Scene 3
VII - mãe preta
/ I've always been a big churchgoer, ever since my grandparents, my parents and I grew up in church. So every Sunday I went to Mass and I still go to Mass today. I used to go to Immaculada and then I started going to Achiropita. After I got married, I continued to go, but I didn't know many people. And one day I was in church, and after Mass a lady came up to me and said: The priest wants to talk to us.
So I went with her, right? Then she got there and said: Hey, Father Toninho, I've brought a girl here. Then he said: Wow, that's great, Mrs. Geni. Now you're going to invite people here so we can talk. Then I said, talk about what? Then he said, well, I want to have a chat with the black people here. But it's okay if white people want to come too, but they'll just have to listen to black people, we'll talk about black people here; so the following Sunday I took my family, of course, and a girlfriend who was very close; and Aunt Geni already took about 10 people. The following Sunday she invited more people, what I know is that every Sunday the cake grew.
And then he said, “So, here I want to set up a pastoral for black people, to talk about black people,” and over time he worked with us, saying what he wanted, what this pastoral would be like: because I want to bring an enculturated Mass here. And then, in order to do that, we needed to study, we needed to know how we were going to bring this celebration into this church, in a church that is totally Italian.
So, in fact, we have a huge hall where the feast takes place and he did the training there. So the Mass was on the floor, there was a tablecloth, so it was with sourdough bread and wine juice and everything was shared. And he went on to say: look, we're going to bring the elements, we're going to have the music, we're going to have the dance, we're going to have the atabaque, we're going to have the vestments, we're going to have the incense, we're going to have the food, which is the offertory.
How are we going to work with this? And then he started rehearsing. And when the Italians passed by, they were all like, what is going on here? There are so many black people here in the church now. He said: I want to bring my people into the church. I don't know how, but I want to.
Why? Because Father Toninho used to walk around the neighborhood a lot. He saw black people walking down the street, but where are the black people inside the church? I celebrate in the Roman way inside the church, but I also went on a mission to Africa. I learned how to celebrate inculturated Masses. Here the Mass is one hour, there the Mass, they want it to be three hours long, they stay, they finish, they dance and dance, and they eat and eat. He said, people, this is what I want here, for my people.
Because, in fact, at Achiropita, at the masses... the Italians built the church, of course, but the pews bore the name of the person who donated the pews. So the blacks didn't sit, they stood at the back of the church when they went. Today the pews have been changed, but the column of the church still has the plaque of the person who donated to build the church. So he said, no, I want to change that, because we're here to work, to change, to bring our culture, our origins into the church.
And so we worked and worked, now we're all aware of what we're going to do, you're ready and now we're going to have a mass inside the church. Then the script was drawn up. Who's going to come in with this, that, training that had already been done, the singing people. Listening to the cries of my people was the first Mass, which took place in Praça da Sé. The celebrant was Bishop Paulo Evaristo. Then ours started here, right? Because the Afro pastoral began there. Now we're going to start here. And then the first mass was held there, which horrified the Italians. There were two masses, St. Benedict and the Black Mother. St. Benedict of the religious tradition, St. Benedict of the culture, right? Of the blacks themselves, especially the Congada people; there was even a Congada of São Benedito, from Cotia too, that came here every year, ever since Father Toninho. And the black mother, what is the black mother? It's Our Lady Aparecida, and she's the black mother who often stopped feeding her children to feed the Lord's children. She is the mother of the slave quarters.
And then, the first year of Saint Benedict. Wow, but everyone was an artist, black artists all came to Mass. Because Father Toninho was a professor, a theologian, an anthropologist, he taught at USP, you can imagine. The church was packed. And when the Italians saw many of them, they left the church. But one day, Father Toninho finished the celebration, everyone sat down and he said: “So, I'm very sad about my community, because they signed a petition to get me and my black people out of here.
Look, we're not here to share with you. We're here to work with you. We're here to celebrate life, celebrate memory, celebrate victory and tell our story.