After the war, this independence movement grew in strength. And as the numbers of local clergy and sisters increased, there arose a corresponding feeling in the local Churches, a feeling that they were becoming capable of running their own affairs. The new situation called for a new mentality from the missionaries: they would have to free themselves from the support and constraints that the colonial system had brought them, and announce the Good News stripped of any western cultural dressing.

The right of every nation to life and independence

In December 1939, four months after the outbreak of war, Pius XII delivered his Christmas message, stressing the right of every nation to life and independence:

"For there to be a just and honourable peace, all must accept the fundamental principle of the right to life and independence of all nations large and small, strong and weak. The desire for life of one nation must never result in a sentence of death for another. When this equality of rights has been ignored, destroyed or put in danger, juridical order demands a restoration in which the size and extent are not determined by the sword or by arbitrary egoism, but by the norms of justice and reciprocal equity".

Such rights were not limited to the European countries that were locked in struggle: they applied equally to the African countries which were living under a foreign colonial regime.

In December 1953, in the wake of an insurrection in Madagascar, the bishops of that country stressed the legitimacy of the desire for independence. The Church was distancing itself from the colonial government, as was also the case in Tanganyka, when the bishops there wrote in a letter of July 11, 1953:

"The Africans are seeing themselves more clearly in the light of Revelation, and are becoming ever more confident of their human dignity...Those who have benefited from education are asking ever more insistently for an active part in the development and running of their own country. Nobody rejoices more than the Church in this development. She has never spared her efforts to bring to Africa all that is best in Christian civilisation. The years to come could be hard and full of anxiety, so our feelings are a mixture of fear and solid hope.".

The colonial political system was coming to an end, having lasted for three quarters of a century, According to Joseph Michel, a spiritan writer, "However legitimate it may have been in its origins or honest in its practice, the inevitable and natural outcome for colonisation is de-colonisation".

During the sixties, the history of the
Congregation was marked by a series of sad events:

On January 1, 1962, twenty Spiritans, eighteen of whom were Belgians, were massacred at Kongolo. They were killed not because of their nationality but because of their faith. Two other priests, some sisters and junior seminarians, all Africans who had witnessed the killings, were to be killed themselves in the afternoon of the same day. It was only the arrival of a senior officer that prevented a second slaughter.

The Kongolo Memorial at Gentinnes , Belgium : "The missionary offering his life" (sculpture by R. Mailleux)

Guinea became independent from France in October, 1958. A one-party system was created which took over all formation of young people. From March 1959, the scouts, YCW, and many other groups were replaced by government-sponsored youth organisations. The schools were nationalised in 1960. Because of his protestations, the Spiritan Bishop of Conakry, Mgr. Gérard de Milleville, was expelled from the country in the following year. A year later, Mgr. Tchdimbo was named the first Guinean Archbishop of Conakry. Then on May 1, 1967, President Sékou Touré made a totally unexpected announcement:

"We once again express our wish to see the Africanisation of all the Christian Churches in Guinea...All Churches, both Catholic and Protestant, must be Africanised by June 1. In this way those spying against the sovereignty of Guinea will realise that our country is determined to bring its revolution to completion. Our desire to Africanise the clergy in Guinea, first announced in 1961, was partially fulfilled in 1962 by the appointment as Archbishop of Conakry of our brother, Mgr. Raymond Marie Tchidimbo. But since that date, the number of priests and religious from abroad, both Catholic and Protestant, has continued to increase, as if the Africans were incapable, with their lay compatriots, of running the Church in Guinea themselves. So we now fix June 1, 1967, as the deadline for total Africanisation of the Catholic and Protestant Churches".

At the end of May, three planes flew out of Conakry with 163 expatriate missionaries on board, including 64 sisters. The mission continued under Mgr. Tchidimbo, a Spiritan, with 8 local priests and 12 sisters. On June 1, 13 French-speaking African priests arrived to help the Church of Guinea.