There Will Be Miracles
God is black. And black was his son. This is the belief of the Kinbaguistas, followers of Simon Kimbangu, African preacher and new messiah who died as a martyr in the belgian prisons during the 1960’s. The Kimbaguistas are the most important religious sect in Congo, a small superpower equipped with a radio and television station. But that is only a part of the complex spiritual reality of Congo.
1300 chapels. 5 thousand priests. 30 million believers spread out at the four corners of a country as large as Western Europe. These are the impressive numbers that characterize the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Catholic community, the largest in the African continent along with Nigeria’s. But it is also the most powerful. Ever since the second half of the XIX century, the Catholic Church has had, for better or for worse, a socially and politically fundamental role in Congolese contemporary history.
It is not by chance that churches act as the primary meeting place. Those who attend them do not just go there to prey. But also to find out news about the village, join in to the distribution of medicines, vote yes or no in the constitutional referendum. Or, night-time, to join the believers of the coolest sect. The sect phenomenon, infact, is rapidly spreading around the entire country, especially in the capital, Kinshasa. Every sect has a name and a specialization. There are those who prey for health, those who prey for love, or for money. For every request there is an answer. And every night a meeting that cannot be missed, as reminded by the many flyers distributed around the city: ”Tonight great prayer, our chant will reach high into the sky. Come. God too will be present. And there will be miracles”.
