Mr. Foday Kamara: Muslim and Catechist

Fr. Louis Birabaluge, SX is a Xaverian Missionary who works in Sierra Leone, West Africa, where the predominant religious faith is Islam. Our relationship with our Muslim friends is very good and we collaborate on many things. Here is a very interesting story of interfaith collaboration. 

Since 1965, the Catholic Church has recognized the dialogue with people from other religions as part of Christian mission. Thus, the Catholic Church has rediscovered itself as conversation (Pope Paul VI, Ecclesiam suam, n°67). It has invited all Catholic Christians to be ever aware of their duty to foster unity and charity among individuals and even among nations, whenever they are living in dialogue.

This main task has been carried on successfully by the Catholic Church with other religions, mainly with Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, in different ways. There have been many initiatives, based on a faith in One God, Creator of all people and in their common sharing of human destiny: religious leaders’ meetings, common understanding, theological studies, acts of charity, common search for peace and justice…

While all religions are grateful to what has been done and commit themselves to continue the dialogue for the good of our divided world, some new questions have emerged especially due to the increase of violence and murder for “religious reasons”. The increasing number of crimes committed by the so-called Islamic State, Boko Haram in Nigeria and El Shebab in Somalia are now certainly shaking the conscience of many people, even those who do not belong to any religion.

Undoubtedly politics, economics and other factors play an important role in the violence and the murders. Thus, it’s unfair to refer only to religious reasons in order to justify this inhumane scandal. In his book: The myth of interreligious violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, Oxford University press, 2009, William T. Cavanaugh, an American Christian writer, has shown, with strong arguments, that in the spread of the present violence, without excluding completely religious reasons, it’s not wrong to consider religious causes as pretexts. According to him, the true reasons are to be found within political and economical motives.

But, as many extremists and killers claim their religious identity – Boko Haram and El Shebab members for example call themselves “Islamic groups”, there is a need today to question the ability of religions and their diverse followers to be factors of peace, unity and reconciliation among people. Therefore, the purpose of interreligious dialogue should be redefined. New ways of witnessing to One God in whom all believers worship have to be explored.

Can Muslims and Christians join together to defend Christian minority when they are persecuted by extremist religious groups? Can Christians and Jews work together to defend and protect the rights of Muslim minority groups, in countries where their religious freedom are denied? We cannot avoid these questions nowadays. In a world where people are being killed or discriminated because of their religious identity, interreligious dialogue can no longer remain politically neutral or a mere consensus to avoid conflicts. If this was the case, all the efforts of so many years of dialogue and mutual understanding among believers should be considered useless.

Beyond words and academic discussions, it’s necessary today to identify and imagine concrete signs of promotion and protection of minority religious groups. That’s why the case of Mr. Foday Kamara, is a precious pearl. It has to be kept and to be made known. In my view, F. Kamara is a true example of interreligious dialogue, in true deeds, in the sense of encouraging religious diversity and supporting religious minority group.

Who is Mr. F. Kamara? He is a headmaster of the Roman Catholic (RC) primary school of Walia, Mongo Parish, Makeni Diocese in Sierra Leone and is a Muslim, by faith. While, I was visiting his school, I was taken by surprise because he introduced himself as a headmaster, a Muslim and a catechist. The word “Catechist” refers to someone who teaches Christian doctrine or helps non-Christians to understand and discover the Christian faith.

Naturally, I was curious to know how a Muslim can be involved in catechism in the sense of promoting the Christian faith. His answer was: “I believe we need Christians in our Muslim dominated village. A Christian presence may help us to understand that there are other religions in the world, other ways of worshiping God. That’s why I decided to help children who want to be Christians”.

Therefore by teaching catechism, Mr. Kamara is promoting Christianity in his Muslim village. One may ask “how is it possible to teach Christian doctrine without being Christian?” It’s true that for the Catholic Church, catechists are not people transmitting an external doctrine which they do not believe themselves. They are supposed to believe what they teach. For our Muslim catechist, this is not the case. He is just helping children to know and understand a little bit what Christian doctrine is. Among the new catechumens of Walia, the village of Mr. Kamara, there are two of his children. To teach catechism, he uses the materials provided by the Parish Priest, who is first the one responsible for catechism in the school. However when he is absent, Mr. Kamara always takes over. Some Sundays, when the Parish Priest comes for the Service of the Word of God and for prayer, Mr. Kamara always helps him to gather the catechumens together.

In a village where there are no Christian adults, the help of someone like Mr. Kamara is crucially important and his religious identity doesn’t necessarily matter. Whether a Muslim can be a catechist is a question for another time. We can just praise his openness and good will. He helps to understand one main purpose of interreligious dialogue -not to convince other religious partners to change their own faith, but in common understanding, to help each other to stand firm in one’s own faith, to worship truly the of God his faith and to be a witness of God’s love among people.

This is also the conviction of Mr. Kamara. In our conversation, I asked him if in teaching catechism he was not changing his faith and becoming Christian. He answered me saying: “I do not need to become Christian. If I do not love properly my neighbours, it’s not because I am Muslim. It’s because I do not practise what my Muslim faith teaches me. Had I been a true witness of One God in whom I believe and worship, a true Muslim, I would surely have been better than what I am today”.

Living in diverse cultural contexts, missionaries have helped the Catholic Church to be more aware of the challenge of interreligious dialogue and to take it seriously. By their encounter with people of other faith, they have helped Christians to better understand other believers and urge other Christians not to reject anything of what is true and holy in other religions. (Vatican II, Nostra Aetate, n°2). Missionaries have to carry on this task, with zeal and with conviction.

In the midst of the many shameful bad news coming from countries like Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Kenya…because of violence based somehow on religion, the case of Mr. Foday Kamara, Muslim and catechist, is indeed a small piece of good news from Sierra Leone, where religion is no longer a cause of conflict. He reminds us that religious diversity is not always a factor of division and violence. The faith of other believers is a gift given to all to deepen their own faith and to live it truly.