History of SMA in Angola (English text)

The project was born in 1997, when the Italian Extraordinary Provincial Council decided to open a new presence in Angola. The choice was made after an inquiry over the African countries poorest in clergy. Angola was one of the countries with the lowest rate of clergy in relation to population.

Even though the Gospel arrived to Angola 500 years ago, it touched only the capital city, the Portuguese and a few “assimilated” people, leaving aside the great majority of the local population. Only in the first half of the last century was a serious effort of evangelization started in the countryside.

When we took our decision Angola seemed coming out of a long civil war and needing help for human, Christian and social reconstruction; unfortunately the civil war restarted a few months after our arrival, and finished, hopefully for good this time, in 2002.

The first SMA assignment was in the diocese of Saurimo (north east of the country), which had very few priests. When the war resumed it became almost impossible for our confreres to continue the work in that diocese. It looked important to open a presence in the capital city, to support confreres in the countryside.

We opened a new parish in the surroundings of Luanda, in an area mainly made up of slums, where were living more than 300.000 people coming here from the country’s four corners in order to flee the ravages of war.

Two confreres remained in the newly created diocese of Dundo. A new (old) French confrere joined, but the Italian confreres were withdrawn at different steps.

The Archdiocese of Luanda also was divided and we fond ourselves in the new Diocese of Caxito.