Inculturation in the Teachings of the Popes

The recent popes have been emphasizing inculturation because it makes us faithful to Jesus Christ who became man in a specific culture and who wants to be incarnate in specific cultures around the world. Inculturation, says Pope Francis, is evangelization. 

IMPORTANCE, NECESSITY AND URGENCY

• Importance of understanding evangelization as inculturation. (Francis)

• An uninculturated faith is not authentic. (Francis)

• Inculturation is "a necessary process" that "rejects nothing of the goodness that already exists in cultures, but brings it to fulfilment in the light of the Gospel." (Francis)

• Today inculturation is particularly urgent. (John Paul II)

• Evangelization and inculturation constitute an inseparable pair, both elements of which must be present if the Gospel of Christ is truly to become incarnate in the lives of people of every race, nation, tribe and language. (Benedict XVI)

BASIS: EXAMPLE OF JESUS

• The Church…must implant herself into these groups for the same motive which led Christ to bind Himself, in virtue of His Incarnation, to certain social and cultural conditions of those human beings among whom He dwelt. (Paul VI)

MEANING AND EFFECTIVENESS

• Inculturation "means the intimate transformation of authentic cultural values through their integration in Christianity and the insertion of Christianity in the various cultures.”

• The Church transmits to them her own values, at the same time taking the good elements that already exist in them and renewing them from within. 

• Through inculturation the Church, for her part, becomes a more intelligible sign of what she is, and a more effective instrument of mission. (John Paul II)

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

• Inculturation must be guided by two principles: "compatibility with the gospel and communion with the universal Church.”

• A deeply balanced approach is required. (John Paul II)

• Heal culture and avoid overestimating culture. There is a risk of passing uncritically from a form of alienation from culture to an overestimation of culture. Since culture is a human creation and is therefore marked by sin, it too needs to be "healed, ennobled and perfected.” (Francis)

• Not forced. Inculturation needs to be guided and encouraged, but not forced, lest it give rise to negative reactions among Christians. It must be an expression of the community's life. (John Paul II)

• Respect for customs. Enter into the life of the people of faith, enter with a respect for their customs, their traditions, seeking to carry out the mission of inculturating the faith and of evangelizing the culture. (Francis)

• Evangelize culture and encourage the good. It is imperative to evangelize cultures in order to inculturate the Gospel. In countries of Catholic tradition, this means encouraging, fostering and reinforcing a richness which already exists.

• Take up the positive values of each culture.  Every culture offers positive values and forms which can enrich the way the Gospel is preached, understood and lived. 

• Heal specific deficiencies. In the case of the popular cultures of Catholic peoples, we can see deficiencies which need to be healed by the Gospel: machismo, alcoholism, domestic violence, low Mass attendance, fatalistic or superstitious notions which lead to sorcery, and the like. (Francis)

POPULAR PIETY

• Popular piety is “a precious treasure of the Catholic Church”, in which “we see the soul of the Latin American peoples. (Benedict XVI)

• Approach popular piety with the gaze of the Good Shepherd, who seeks not to judge but to love. Only from the affective connaturality born of love can we appreciate the theological life present in the piety of Christian peoples, especially among their poor. (Francis)

• Popular piety “manifests a thirst for God which only the poor and the simple can know” and that “it makes people capable of generosity and sacrifice even to the point of heroism, when it is a question of bearing witness to belief.” (Paul VI)

• Importance of understanding evangelization as inculturation. Each portion of the people of God, by translating the gift of God into its own life and in accordance with its own genius, bears witness to the faith it has received and enriches it with new and eloquent expressions. One can say that “a people continuously evangelizes itself”. Herein lies the importance of popular piety, a true expression of the spontaneous missionary activity of the people of God. This is an ongoing and developing process, of which the Holy Spirit is the principal agent. 

• Underlying popular piety, as a fruit of the inculturated Gospel, is an active evangelizing power which we must not underestimate: to do so would be to fail to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit. Instead, we are called to promote and strengthen it, in order to deepen the never-ending process of inculturation. Expressions of popular piety have much to teach us; for those who are capable of reading them, they are a locus theologicus which demands our attention, especially at a time when we are looking to the new evangelization. (Francis)

INCULTURATED PREACHING AND CATECHESIS

• The challenge of an inculturated preaching consists in proclaiming a synthesis, not ideas or detached values. Where your synthesis is, there lies your heart. The difference between enlightening people with a synthesis and doing so with detached ideas is like the difference between boredom and heartfelt fervour. The preacher has the wonderful but difficult task of joining loving hearts, the hearts of the Lord and his people.

• The Church’s history is a history of salvation, to be mindful of those saints who inculturated the Gospel in the life of our peoples. (Francis)