Faith and inculturation-en


Faith and inculturation-en

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INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION
FAITH AND INCULTURATION
(1988)
INTRODUCTION
1. The International Theological Commission has had, on several
occasions, the opportunity to reflect on the relationship between faith and
culture.1 In 1984 it spoke directly on the inculturation of faith in its study
on the mystery of the Church, which it produced with a view to the
extraordinary synod of 1985.2 For its part, the Pontifical Biblical
Commission held its 1979 plenary session on the theme of the
inculturation of faith in the light of Scripture.3
2. Today the International Theological Commission intends to continue
this reflection in a more profound and systematic manner on account of
the importance assumed by this theme of the inculturation of faith
throughout the Christian world and on account of the insistence with
which the Church's magisterium has considered this theme since the
Second Vatican Council.
3. The basis is furnished by the Conciliar documents and by the synod
papers which have continued them. Thus, in the constitution Gaudium et
spes, the council has shown what lessons and what tasks the Church has
drawn from its first experiences of inculturation in the Greco-Roman
world.4 It then devoted an entire chapter of this document to the
promotion of culture ("De culturae progressu rite promovendo").5 After
describing culture as an effort toward a deeper humanity and toward a
better plan for the universe, the council considered at length the
relationships between culture and the message of salvation. It then
enunciated some of the more urgent duties of Christians regarding culture:
defense of the right of all to a culture, promotion of an integral culture and
harmonization of the links between culture and Christianity. The Decree
on the Church's Missionary Activity and the Declaration on Non-Christian
Religions develop some of these positions. Two ordinary synods expressly
treated the evangelization of cultures, that of 1974, on the theme of
evangelization,6 and that of 1977, on catechetical formation.7 The 1985
synod, which celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the closing of the
Second Vatican Council, spoke of inculturation as "the intimate
transformation of authentic cultural values through their integration in
Christianity in the various human cultures".8
4. Pope John Paul II himself has taken to heart in a special manner the
evangelization of cultures: In his view, the dialogue of the Church and of

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cultures assumes a vital importance for the future of the Church and of the
world. To assist him in this great work, the Holy Father has created a
specialized curial body: the Pontifical Council for Culture.9 It is moreover
with this Dicastery that the International Theological Commission is
happily in a position to reflect today on the inculturation of faith.
5. Relying on the conviction that "the incarnation of the Word was also a
cultural incarnation", the pope affirms that cultures, analogically
comparable to the humanity of Christ in whatever good they possess, may
play a positive role of mediation in the expression and extension of the
Christian faith.10
6. Two essential themes are bound up with this view. First, that of the
transcendence of revelation in relation to the cultures in which it finds
expression. The Word of God cannot, in effect, be identified or linked in
an exclusive manner with the elements of culture which bear it. The
Gospel quite often demands a conversion of attitudes and an amendment
of customs where it establishes itself: Cultures must also be purified and
restored in Christ.
7. The second major theme of the teaching of John Paul II revolves around
the urgency of the evangelization of cultures. This task presupposes that
one would understand and penetrate with a critical sympathy particular
cultural identities and that, in the interest of a universality corresponding
to the truly human reality of all cultures, one would favor exchanges
between them. The Holy Father thus bases the evangelization of cultures
on an anthropological conception firmly rooted in Christian thought since
the fathers of the Church. Since culture, when pure, reveals and
strengthens the nature of man, the Christian impregnation presupposes the
surpassing of all historicism and relativism in the conception of what is
human. The evangelization of cultures should therefore be inspired by the
love of man in himself and for himself, especially in those aspects of his
being and of his culture which are being attacked or are under threat.11
8. In the light of this teaching, and also of the reflection which the theme
of the inculturation of faith has aroused in the Church, we first propose a
Christian anthropology which situates, one in relation to the other, nature,
culture and grace. We shall then see the process of inculturation at work in
the history of salvation: in ancient Israel, in the life and work of Jesus and
in the early Church. A final section will treat problems at present posed to
faith by its encounter with popular piety, with non-Christian religions,
with the cultural traditions in the young Churches and finally with the
various characteristics of modernity.
I. NATURE, CULTURE AND GRACE
1. Anthropologists readily return to describe or define culture in terms of
the distinction, sometimes even opposition, between nature and culture.
The significance of this word nature varies moreover with the different
conceptions of the natural sciences, of philosophy and of theology. The
magisterium understands this word in a very specific sense: The nature of
a being is what constitutes it as such, with the dynamism of its tendencies

