Finding a Social Voice: The Church and Marxism in Africa

Marxist ideas spread widely across sub-Saharan Africa from the late 1960s into the mid-1980s. The Catholic Church saw this influence as a threat to its mission, and its pastoral work was shaped by the need to answer it. When Marxist political dominance weakened in the late 1980s, the influence faded sharply, but the encounter had left its mark on both church and state history.

Joseph C. McKenna records and analyses the main elements of that encounter. He examines how postcolonial regimes with varying degrees of Marxist influence dealt with the Church, and how the Church grew through its response. The book contributes to the study of church and state relations in contemporary Africa and will interest historians, political scientists and scholars of religion.

Published by Fordham University Press. ISBN-13: 9780823217137.