The influence of liberation theologies remains a positive and growing influence with many older base communities still active in poorer areas. It's worth noting that you're unlikely to ever hear a Catholic priest preach on the evils of contraception in any southern African Church because of the effectiveness of condoms in reducing the heterosexual transmission of HIV/Aids, still a huge health concern in Africa.
A sensible approach - he has not departed from official teaching, but has found other and more important topics to preach on.
Thanks @stetson. One or two other points since the global reach of Catholicism is a vast, complex, at times troubling and ambiguous topic. I'm in no way capable of offering any detailed account of shifts and developments on even one continent, let alone to talk about Asia or Latin America. When we keep the focus only on differences in certain post-industrial Western states though, we risk missing a glimpse of the future of the Catholic church not just in the developing world but in the United States (especially in Hispanic/Latinx communities) and Britain.
Catholicism is a relatively new religious phenomenon in Africa. Although Bartholomew Diaz celebrates Mass in Walvis Bay (Namibia) in December 1487, Roman Catholic activities were barred in colonies of the Dutch East Indies Company and then under British rule until the 1840s. As late as the 1970s in South Africa, fears of Roomse gevaar (Roman peril) limited Catholic missionary expansion. Although Portuguese Catholic influence was of long duration in East and West Africa (Mozambique, Angola), much Catholic missionary work across Africa only began with the 19th-century Scramble for Africa and was characterised by different orders (Trappist, Jesuit, German Dominican, Irish Franciscan) claiming territorial dominion in newly colonised states.
So when we read someone like Tom Holland ("to live in a Western country is to live in a society still utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions … The West, increasingly empty though the pews may be, remains firmly moored to its Christian past") on the ancient and pervasive influence of Christianity and Catholic traditions that stretch back to medieval Europe in the West, that is not what is found across Africa where much older beliefs have shaped the continent for centuries and where adaptation and syncretism are reshaping the Church in ways unrelated to Western influences.
Quote from Tom Holland's Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind
Thanks @MaryLouise. It is too easy to think of Catholicism as being a white person's thing expressed in worship of rather buttoned up white peoples sensibilities. And based on rigidly hierarchical power structures the come from European civic structures. I wonder how much different ways of worshipping and different models of authority (by consensus rather than dictat) will feed back into the declining western church.
@Forthview - just picked this up from a few posts ago, where you said, in response to me:
And I suppose also, to be even handed, that the CofE is more open to working with other churches than it was in the Days Of Your Yoof.
Touché!
One thing this thread does remind us of is the fact that the RCC - whether in the US, the UK, or elsewhere - is by no means as monolithic or monochrome as is sometimes supposed...
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A sensible approach - he has not departed from official teaching, but has found other and more important topics to preach on.
Catholicism is a relatively new religious phenomenon in Africa. Although Bartholomew Diaz celebrates Mass in Walvis Bay (Namibia) in December 1487, Roman Catholic activities were barred in colonies of the Dutch East Indies Company and then under British rule until the 1840s. As late as the 1970s in South Africa, fears of Roomse gevaar (Roman peril) limited Catholic missionary expansion. Although Portuguese Catholic influence was of long duration in East and West Africa (Mozambique, Angola), much Catholic missionary work across Africa only began with the 19th-century Scramble for Africa and was characterised by different orders (Trappist, Jesuit, German Dominican, Irish Franciscan) claiming territorial dominion in newly colonised states.
So when we read someone like Tom Holland ("to live in a Western country is to live in a society still utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions … The West, increasingly empty though the pews may be, remains firmly moored to its Christian past") on the ancient and pervasive influence of Christianity and Catholic traditions that stretch back to medieval Europe in the West, that is not what is found across Africa where much older beliefs have shaped the continent for centuries and where adaptation and syncretism are reshaping the Church in ways unrelated to Western influences.
Quote from Tom Holland's Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind
--Many people are Pentecostal/charismatic, and go to that sort of church.
--Some people participate in Catholic base communities (Wikipedia). AIUI, those are kind of like house churches, with prayer and Bible study. I presume there's no Eucharist, unless maybe they're given reserved, blessed hosts.
--Liberation theology is still around (US Catholic). It's sometimes associated with base communities.
I don't know how much of this Latinx Americans in the US and immigrants practice.
And I suppose also, to be even handed, that the CofE is more open to working with other churches than it was in the Days Of Your Yoof.
Touché!
One thing this thread does remind us of is the fact that the RCC - whether in the US, the UK, or elsewhere - is by no means as monolithic or monochrome as is sometimes supposed...