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toward its proper sends. It is from God that natures possess what they are,
as well as their proper ends. They are from that moment impregnated with
a significance in which man, as the image of God, is capable of discerning
the "creating hand of God".12
2. The fundamental inclinations of human nature, expressed by natural
law, appear therefore as an expression of the will of the Creator. This
natural law declares the specific requirements of human nature,
requirements which are significative of the design of God for his rational
and free creature. Thus all that misunderstanding is avoided which,
perceiving nature in a univocal sense, would reduce man to material
nature.
3. It is appropriate, at the same time, to consider human nature according
to its unfolding in historical time: that is, to observe what man, endowed
with a fallible liberty and often subjected to his passions, has made of his
humanity. This heritage transmitted to new generations includes
simultaneously immense treasures of wisdom, art and generosity, and a
considerable share of deviations and perversions. Attention therefore, as a
whole, revolves around human nature and the human condition, an
expression which integrates existential elements, of which certain ones—
sin and grace—affect the history of salvation. If, therefore, we use the
word culture in a primarily positive sense—as a synonym of development,
for example—as have Vatican II and the recent popes, we will not forget
that cultures can perpetuate and favor the choice of pride and selfishness.
4. Culture consists in the extension of the requirements of human nature,
as the accomplishment of its end, as is especially taught in the constitution
Gaudium et spes: "Man comes to a true and full humanity only through
culture, that is through the cultivation of the goods and values of nature….
The word 'culture' in its general sense indicates everything whereby man
develops and perfects his many bodily and spiritual qualities." Thus the
domain of culture is multiple: "He strives by his knowledge and his labor,
to bring the world itself under his control. He renders social life more
human both in the family and the civic community, through improvement
of customs and institutions. Throughout the course of time he expresses,
communicates and conserves in his works, great spiritual experiences and
desires, that they might be of advantage to the progress of many, even of
the whole human family"13
5. The primary constituent of culture is the human person, considered in
all aspects of his being. Man betters himself—this is the first end of all
culture—but he does so thanks to the works of culture and thanks to a
cultural memory Culture also still designates the milieu in which and on
account of which persons may grow.
6. The human person is a community being who blossoms in giving and in
receiving. It is thus in solidarity with others and across living social
relationships that the person progresses. Also, those realities of nation,
people, society, with their cultural patrimony, constitute for the
development of persons a "definite, historical milieu which enfolds the
man of every nation and age and from which he draws the values which

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permit him to promote civilization."14
7. Culture, which is always a concrete and particular culture, is open to the
higher values common to all. Thus the originality of a culture does not
signify withdrawal into itself but a contribution to the richness which is
the good of all. Cultural pluralism cannot therefore be interpreted as the
juxtaposition of a closed universe, but as participation in a unison of
realities all directed toward the universal values of humanity. The
phenomenon of the reciprocal penetration of cultures, frequent in history,
illustrates this fundamental openness of particular cultures to the values
common to all, and through this their openness one to another.
8. Man is a naturally religious being. The turning toward the absolute is
inscribed in his deepest being. In a general sense, religion is an integral
constituent of culture, in which it takes root and blossoms. Moreover, all
the great cultures include, as the keystone of the edifice they constitute,
the religious dimension, the inspiration of the great achievements which
have marked the ancient history of civilizations.
9. At the root of the great religions is the transcendent movement of man
in search of God. Purified of its deviations and disagreeable aspects, this
movement should be the object of sincere respect. It is on this that the
Christian faith comes to engraft itself. What distinguishes the Christian
faith is that it is free adherence to the proposition of the gratuitous love of
God which has been revealed to us, which has given us his only Son to
free us from sin and has poured out his Spirit in our hearts. The radical
reality of Christianity lies in the gift that God makes of himself to
humanity, facing all the aspirations, requests, conquests and achievements
of nature.
10. Therefore, because it transcends the entire natural and cultural order,
the Christian faith is, on the one hand, compatible with all cultures insofar
as they conform to right reason and good will, and, on the other hand, to
an eminent degree, a dynamizing factor of culture. A single principle
explains the totality of relationships between faith and culture: Grace
respects nature, healing in it the wounds of sin, comforting and elevating
it. Elevation to the divine life is the specific finality of grace, but it cannot
realize this unless nature is healed and unless elevation to the supernatural
order brings nature, in the way proper to itself, to the plenitude of
perfection.
11. The process of inculturation may be defined as the Church's efforts to
make the message of Christ penetrate a given sociocultural milieu, calling
on the latter to grow according to all its particular values, as long as these
are compatible with the Gospel. The term inculturation includes the notion
of growth, of the mutual enrichment of persons and groups, rendered
possible by the encounter of the Gospel with a social milieu.
"Inculturation [is] the incarnation of the Gospel in native cultures and also
the introduction of these cultures into the life of the Church."15
II. INCULTURATION IN THE HISTORY OF SALVATION

