Missionary Anxieties, Psychopathology, and Decolonization

Abstract

Richard Hölzl, “Missionary Anxieties, Psychopathology, and Decolonization: A Biographical Approach”: Father John was one of the first African Catholic priests in southern Tanganyika. He was diagnosed with hereditary syphilis in 1947 at the Benedictine mission’s theological seminary at Kigonsera. In the early 1960s, Father John demanded equality in the allocation of funds, decent salaries for African priests, and the handing over of church jurisdiction to Africans. The diagnosis served the mission leadership’s intention to discredit his straightforward claims. The chapter traces Father John’s story, which is much more than an individual psychiatric case. It mirrors the violent practices and the anxieties of missionary colonialism and decolonization and provides a unique vantage point for understanding an individual’s subjective negotiations within and against this painful process.