By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
There are good and bad examples of inculturation.
Adapting the presentation of the truths of the Gospel for the purpose of making them better understood by various language groups or regions is good inculturation.
Betraying the truths and the Lord who revealed them by borrowing uncritically and wholesale those unredeemed pagan or diabolical aspects of false religions, found among a people to be evangelized, is bad inculturation.
This should be obvious but, as Navy chief petty officers, steeped in long experience of the weakness of human nature, would often say, “Ignorance is a renewable resource.”
Good inculturation always acknowledges and hands on those aspects of the Deposit of Faith that are necessary for salvation because salvation is the highest law of the Church.
The Church was formed and sent by the Lord Himself to baptize all nations and to teach them to obey all that He revealed about His Father’s will through His life and teachings. The purpose of the Church in evangelizing mankind is to save souls. Only in the truth is found Christ, the sole Savior, and only by persevering in the truth can we hope to be saved.
The Pachamama invasion of Rome under the guise of the Synod on the Amazon was a woeful example of bad evangelization.
There can hardly be a more offensive or scandalous act than that of placing a pagan image within a consecrated Catholic church.
Alexander Tschugguel was most correct and heroic in his defense of the faith and edification of souls when he tossed the idols unceremoniously into the Tiber River. His act did more to catechize the confused and demoralized faithful than a month of synod meetings could possibly have done.
The increasing numbers of Catholics who opt for a false irenicism by refusing to criticize anything at all, perhaps in order to be pleasing to all or to curry favor with their ecclesial employers, cannot be trusted to decry scandal or to guard what is necessary for salvation, to include promoting proper inculturation.
Only with hard work of prayer, reparation, and teaching can we hope to undo some of the damage caused by this and other unfortunate episodes.
The UN agenda for atheistic adoption of cultural demonic and pagan idol worship was symbolically if not materially advanced by the enthronement of the naked wooden female statues in the Vatican Gardens, the Synod Hall, and, most offensively, within the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina.
A good example of inculturation was the November Solemn Pontifical Mass of the Americas at the National Shrine in Washington, D.C.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco commissioned the music in order to promote beauty, which together with goodness and truth, always work in tandem to promote the Church’s work of saving souls.
Among other cultural references, the composition of the Mass of the Americas included the praying of the Ave Maria in the Aztec language.
Faith satisfies the whole person through proper inculturation. As Archbishop Cordileone expressed it in his homily at the Mass, “Goodness feeds the body, truth feeds the mind, and beauty feeds the soul.”
Beauty provides a focus through music and liturgy which guides one upward to God, according to comments by Professor William Mahrt at a conference following the Mass.
Focus points to something transcendent, he said. Good music and liturgy through balance found in architecture, movement, and the actions of the ministers as well as other elements ground that upward movement for the intellect and will.
Archbishop Cordileone described how the Church has always inculturated the faith, building upon elements not incompatible with it while at the same time not taking wholesale what’s in the secular culture. The canons of goodness, truth, and beauty should always guide the sensitive work of inculturation, with the goal of salvation of souls in communion with the universal Church.
The German bishops are opening themselves to the possibility of such an error in their plans for a deliberative synod which portends to decree changes in Church life without the approval of Rome.
Pope Francis has spoken out to offer correction in regard to the proper role and function of synods. It is not a parliamentary body as such are found in the world.
Catholic News Agency quoted a June letter, in which “Pope Francis warned that the German synodal process must avoid the temptation of ‘a new Pelagianism’ which seeks ‘to tidy up and tune the life of the Church, adapting it to the present logic.’ The result, Francis said, would be a ‘well organized and even “modernized” ecclesiastical body, but without soul and evangelical novelty.’
“The Pope specifically warned the Church in Germany against pursuing any course which aimed at ‘simply adapting to the spirit of times’ and urged them to preserve the sensus ecclesiae of the whole Church on the faith.”
According to Catholic News Agency, the Pope also wrote:
“The universal Church lives in and of the particular Churches, just as the particular Churches live and flourish in and of the universal Church, and if they are separated from the whole ecclesial body, they weaken, wither, and die. Hence the need to always keep alive an effective communion with the whole body of the Church.”
Thanksgiving is one of the better examples of inculturation. Many families attend Holy Mass on this national day of gratitude to Almighty God.
We can be pretty certain that Abraham Lincoln did not have the Catholic faith in mind when he promulgated the national holiday but, because the Mass is the perfect act of thanksgiving instituted by the Lord Himself, there is no more perfect way to acknowledge divine Providence on this occasion than by offering the most perfect prayer of all.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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