Church-State Relations in Cameroon’s Postcolony: The Case of the Roman Catholic Church

Abstract

The socio-political role of mainline Christian churches in the Africanpostcolony tends to be more complex than a number of pessimistic andoptimistic scholars originally assumed. There is growing evidence that therelations between church leaders and the authoritarian and corrupt elites,who seek to exercise hegemony in the African postcolonial states, cannotsimply be reduced to either cooperation or conflict. This study of therelations between the Roman Catholic Church and the postcolonial statein Cameroon provides proof of a remarkable shift from relative harmonyin the one-party era to frequent conflicts in the current political liberalisationera. And, even more significantly, it shows that church leaders failed tocome to a united stand on socio-political issues in both periods due notonly to personal rivalries but also to various ethno-regional cleavages.

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