“We’re trying here to create a Catholic theology that is no longer a European or Eurocentric Catholic theology,” Father Massingale explained. “The way I put it we’re trying to create a Catholic theology that is truly Catholic, truly universal. And if we’re going to be Catholic, genuinely universal, then inclusion is not something of political correctness. Inclusion is a requirement of our faith.”
The effort to include formerly missing voices in the development of theology in the United States stems from necessity because Catholics of European descent no longer make up the majority of the U.S. Catholic Church, said Dominican Sister Jamie Phelps, director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana.
“Once you get into the minority position and you have the power and the authority, but you don’t have the manpower to be in charge … then we’re forced to do what the Second Vatican Council told us to do a long time ago: that everyone is called to communion,” Sister Jamie told Catholic News Service during a convention break. “We’re supposed to call leadership from each cultural family.”
That leadership extends not only to positions within the church and its various ministries, but the development of theology as well, she said.
Sure, why not? What could go wrong?
When “inclusiveness” means looking at the same and constant Truth through a different cultural lens, it may be a good thing.
But to presume that God didn’t have ‘cultural intent’ when He chose Abraham to be the mortal father of the Chosen People or that he didn’t have ‘cultural intent’ when He, through Jesus Christ, sent Paul on his mission to spread the Gospel first to the Jews AND to those of Greco-Roman culture is another. For the Apostolic Church grew out of the Word being spread among those of Jewish/Greco-Roman culture and it is that Apostolic Church that is the basis for today’s Church Catholic.
Yes the gentile world of today and of 2000 years ago is the whole world, but the Jewish/Greco-Roman world was the formative world of the Apostolic Church.
And if “inclusiveness” means changing The Word of the Gospel through acts of “syncretism” and “synthesis” in order to ‘accomodate’ all of the cultures of all of the gentile world, the meaning of “inclusiveness” changes to “heresy.”
Heretics.
I can’t believe Pope Benedict would buy into this.
Honestly, although I see a lot of the liberal Catholic buzzwords, I don’t see anything explicitely heretical in the article. There certainly IS a legitimate place for diversity and inculturation in the Church.
The article never defines “diversity” and “inclusion.” The RCC does allow for localized expressions of the Faith that do not alter its substance- that could be what the speakers are talking about. Or they could be using the terms in the more usual liberal sense. Either way, this is just a fluff piece that says nothing new when you look past the undefined jargon.
If I may, I think that what the article is talking about is that for so very long the Church’s influences have been Euro-centric. There has been very little influence coming from the hinterlands, which pretty much has meant everywhere that isn’t Europe, or more specifically, Italy. It was only in JPII’s tenure that the college of cardinals has been diversified to include a large number of non-Europeans. Now the cultural and intellectual influences are slowly trickling down. I think that having these world-views ultimately makes for a stronger, healthier, and more representative Church – one that extends past the boarders of Europe. It isn’t a matter of orthodox or heterodox, just a matter of allowing those that have been “trained up” in non-European contexts to take their rightful place and have a voice at the table.
“We’re trying here to create a Catholic theology that is no longer a European or Eurocentric Catholic theology,…”
Excuse me, but possibly someone with the necessary academic credentials can enlighten me as to what is Euro-Centric in the Gospel of “…the Faith once given…” to us by the Apostolic Church.
I sense that some people equate “Euro-Centric” as meaning non-Mediterranean Western Europe. This then leads me to think that what is really being encoded in “Euro-Centric” is the assertion that the terribly insensitive and racist Western Europeans took over the theology of the church and that there is a need to de-Europeanise the theology.
However, it is my understanding that the “…the Faith once given…” did not originate (originate in this case means was given to us by God and developed through the Holy Spirit) in Europe but originated in the Middle East and that the Church Catholic of today originated from the Apostolic Church of the Middle East. Was Mary, Jesus’ mortal mother European? Were any of the Apostles European?
I think that the Church Catholic will be much better served if we show much more concern for theology than for whether a person is of a particular race or culture.
The Church already has a non-European theology- it’s called the Summa Theologica.