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1. The relationships between nature, culture and grace shall be considered
in the concrete history of the covenant between God and humanity that
began with a particular people, culminated in a son of this people, who is
also Son of God, and extending from him to all the nations of the earth,
this history demonstrates the "marvelous 'condescension' of eternal
wisdom".16
Israel, the People of the Covenant
2. Israel understood itself as formed in an immediate manner by God. And
the Old Testament, the Bible of ancient Israel, is the permanent witness of
the revelation of the living God to the members of a chosen people. In its
written form, this revelation also bears the traces of the cultural and social
experiences of the era during which this people and neighboring
civilizations encountered each other. Ancient Israel was born in a world
which had already given birth to great cultures and progressed together
with them.
3. The most ancient institutions of Israel (for example, circumcision, the
spring sacrifice, the Sabbath rest) are not particular to it. It borrowed them
from the neighboring peoples. A large part of the culture of Israel has a
similar origin. However, the people of the Bible subjected these
borrowings to profound changes when it incorporated them into its faith
and religious practice. It passed them through the screen of a faith in the
personal God of Abraham (the free Creator and wise planner of the
universe, in whom the source of sin and death is not to be found). It is the
encounter with this God, experienced in the covenant, which permits the
understanding of man and woman as personal beings and in consequence
the rejection of the inhuman practices inherent in the other cultures.
4. The biblical authors Used, while simultaneously transforming, the
cultures of their time to recount, throughout the history of a people, the
salvific action which God would cause to culminate in Jesus Christ and to
unite the peoples of all cultures, called to form one body of which Jesus is
the head.
5. In the Old Testament, cultures, fused and transformed, are placed at the
service of the revelation of the God of Abraham, lived in the covenant and
recorded in Scripture. It was a unique preparation on the social and
religious plane for the coming of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, revealed at a deeper level and
manifested in the fullness of the Spirit, invites all cultures to allow
themselves to be changed by the life, teaching, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ.
6. If the pagans were "grafted onto Israel",17 it must be emphasized that
the original plan of God concerns all creation.18 In fact, a covenant is
made through Noah with all the peoples of the earth who are prepared to
live in accordance with justice.19 This covenant is anterior to those made
with Abraham and Moses. Beginning from Abraham, Israel is called to

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communicate the blessings it has received to all the families of the earth.20
7. Let us also draw attention to the fact that the various aspects of the
culture of Israel do not all maintain the same relationship with divine
revelation. Some testify to the resistance to God's word while others
express its acceptance. Among the latter, one must distinguish between the
provisional (ritual and judicial prescriptions) and the permanent, universal
in scope. Certain elements (in the law of Moses, the prophets and the
psalms),21 derive their signification from being the prehistory of Christ.
Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior of the World
1. The Transcendence of Jesus Christ in Relation to All Culture
8. One conviction dominates the preaching of Jesus: In Jesus, in his word
and in his person, God perfects the gifts he has already made to Israel and
to all nations, by transcending them.22 Jesus is the sovereign light and true
wisdom for all nations and all cultures.23
He shows, in his own activity, that the God of Abraham, already
recognized by Israel as Creator and Lord,24 is preparing himself to reign
over all those who believe in the Gospel, and much more, through Jesus,
God already reigns.25
9. The teaching of Jesus, notably in the parables, is not afraid to correct or,
when the need arises, to challenge a good number of the ideas which
history, religion as practiced and culture had inspired among his
contemporaries concerning the nature and action of God.26
10. The completely filial intimacy of Jesus with God and the loving
obedience, which caused him to offer his life and death to his Father,27
show that in him the original plan of God for creation, tainted by sin, has
been restored.28 We are faced with a new creation, a new Adam.29 Also,
the relationships with God are profoundly changed in many respects.30
The newness is such that the curse which strikes the crucified Messiah
becomes a blessing for all peoples31 and faith in Jesus as savior replaces
the regime of the law.32
11. The death and resurrection of Jesus, on account of which the Spirit
was poured out into our hearts, have shown the shortcomings of
completely human wisdoms and moralities and even of the law
(nonetheless given by God to Moses), all of which were institutions
capable of giving knowledge of the good, but not the force to accomplish
it; knowledge of sin, but not the power to extract oneself from it.33
2. The Presence of Christ to Culture and Cultures
A. The Uniqueness of Christ, Universal Lord and Savior
12. Since it was fully and historically realized, the incarnation of the Son

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of God was a cultural incarnation: "Christ [bound] Himself, in virtue of
His Incarnation, to certain social and cultural conditions of those human
beings among whom He dwelt."34
13. The Son of God was happy to be a Jew of Nazareth in Galilee,
speaking Aramaic, subject to pious parents of Israel, accompanying them
to the temple of Jerusalem where they found him "sitting among the
doctors, listening to them and asking them questions".35 Jesus grew up in
a milieu of customs and institutions of first-century Palestine, initiating
himself into the trades of his time, observing the behavior of the sinners,
peasants and business people of his milieu. The scenes and countrysides
on which the imagination of the future rabbi was nourished are of a very
definite country and time.
14. Nourished by the piety of Israel, formed by the teaching of the law and
the prophets, to which a completely singular experience of God as Father
added an unheard-of profundity, Jesus may be situated in a highly specific
spiritual tradition, that of Jewish prophecy. Like the prophets of old, he is
the mouthpiece of God and calls to conversion. The manner is also quite
typical: The vocabulary, literary types, the manner of address also recall
the tradition of Elijah and Elisha—the biblical parallelism, the proverbs,
paradoxes, admonitions, blessings, right up to the symbolic actions.
15. Jesus is so bound up with the life of Israel that the people and the
religious tradition in which he shares acquire in virtue of this liaison a
unique place in the history of salvation; this chosen people and the
religious tradition which they have left have a permanent significance for
humanity.
16. There is nothing improvised about the incarnation. The Word of God
enters into a history which prepares him, announces him and prefigures
him. One could say that the Christ takes flesh in advance with the people
God has expressly formed with a view to the gift he would make of his
Son. All the words uttered by the prophets are a prelude to the subsistent
Word which is the Son of God.
17. Also, the history of the covenant concluded with Abraham and through
Moses with the people of Israel, as also the books which recount and
clarify this history, all together hold for the faithful of Jesus the role of an
indispensable and irreplaceable pedagogy.
Moreover the election of this people from which Jesus emerges has never
been revoked. "My brethren, my kinsmen by race," writes Saint Paul,
"they are Israelites and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the
covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises, to them
belong the patriarchs and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ.
God who is over all be blessed forever. Amen."36
The cultivated olive has not lost its privileges to the wild olive, which has
been grafted onto it.
B. The Catholicity of the Unique Event

