Catholic missionary ideology itself framed Africans as brute animals needing civilizing

Evidence

It is quite telling that Hegel would rely on missionary accounts to legitimize his Eurocentric perception of African alterity. Most importantly, missionaries were not an exception in their perception of Africa, as the case of Pope Leo XIII shows. In his January 8, 1889, “Bref” to Van Aertselaer, the Superior General of the Order of “Coeur Immaculé de Marie” (Scheut-les-Bruxelles), the Pope exhorted the missionaries to bring the “savage people of black Africa” to the light of the Gospel, politeness and Christian civilization. The Pope states explicitly that these barbaric African tribes live at the level of brute animals and should be helped to rise to the freedom of the children of God. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 675

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the later analysis of Tempels as a missionary embedded in this Catholic civilizing project — his stance toward it is the book’s central tension. — connects to: Anti-African supremacist rhetoric was amplified through missionary channels — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 40