Religious Coexistence Challenges Parties for Dialogue: Catholic Christianity and the Traditional Tsonga-Changana Religion in Building a Humanized and Just Society in Southern Mozambique

Abstract

This dissertation, using bibliographical analysis, presents a description of the Tsonga-Changana Traditional Religion and Catholic Christianity implanted in southern Mozambique; a territory particularly marked by social injustice against women and children. In the past, religious affiliation served to stimulate and justify wars, homicides, and cruelties. To eradicate this inhumane attitude within the religious phenomenon, in the second half of the twentieth century, some Christian authors pondered the culture of Interreligious Dialogue. In this context, in the face of interreligious coexistence and the conditions of social injustice prevailing in Tsonga-Changana society, this research examines the possibility of the interreligious dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Tsonga-Changana Traditional Religion - on the ethical contribution to the improvement of their identities and actions. To this purpose, this dissertation presents the following structure: description of the two traditions, analysis of the Interreligious Dialogue and an examination of the ethical level of the Interreligious Dialogue.