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18. However historically distinctive the condition of the Word made flesh
may be—and consequently of the culture which receives, forms and
continues him—it is not first this factor which the Son of God united to
himself. It is because he became man that God has also assumed, in a
certain way, a race, a country and a time.
"Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled, by that very fact
it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His
incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every
man."37
19. The transcendence of Christ does not therefore isolate him above the
human family but renders him present to all, beyond all restriction. He
"cannot be considered foreign anywhere or to anybody."38 "There are no
more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and
female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus."39
Thus Christ is at one with us in the unity we form as in the multiplicity
and diversity in which our common nature is realized.
20. However, Christ would not be one with us in the reality of our
concrete humanity if he did not affect us as well in the diversity and the
complementarity of our cultures. It is in fact cultures—language, history,
general attitude to life, diverse institutions—which for. better or worse
receive us into life, form us, accompany us and survive our passing. If the
cosmos as a whole is, in a mysterious sense, the scene of grace and sin, do
not our cultures have a similar role inasmuch as they are both fruits and
seeds in the field of our human labors?
21. In the body of Christ, the cultures, insofar as they are animated and
renewed by grace and faith, are moreover complementary. They permit us
to see the multiform richness of which the teachings and energies of the
same Gospel are capable, the same principles of truth, justice, love and
liberty, when they are traversed by the Spirit of Christ.
22. Finally, is it necessary to recall that it is not in virtue of a self-
interested strategy that the Church, bride of the incarnated Word,
preoccupies itself with the fate of the various cultures of humanity? She
wishes to animate from the inside, protect, free from the error and sin with
which we have corrupted them these resources of truth and love which
God has placed, as semina Verbi, in his creation. The Word of God does
not come into a creation which is foreign to it. "All things were created
through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold
together."40
The Holy Spirit and the Church of the Apostles
1. From Jerusalem to the Nations: The Typical Beginnings of the
Inculturation of the Faith
23. On Pentecost day, the breaking in of the Holy Spirit inaugurates the

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relation of the Christian faith and culture as fulfillment in flower: The
promise of salvation fulfilled by the risen Christ filled the hearts of
believers by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit himself. "The marvels of
God" will from now on be "preached" to all men of every language and
culture.41 While humanity was living under the sign of the division of
Babel, the gift of the Holy Spirit was offered to it as the transcendent and
now so human grace of the symphony of hearts. The divine unification
(koinonia)42 recreated a new humanity among people, penetrating without
destroying the sign of their division: languages.
24. The Holy Spirit does not establish a superculture, but is the personal
and vital principle which will vivify the new community in working in
harness with its members. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not of the order of
structures, but the Church of Jerusalem which he fashions is a koinonia of
faith and of agape, communicating herself in many ways without loss of
identity; she is the body of Christ whose members are united but with
many faces. The first test of catholicity appears when differences of
cultural origin (conflicts between Greeks and Hebrews) menace the
communion.43 The apostles do not suppress the differences but are
concerned with developing an essential function of the ecclesial body: the
diakonia at the service of the koinonia.
25. In order that the good news might be announced to the nations, the
Holy Spirit awakens a new perception in Peter and the Jerusalem
community, to wit,44 faith in Christ does not require that new believers
abandon their culture to adopt that of the law of the Jewish people; all
peoples are called to be beneficiaries of the promise and to share the
heritage entrusted for them in the people of the covenant.45 Therefore,
"nothing beyond the essentials'', according to the decision of the apostolic
assembly.46
26. Scandal for the Jews, the mystery of the cross is foolishness to the
pagans. Here the inculturation of the faith clashes with the radical sin of
idolatry which keeps "captive"47the truth of a culture which is not
assumed by Christ. As long as man is "deprived of the glory of God",48 all
that he "cultivates" is nothing more that the opaque image of himself. The
Pauline kerygma begins therefore with creation and the call to the
covenant, denounces the moral perversions of blinded humanity and
announces salvation in the crucified and risen Christ.
27. After the testing of catholicity among culturally different Christian
communities, after the resistances of Jewish legalism and those of idolatry,
the faith pledges itself to culture in Gnosticism.
The phenomenon begins to appear at the time of the last letters of Paul and
John; it will fuel the majority of the doctrinal crises of the succeeding
centuries. Here, human reason in its injured state refuses the folly of the
incarnation of the Son of God and seeks to recover the mystery by
accommodating it to the prevailing culture. Whereas, "faith depends not
on human philosophy but on the power of God."49

