CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE LOCAL CULTURE (C7)

We have as our goal to establish Christian communities and Churches deeply rooted in the local culture and fully responsible for their own development and growth.

(Constitution 7)

During the missionary expansion in Eugene’s time, hardly anyone understood this principle. The missionaries were sent to countries that had already been colonized, and came with their European cultural outlook through which they worked for the conversion of people – with no training or tools to understand and appreciate the depth and richness of the local indigenous culture.

Eugene suffered when he thought of countless people around the world who did not know Jesus Christ and he responded through his missionary sons.

Therefore I am waiting impatiently for some information about your establishment among the natives. That is really your mission. A Vicar Apostolic would not have to be sent to look after a few scattered Catholics, and I for my part would not have accepted the mission if that were all it involved. It is the conversion of those who do not believe that we must keep in mind. All our efforts must be directed to that end. If we kept no hope of reaching that goal, then we ought to give up the mission.

Letter to Bishop Allard, Vicar Apostolic of Natal, 28 October 1859, EO IV (Africa), n 28.

The missionaries came with a heart filled with love for Jesus Christ and with the desire to bring the people they came to serve to know the beauty of that love that brought salvation. They gave their lives with sacrificial heroism to the people. Let us never forget their good intentions and the lived reality of their oblation.

Nearly a century later, a new awareness has developed. It is this that is reflected in Constitution 7: our ecclesial communities must be deeply rooted in the magisterium and sacramental life of the Church while searching honestly as to how these truths find their expression and life in the culture of the people with whom we are ministering.