D. Alexandre Nascimento: um sacerdote católico angolano na transição do colonialismo português para a independência de Angola

D. Alexandre Nascimento (1925-), Bishop of Malanje (1975), Metropolitan Archbishop of Lubango (1977), Cardinal (1983), Archbishop of Luanda (1986-2001), is analyzed in the double perspective of understanding the dynamics of the relations between the State and the Catholic Church in the colonial period, the transition to independence and the first years of independence, as well as the agency of a personality involved in the transformation of these relations. Witness of his time, D. Alexandre Nascimento was also a religious and social agent, generally discreet, whose action, of contours still little studied, is addressed in this article. His sympathy for Angolan nationalism formed in the late 1950s, arises from the awareness of the social injustices of Portuguese colonialism and leads him to establish contacts with Angolan nationalists, and with Portuguese Catholic opponents to the Estado Novo, during the period of exile in the metropolis, between 1961 and 1970. His image as a critic of Portuguese colonialism gives him recognition among Angolan nationalists that allows him, during the period of transition to independence, to have a margin of maneuver to establish mediations between the Catholic Church and the political power, between the Catholic hierarchy and the priests most identified with the revolutionary vanguard, which other elements of the episcopate do not have. In the early years of independence, he asserted himself as a defender of the institutional autonomy of the Catholic Church and human rights in Angola.