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2. The Apostolic Tradition: Inculturation of Faith and Salvation of
Culture
28. In the "last times" inaugurated at Pentecost, the risen Christ, alpha and
omega, enters into the history of peoples: From that moment, the sense of
history and thus of culture is unsealed50 and the Holy Spirit reveals it by
actualizing and communicating it to all. The Church is the sacrament of
this revelation and its communication. It recenters every culture into
which Christ is received, placing it in the axis of the "world which is
coming" and restores the union broken by the "prince of this world".
Culture is thus eschatologically situated; it tends toward its completion in
Christ but it cannot be saved except by associating itself with the
repudiation of evil.
29. Each local or particular Church is called in the Holy Spirit to be the
sacrament which manifests Christ, crucified and risen, enfleshed in a
particular culture.
a. The culture of a local Church—young or old—participates in the
dynamism of cultures and in their vicissitudes. Even if the Church is in the
last times it remains subject to trials and temptations.51
b. The Christian "newness" engenders in the local Churches particular
expressions stamped by culture (modalities of doctrinal formulations,
liturgical symbolisms, models of holiness, canonical directives, etc.).
Nevertheless the communion between the Churches demands constantly
that the cultural "flesh" of each does not act as a screen to mutual
recognition in the apostolic faith and to solidarity in love.
c. Every Church sent to the nations witnesses to its Lord only if, having
consideration for its cultural attachments, it conforms to him in the first
kenosis of his incarnation and in the final humiliation of his lifegiving
passion. The inculturation of the faith is one of the expressions of the
apostolic tradition whose dramatic character is emphasized on several
occasions by Paul.52
30. The apostolic writings and the patristic witness do not limit their
vision of culture to the service of evangelization but integrate it into the
totality of the mystery of Christ. For them, creation is the reflection of the
glory of God: Man is its living icon, and it is in Christ that the
resemblance with God is seen. Culture is the scene in which man and the
world are called to find themselves anew in the glory of God. The
encounter is missed or obscured insofar as man is a sinner. Within captive
creation is seen the gestation of the "new universe":53 The Church is "in
labor".54 In her and through her the creatures of this world are able to live
their redemption and their transfiguration.
III. PRESENT PROBLEMS OF INCULTURATION
1. The inculturation of the faith, which we have considered first from a

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philosophical viewpoint (nature, culture and grace), then from the point of
view of history and dogma (inculturation in the history of salvation) still
poses considerable problems for theological reflection and pastoral action.
Thus the questions aroused in the sixteenth century by the discovery of
new worlds continue to preoccupy us. How may one harmonize the
spontaneous expressions of the religiosity of peoples with faith? What
attitude should be adopted in the face of non-Christian religions,
especially those "bound up with cultural advancement"?55
New questions have arisen in our time. How should "young Churches",
born in our century of the indigenization of already-existing Christian
communities, consider both their Christian past and the cultural history of
their respective peoples? Finally how should the Gospel animate, purify
and fortify the new world into which we have brought industrialization
and urbanization?
To us it seems that these four question should be faced by anyone who
reflects on the present conditions of the inculturation of faith.
Popular Piety
2. In the countries which have been affected by the Gospel, we normally
understand by popular piety, on the one hand, the union of Christian faith
and piety with the profound culture, and on the other with the previous
forms of religion of populations. It involves those very numerous
devotions in which Christians express their religious sentiment in the
simple language, among other things, of festival, pilgrimage, dance and
song. One could speak of vital synthesis with reference to this piety, since
it unites "body and spirit, ecclesial communion and institution, individual
and community, Christian faith and love of one's country, intelligence and
affectivity".56 The quality of the synthesis stems, as one might expect,
from the antiquity and profundity of the evangelization, as from the
compatibility of its religious and cultural antecedents with the Christian
faith.
3. In the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, Paul VI confirmed and
encouraged a new appreciation of popular piety. "These expressions were
for a long time regarded as less pure and were sometimes despised, but
today they are almost everywhere being rediscovered. During the last
Synod the bishops studied their significance with remarkable pastoral
realism and zeal."57
4. "But if it is well oriented, above all by a pedagogy of evangelization",
continued Paul VI, popular piety "is rich in values. It manifests a thirst for
God which only the simple and poor can know. It makes people capable of
generosity and sacrifice even to the point of heroism, when it is a question
of manifesting belief. It involves an acute awareness of profound
attributes of God: fatherhood, providence, loving and constant presence. It
engenders interior attitudes rarely observed to the same degree elsewhere:
patience, the sense of the cross in daily life, detachment, openness to
others, devotion."58

