“Bombard the Parishes!” Cardinal Joseph Malula, Vatican II, and the Development of the Communautés Ecclesiales Vivantes du Base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The proposed paper examines the origins, theological vision, and historical development of the communautés ecclesiales vivantes du base (CEVBs), the grassroots Christian communities that have comprised the foundation of the Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the 1970s. Growing out of a 1961 pastoral plan as well as the visionary leadership of Joseph Cardinal Malula of Kinshasa, CEVBs became the primary lay experience of church in both rural and urban DRC. Malula himself was a participant in Vatican II, and the paper will explore how Lumen Gentium’s ecclesiologies of “communion” and “people of God” were exemplified in the CEVB movement, while also considering how CEVBs embodied the Congolese church’s efforts to indigenize and decolonize. Committed to a baptismal vision that “all are responsible for the Church,” Malula also empowered new lay catechists and administrators such as Moyankeli and Mokambi, as well as the “Mamans Catholiques,” women’s groups that have played critical social roles in recent Congolese history. Building from secondary and primary texts as well as recent field research in DRC, the paper aims to expand knowledge of the post-Vatican II base community movement beyond the Latin American context.