31. On the Instruction of the Caste of Men Commonly Called *Mangiò*

"There are in the town of Kafa certain men of the most abject lot or caste, commonly called Mangiò, in Abyssinia commonly named Woito. These are judged not only themselves to be unclean, but also to communicate uncleanness to the persons with whom they deal, and to the things which perhaps they handle. It has not yet been begun to instruct the same concerning the Christian Religion; because, if a missionary should associate with them, he too would become unclean, and no one would any longer speak to him; besides this, that if even once some Mangiò should enter a church, it would immediately be held as unclean. Wherefore it is asked:

1. Whether the mentioned difficulties furnish a sufficient motive, so that the missionary should not seek to instruct this caste? - 2. Whether, in the case in which some man of this caste should ask instruction spontaneously from the missionary, he can deny himself to such a ministry? - 3. A certain family of this caste is under the dominion of the Mission, and serves it. Would the missionary sin, if on account of the aforesaid difficulties he omitted to instruct that family?

R. The Catholic Church, in the dispensation of the ministries of God, not only never distinguished anything between rich and poor, between nobles and the abject, but also has always embraced the poor and the abject with a certain, as it were, peculiar charity and maternal solicitude; who, as manifest experience testifies, are accustomed more easily to approach the faith than the nobles and rich of the world. For the Church imitates Jesus Christ Our Lord, with whom there is no respect of persons, and who said that he had been sent to evangelize the poor, and ate with publicans and sinners, although the Pharisees took most unjust scandal from this. Therefore, as regards the three petitions, there must in no way be doubt that missionaries, according to their office, ought also to labor most diligently, as much as they can, for the instruction and conversion of men called Mangiò; and much more if the Mangiò themselves, moved by divine grace, ask to be instructed, or, having undertaken the rightful service of the missionaries, have become their domestics. Nor is it only illicit, for the reasons brought forward, to abstain entirely from instructing the Mangiò, but also lest the missionaries seem by their authority to confirm a superstitious custom, probably effected from Jewish traditions, namely of fleeing the contact of men of the Mangiò, indeed, of having no communication with those touching them; which custom indeed, so greatly opposed to Christian charity and right reason, missionaries should strive with all diligence utterly to extirpate. Meanwhile, however, so that provision may be made as quickly as possible for eternal salvation, the Eminent Fathers judged that one of the missionaries must be deputed without delay for their spiritual care. Christians, however, who observe that custom, can be admitted to the sacraments, provided that they do this solely lest they be separated from the commerce of the other citizens, and not of their own accord and from the erroneous opinion that the men of the Mangiò are unclean, and communicate stain and uncleanness, even by touch alone, to the persons with whom they deal or associate, to the things which they use, and to the churches themselves into which they enter. For this opinion is in no way to be tolerated in a Catholic man, after God showed Blessed Peter that no man is to be called common or unclean." Holy Office, 20 June 1866, Vicar Apostolic of Gallas.