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5. Moreover the strength and depth of the roots of popular piety clearly
manifested themselves in the long period of discredit mentioned by Paul
VI. The expressions of popular piety have survived numerous predictions
of disappearance of which modernity and the progress of secularity
seemed to warn. They have preserved and even increased, in many regions
of the globe, the attractions they exercised on the masses.
6. The limits of popular piety have often been condemned. They stem
from a certain naivete [and] are a source of various deformations of
religion, even of superstitions. One remains at the level of cultural
manifestations without a true adhesion to faith at the level where this is
expressed in service of one's neighbor. Badly directed, popular piety can
even lead to the formation of sects and thus place true ecclesial unity in
danger. It also risks being manipulated, be it by political powers or by
religious forces foreign to the Christian faith.
7. The taking into account of these dangers invites us to practice an
intelligent catechesis, won thanks to the merits of an authentic popular
piety and at the same time duly shrewd. A living and adapted liturgy is
equally called to play a major role in the integration of a very pure faith
and the traditional forms of the religious life of peoples. Without any
doubt whatsoever, popular piety can bring an irreplaceable contribution to
a Christian cultural anthropology which would permit the reduction of the
often tragic division between the faith of Christians and certain
socioeconomic institutions, of quite different orientation, which regulate
their daily life.
Inculturation of Faith and Non-Christian Religions
8. From its origin, the Church has encountered on many levels the
question of the plurality of religions. Even today Christians constitute only
about one-third of the world s population. Moreover, they must live in a
world which expresses a growing sympathy for pluralism in religious
matters.
9. Given the great place of religion in culture, a local or particular Church
implanted in a non-Christian sociocultural milieu must take seriously into
account the religious elements of this milieu. Moreover, this
preoccupation should be in accordance with the depth and vitality of these
religious elements.
10. If we may consider one continent as an example, we shall speak of
Asia, which witnessed the birth of several of the world s great religious
movements. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism,
Shintoism: Each of these religious systems certainly located in distinct
regions of the continent [is] deeply rooted in the people and [shows] much
vigor. One's personal life, as well as social and community activity, was
marked in a decisive manner by these religious and spiritual traditions. In
addition the Asian Churches consider the question of non-Christian
religions one of the most important and most urgent. They have even
made it the object of that privileged form of relation: the dialogue.

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The Dialogue of Religions
11. Dialogue with other religions forms an integral part of Christian life;
by exchange, study and work in common, this dialogue contributes to a
better understanding of the religion of the other and to a growth of piety.
12. For Christian faith, the unity of all in their origin and destiny, that is,
in creation and in communion with God in Jesus Christ, is accompanied
by the universal presence and action of the Holy Spirit. The Church in
dialogue listens and learns. "The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is
true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those
ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though
differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth,
nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men."59
13. This dialogue possesses something original, since, as the history of
religions testifies, the plurality of religions has often given rise to
discrimination and jealousy, fanaticism and despotism, all of which drew
on religion the accusation of being a source of division in the human
family. The Church, "universal sacrament of salvation", that is, "sign and
instrument both of a very close knit union with God and of the unity of the
whole human race",60 is called by God to be minister and instrument of
unity in Jesus Christ for all men and all peoples.
The Transcendence of the Gospel in Relation to Culture
14. We cannot, however, forget the transcendence of the Gospel in relation
to all human cultures in which the Christian faith has the vocation to root
itself and come to fruition according to all its potentialities. However great
the respect should be for what is true and holy in the cultural heritage of a
people, this attitude does not demand that one should lend an absolute
character to this cultural heritage. No one can forget that, from the
beginning, the Gospel was a "scandal for the Jews and foolishness for the
pagans".61
Inculturation which borrows the way of dialogue between religions cannot
in any way pledge itself to syncretism.
The Young Churches and Their Christian Past
15. The Church prolongs and actualizes the mystery of the Servant of
Yahweh, who was promised to be "the light of the nations so that salvation
might reach the ends of the earth"62and to be the "covenant of the
people".63 This prophecy is realized at the Last Supper, when, on the eve
of his passion, Christ, surrounded by the Twelve, gives his body and blood
to his followers as the food and drink of the new covenant, thus
assimilating them into his own body.
The Church, people of the new covenant, was being born. She would
receive at Pentecost the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Lamb sacrificed
from the beginning and who was already working to fulfill this desire so

