Religion: Bouloumboulou

• Share

A melancholy chant, full of the flavor of steaming rivers and hot forests, floated from the choir as the priest began the Mass. Suddenly, like the rumbling of a far-off storm, a drum joined in. "Ezè sè kènzapa," they prayed together. "We implore you, Our Lord . . ."

Thus went the "Congo Canoemen's Mass." Its drumbeat did not seem out of place to the natives who crowded the mission church of St. Anne in Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa. The church's curving Gothic arch resembled the silhouette of an outsized mud hut, and its lofty vaults and arches were modeled after palm trees. The altar was made of two rough boulders topped by a monolith and the simple carved benches resembled witch doctors' ritual chairs. With its glassless windows admitting light and air and its roof covered with brilliant emerald tiles, the church seemed like a cool spot in the jungle.

Hardly less extraordinary than the service or the church is the man largely responsible for them both, 40-year-old Father Paul Bureth. St. Anne's financial angel and a first-rank showman.

Also a Five-Ton Truck. An outspoken, hardheaded Alsatian who fought as a private in the French army in World War II, Father Bureth was first assigned to Brazzaville in 1945, was back in France within a few months with heart trouble and a doctor's warning that the tropics were not for him. But St. Anne's (started as a memorial to French soldiers) needed money, and Father Bureth organized some unemployed Africans in France into a song-and-dance group. He took them on a triumphal tour of the country, and francs rolled into the church-building fund. Between shows. Father Bureth taught French church choirs the Canoemen's Mass (written especially for St. Anne's by a French musicologist) and personally played the drums. He had to turn down an offer to put on an African floor show in a California nightspot.

By 1952 everybody, including Father Bureth, had forgotten that the tropics were bad for him. Sent back to Brazzaville (pop. 84,000) by his superiors in the Congregation of the Holy Ghost to supervise construction of the church, he tirelessly wheedled free building materials, organized a native concert and mammoth fairs to raise more money. To the natives, he became known as "Bouloumboulou." or "Assassin," a humorous reference to his driving energy and the awe in which he is held. His anger can indeed be awe-inspiring. Once, when he discovered that a native was being slowly poisoned by an uncle who wanted his property. Father Bureth broke into the man's hut, threatened to flatten both uncle and hut with his five-ton truck. The poisoning process stopped.

Also a Spire. Thanks to Father Bureth, St. Anne's is slowly nearing completion (cost so far: 96 million francs, or $274,-285). has already become an active center of worship for its 8,000 native and several hundred European parishioners. Next major step: construction of a 265-foot spire to crown the edifice.