Don Campos Barreto de Campinas, was the first to open the doors of its convents to Black women.

Even so, it did not escape the influence of The Big House and the Senzala: there was a clear division between the oblates, the Black sisters and those with very little instruction, from the choristers, the White sisters, and the well educated.  Even their habits were different: blue and white for the choristers, and black for the oblates. The mission of the oblates, that comprised almost half of the congregation, was to serve the choristers, be with them as they performed their jobs and undertake all the domestic tasks of the convent, from cooking and washing the clothes, to the upkeep of the gardens, and care of the animals.

So it was for 40 years, until the window of the aggiornamento of Vatican Council II (1962-1965) was opened: the division of labor was abolished, some in the manual jobs and others in the apostolic life. As Don Odilon, Bishop of Santos, commented: «the slavery in the Congregation ended.» 

This history has been recently investigated and written up by the Black sisters themselves, under the secure guidance of Father Jose Oscar Beozzo.  It is titled: Weaving Memories, Gestating the Future: History of the Black and Indigenous Sisters of the Missioners of Crucified Jesus (Tecendo memorias, gestando o futuro: história das Irmãs Negras e Indígenas das Missionárias de Jesus Crucificado, Paulinas, 2009).

Which is original about this book?  It shows the slow awakening of the consciousness of the Black sisters, of their ethnic identity, of their specific values and of their singular spirituality, created on the basis of their life histories, narrated by the Black sisters: histories of tears, such was the level of discrimination and humiliation.

But what the book transmits is neither bitterness nor a spirit of revenge.  To the contrary, it tries to rescue the memory of what was learned on that painful path, and launch the bases for a future that is more equalitarian and respectful of differences. They show that Black identity need not be a tragic one, but that it was and can be epic: created from a wise resistance and the discovery, slowly but surely, of their own path to liberation. The Black nuns emerge as true heroines and many of them show unequivocal signs of holiness. This way the vision of the Black men and women as miserable beings is overcome, and their inventiveness, their capacity for inner joy, that reveals in laughter and feast, in music and dance, are all enhanced.

This book fills a vacuum in Black historiography of religious life. More than compassion, it elicits admiration, displaying a will to conquer, more than resignation. Reading it edifies us and makes us humanly more solidarian.

- Leonardo Boff is Theologian. Earthcharter Commission