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deeply rooted in human beings: a union the more intense with respect to
the intense diversity.
16. In virtue of the Catholic communion, which unites all the particular
Churches in one history, the young Churches consider the past of the
Churches which give birth to them as part of their own history. However,
the major act of interpretation which is the hallmark of their spiritual
maturity consists in recognizing this precedence as originative and not
only as historical. This signifies that in receiving in faith the Gospel which
their elders announced to them, the young Churches welcomed the
"initiator of the faith"64 and the entire tradition in which the faith is
attested, as also the capacity to give birth to new forms in which the
unique and common faith would find expression. Equal in dignity,
drawing life from the same mystery, authentic sister Churches, the young
Churches manifest, in concert with their elders, the fullness of the mystery
of Christ.
17. People of the new covenant: It is insofar as it commemorates the
paschal mystery and ceaselessly announces the return of the Lord that the
Church may be called an eschatology that began with the cultural
traditions of peoples, on condition, of course, that these traditions had
been subjected to the purifying law of death and resurrection in Christ
Jesus.
18. Like Saint Paul at the Areopagus in Athens, the young Church
interprets its ancestral culture in a new and creative manner. When this
culture passes through Christ, "the veil falls".65 At the time of the
"incubation" of faith, this Church has discovered Christ as "exegete and
exegesis" of the Father in the Spirit:66 Moreover, it does not cease to
contemplate him as such. Now it is discovering him as "exegete and
exegesis" of man, source and destination of culture. To the unknown God,
revealed on the cross, corresponds unknown man, announced by the
young Church as the living paschal mystery inaugurated by grace in the
ancient culture.
19. In the salvation it makes present, the young Church endeavors to
locate all the traces of the Gods care for a particular human group, the
semina Verbi. What the prologue of the Letter to the Hebrews says of the
fathers and the prophets may in relation with Jesus Christ be repeated, in
an analogical manner of course, for all human culture insofar as it is right
and true and bears wisdom.
Christian Faith and Modernity
20. The technical changes which gave rise to the industrial revolution and
subsequently the urban revolution affected souls of people in depth. They
were beneficiaries and also, quite often, the victims of these changes.
Therefore believers have the duty, as an urgent and difficult task, to
understand the characteristic traits of modern culture, as also its
expectations and needs in relation to the salvation wrought by Christ.
21. The industrial revolution was also a cultural revolution. Values until

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then assured were brought into question, such as the sense of personal and
community work, the direct relationship of man to nature, membership in
a support family, at home as at work, implantation in local and religious
communities of human dimension, [and] participation in traditions, rites,
ceremonies and celebrations which give a sense to the great moment of
existence. Industrialization, in provoking a disordered concentrating of
populations, seriously affected these age-old values without giving rise to
communities capable of integrating new cultures. At a time when the most
deprived peoples are in search of a suitable development model, the
advantages as also the risks and human costs of industrialization are better
perceived.
22. Great progress has been made in many areas of life: diet, health,
education, transport, access to all types of consumer goods.
Deep misgivings, however, have arisen in the collective subconscious.
In many countries, the notion of progress has given way, especially since
World War II, to disillusion. Rationality as regards production and
administration operates against reason when it forgets the good of persons.
The emancipation of communities from a sense of belonging has isolated
man in the crowd. The new means of communication destroy to as great
an extent as they create. Science, by means of the technical creations
which are its fruit, appears simultaneously to be creator and destroyer. In
addition some despair of modernity and speak of a new barbarism. Despite
many faults and failings, one must hope for a moral uplift of all nations,
rich and poor. If the Gospel is preached and heard, a cultural and spiritual
conversion is possible. It calls to solidarity, in the interest of the whole
good of the person, to the promotion of peace and justice, to adoration of
the Father, from whom all good things come.
23. The inculturation of the Gospel in modern societies will demand a
methodical effort of concerted research and action. This effort will assure
on the part of those responsible for evangelization: (1) an attitude of
openness and a critical eye; (2) the capacity to perceive the spiritual
expectations and human aspirations of the new cultures; (3) the aptitude
for cultural analysis, having in mind an effective encounter with the
modern world.
24. A receptive attitude is required among those who wish to understand
and evangelize the world of our time. Modernity is accompanied by
undeniable progress in many cultural and material domains: well-being,
human mobility, science, research, education, a new sense of solidarity. In
addition, the Church of Vatican II has taken a lively account of the new
conditions in which she must exercise her mission, and it is in the cultures
of modernity that the Church of tomorrow will be constructed. The
traditional advice applicable to discernment is reiterated by Pius XII. "It is
necessary to deepen one's understanding of the civilization and institutions
of various peoples and to cultivate their best qualities and gifts.... All in
the customs of peoples which are not inextricably bound up with
superstitions or errors should be examined with benevolence and if
possible, preserved intact."67

