“The Bishop Is Governor Here”: Bishop Nicholas Djomo and Catholic Leadership in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Abstract

After a century of colonial rule, political instability, dictatorship, and war, the Congolese people eagerly anticipated the 2006 parliamentary and presidential elections. Although the eastern Kivu districts remained embroiled in conflict, a modicum of peace and stability had returned to much of the rest of the country after the 2002 signing of the Sun City Accords. The 2006 elections signified the incipient return of democratic institutions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after a 35-year interlude, offering a ray of hope amidst the overall gloom of the post-Mobutu era.

I am grateful to the George F. Haddix Presidential Research Fund, Creighton University, for providing generous financial support that enabled me to pursue field research for this essay. Personal interviews were conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda in January 2013. Mgr. Djomo also generously shared many of his previous pastoral letters as well as recent pastoral letters from the Congolese bishops’ conference. A previous version of this essay was delivered at the annual conference of the African Studies Association, Baltimore, MD, in November 2013. I am grateful to my interlocutors at this conference for their feedback.