Author Description

The book "Mateus Pinho Gwenjere: A Revolutionary Priest" depicts the life story of a Catholic priest from central Mozambique who in 1967 joined the Mozambique liberation movement, FRELIMO, in Tanzania, and was abducted from Nairobi, Kenya by the FRELIMO government agents in 1975 and summarily executed. Since his life was intertwined with the Catholic Church and the struggle for independence, the book also deals with such.The book sheds light on his religious thoughts as well as on his social and political activities. According to him, the Catholic Church in Mozambique was divided into two Churches: Mgr Gouveia's "Salazarist Church" which defended the interests of the Portuguese colonial regime and Mgr De Resende's "Prophetic Church" which defended the Mozambican people's rights to self-determination. "The Church cannot only have mystical concerns. It should also be concerned with social issues... The Portuguese missionaries are harming Christianity by failing to fulfill the mission entrusted on them by the Church", he told his audience at the United Nations in New York in 1967.He was involved in the struggle for independence as soon as he was ordained to priesthood, defending people's rights, their culture, and their language; mobilizing people for civil disobedience, notably exhorting people to refuse to grow cotton and to be forcefully removed from their lands; and sending Mozambican youths to Tanzania to join FRELIMO. The book is an appeal for the healing of wounds and for a genuine reconciliation among the Mozambican family, which necessarily entails the FRELIMO government revealing where Father Gwenjere and other nationalists, notably: Rev. Uria Simango, Paulo Gumane, Lázaro Nkavandame, Dr. Joana Simeão, and many others, were executed and buried so that their relatives can accord them a suitable burial.