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25. The Gospel raises fundamental questions among those who reflect on
the behavior of modern man. How should one make this man understand
the radical nature of the message of Christ: unconditional love,
evangelical poverty, adoration of the Father and constant yielding to his
will? How should one educate toward the Christian sense of suffering and
death? How should one arouse faith and hope in the event of the
resurrection accomplished by Jesus Christ?
26. We must develop capacity to analyze cultures and to gauge their moral
and spiritual indicators. A mobilization of the whole Church is called for
so that the extremely complex task of the inculturation of the Gospel in
today's world may be faced with success. We must wed to this topic the
preoccupation of John Paul II: "From the beginning of my pontificate I
considered that the dialogue of the Church with the cultures of our time
was a vital area, whose stake is the fate of the world in this the end of the
twentieth century."68
CONCLUSION
1. Having said that the important thing was "affecting and as it were
upsetting, through the power of the Gospel, mankind's criteria of
judgment, determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources
of inspiration and models of life, which are in contrast with the Word of
God and the plan of salvation", Paul VI asked that one "evangelize man's
culture and cultures (not in a purely decorative way, as it were, by
applying a thin veneer, but 4n a vital way, in depth and right to their very
roots), in the wide and rich sense which these terms have in Gaudium et
spes, always taking the person as one's starting point and always coming
back to the relationships of people among themselves and with God."69
2. "In this the end of the twentieth century," as John Paul II affirmed for
his part, "the Church must make itself all things for all men, bringing
today's cultures together with sympathy. There still are milieus and
mentalities, as there are entire countries and regions, to evangelize, which
supposes a long and courageous process of inculturation so that the
Gospel may penetrate the soul of living cultures, respond to their highest
expectations and make them grow in the dimension of Christian faith,
hope and charity. Sometimes cultures have only been touched superficially
and in any case, to continuously transform themselves, they demand a
renewed approach. In addition, new areas of culture appear, with diverse
objectives, methods and languages."70
1 See the documents of the International Theological Commission on
theological pluralism (1972), human development and Christian salvation
(1976), Catholic doctrine on the sacrament of marriage (1977), and
selected questions on Christology (1979), in the collection of the
International Theological Commission, Texts and Documents, 1969-1985
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989; repub. 2009 as vol. l).
2 Commission Theologique Internationale, "Thèmes choisis

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d'ecclésiologie a l'occasion du 20e anniversaire de la clôture du Concile
Vatican II" (1984). (See "Select Themes of Ecclesiology on the Occasion
of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Closing of the Second Vatican
Council", in International Theological Commission, Texts and Documents,
1969-1985, vol. I, chapter 13, pp. 271-310).
3 Pontifical Biblical Commission, Fede e cultura alla luce della Bibbia /
Foi et culture a la lumière de la Bible (Turin: Editrice Elle di Ci, 1981).
4 Gaudium et spes, 44.
5 Gaudium et spes, 53-62.
6 Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 18-20.
7 John Paul II, Catechesi tradendae, 53.
8 Extraordinary Synod for the twentieth anniversary of the closing of the
Second Vatican Council, final report voted by the fathers, 7 December
1985.
9 John Paul II, Letter of foundation of the Pontifical Council for Culture,
20 May 1982.
10 John Paul II, Speech to the University of Coimbra, 15 May 1982.
11 Speech to the bishops of Kenya, 7 May 1980.
12 Paul VI, Humanae vitae, 13.
13 Gaudium et spes, 53.
14 Ibid.
15 John Paul II, Slavorum Apostoli, 21.
16 Dei Verbum, 13.
17 Cf. Rom 11:11-24.
18 Gen 1:1-2, 4a.
19 Cf. Gen 9:1-17; Sir 44:17-18.
20 Gen 12:1-5; Jn 4:2; Sir 44:21.
21 Lk 24:44; cf. v. 27.

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22 Mk 13:10; Mt 12:21; Lk 2:32.
23 Mt 11:19; Lk 7:35.
24 Ps 93:1-4; Is 6:1.
25 Mk 1:15; Mt 12:28; Lk 11:20; 17:21.
26 Mt 20:1-16; Lk 15:11-32; 18:9-14.
27 Mk 14:36.
28 Mk 1:14-45; 10:2-9; Mt 5:21-48.
29 Rom 5:12-19; 1 Cor 15:20-22.
30 Mk 8:27-33; 1 Cor 1:18-25.
31 Gal 3:13; Deut 21:22-23.
32 Gal 3:12-14.
33 Rom 7:16ff.; 3:20; 7:7; 1 Tim 1:8.
34 Ad gentes, 10.
35 Lk 2:46.
36 Rom 9:3-5.
37 Gaudium et spes, 22.
38 Ad gentes, 8.
39 Gal 3:28.
40 Col 1:16-17.
41 Acts 2:11.
42 Acts 2:42.
43 Acts 6:1ff.
44 Acts 10 and 11.
45 Eph 2:14-15.

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46 Acts 15-28.
47 Rom 1:18.
48 Rom 3:23.
49 1 Cor 2:4ff.
50 Rev 5:1-5.
51 Cf. Rev 2 and 3.
52 1 and 2 Cor passim.
53 Rev 21:5.
54 Cf. Rom 8:18-25.
55 Nostra Aetate, 2.
56 Third general conference of the bishops of Latin America, The
Evangelization of Latin America in the Present and in the Future, 448.
57 Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 48.
58 Ibid.
59 Nostra Aetate, 2.
60 Lumen gentium, 1, 48.
611 Cor 1:23.
62 Is 49:6.
63 Is 49:8.
64 Heb 12:2.
65 2 Cor 3:16.
66 Cf. Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale, Théologie 41 (Paris, 1959),
1.1, pp. 322-24.
67 Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus.
68 John Paul II, Letter on foundation of the Pontifical Council for Culture,

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20 May 1982.
69 Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 19-20.
70 John Paul II, Discourse to the Pontifical Council for Culture, 18 January
1983.