Centre Stage and Behind the Scenes with the “lion of Katanga”

Abstract

Abstract This article complicates the image of Benedictine missionary Jean-Félix de Hemptinne (1876–1958), a central figure of the 20th century Belgian colonial and evangelisation endeavour in the Congo, as a steadfast missionary with political, religious and economic power. It contextualises his ideas within wider debates on religion, civilisation and colonialism and looks at the strategies he employed to defend his authority. Through the figure of the Apostolic Vicar of Katanga, this article rethinks the ideas and the power mechanisms, in particular the “trinity” between church, state and capital and the church-state alliance, which underpinned the Belgian colonial and missionary enterprise.