Hypothetical new rite in Africa. Thoughts?

[YoungTradCath]

An idea occured to me.

There is a very fast evangelization of peoples in Africa. The Church is using primarily the Latin Rite to do this. Why?

The Latin Rite is so very European. Its music, its actions, its history, are all undeniably and supremely European. Even its classic vestments are European in style.

Obviously, Africa is not Europe. The cultures are supremely different. Many aspects of the Latin Rite, especially the music, would seem obscene to Africans. So it seems common to have traditional African music and other cultural aspects as part of the masses celebrated in Africa. However, many of these cultural characteristics seem obscene and irreverent to European Catholics and Catholics of those American places conquered and colonized by Europeans.

This is all fine and dandy except… it isn’t, is it?

What is the point in forcing the Latin Rite on people whose culture is so different from the cultures which built the Latin Rite? This seriously messes with the identity of the Latin Rite. Inherently, as African culture seeps into the Rite, the Rite changes. A typical US Sunday Latin Rite mass doesn’t look the same as a typical African Sunday Latin Rite mass. They’re very different, no?

Would it not be beneficial, to both sides, to “create” a new rite for Africa, one conducive to its cultures?

It seems that whenever the Church decides to go evangelize some new place, they just pick the Latin Rite to use and slap it down and expect it to work. Well… it has worked, in Africa, yes, but not without vast cultural adaptations, and not the kind of adaptations you can find in Germany versus the US. I can’t help but think that this will do harm to the Rite in the future. So why not, for the benefit of both European and African cultures, create a new rite for the African countries? Would this not better serve both places than what currently exists, which is a patchwork of European and African cultures?

It seems that Vatican II was so insistent on “de-Latinizing” the Eastern Rites, and rightly so, but at the same time, the Latin Rite itself has been “de-Latinized” in Africa, and I can’t help but think that these things will start to cross borders eventually. Africa needs to be Catholicized, to be sure, but is Africanizing the Latin Rite the best way to do it, when it potentially poses a threat to the Latin Rite?

Or am I just scared for no reason?

 

[ConstantineTG]

They already have the Ethiopian Church

 

[Walking_Home]

An idea occured to me.

There is a very fast evangelization of peoples in Africa. The Church is using primarily the Latin Rite to do this. Why?

The Latin Rite is so very European. Its music, its actions, its history, are all undeniably and supremely European. Even its classic vestments are European in style.

Obviously, Africa is not Europe. The cultures are supremely different. Many aspects of the Latin Rite, especially the music, would seem obscene to Africans. So it seems common to have traditional African music and other cultural aspects as part of the masses celebrated in Africa. However, many of these cultural characteristics seem obscene and irreverent to European Catholics and Catholics of those American places conquered and colonized by Europeans.

This is all fine and dandy except… it isn’t, is it?

What is the point in forcing the Latin Rite on people whose culture is so different from the cultures which built the Latin Rite? This seriously messes with the identity of the Latin Rite. Inherently, as African culture seeps into the Rite, the Rite changes. A typical US Sunday Latin Rite mass doesn’t look the same as a typical African Sunday Latin Rite mass. They’re very different, no?

Would it not be beneficial, to both sides, to “create” a new rite for Africa, one conducive to its cultures?

**It seems that whenever the Church decides to go evangelize some new place, they just pick the Latin Rite to use and slap it down and expect it to work. ** Well… it has worked, in Africa, yes, but not without vast cultural adaptations, and not the kind of adaptations you can find in Germany versus the US. I can’t help but think that this will do harm to the Rite in the future. So why not, for the benefit of both European and African cultures, create a new rite for the African countries? Would this not better serve both places than what currently exists, which is a patchwork of European and African cultures?

It seems that Vatican II was so insistent on “de-Latinizing” the Eastern Rites, and rightly so, but at the same time, the Latin Rite itself has been “de-Latinized” in Africa, and I can’t help but think that these things will start to cross borders eventually. Africa needs to be Catholicized, to be sure, but is Africanizing the Latin Rite the best way to do it, when it potentially poses a threat to the Latin Rite?

Or am I just scared for no reason?

---

I don’t think it is matter of just picking the Latin rite – but what rite – the missionaries doing the evangelizing come from.

 

[MisterCorduroy]

I am an Eastern Catholic (Melkite) married to an African Latin Rite Catholic from Rwanda.

Her family prefers the Latin Rite. It is more flexible and adaptable compared to the Eastern rite. The Latin rite has always adapted to the local culture–compare American Catholic practice to Polish, or Mexican, or Brazillian.

The Byzantine Rite is less flexible–though the Orthodox Church is growing in Kenya, but they still follow Greek customs with the addition of drums for the hymns. The Ethiopian Orthodox (Tawahedo) Church is African but did not evangelize to the South.

The Latin Church actually has it’s roots in Africa. Alexandria, not Rome, gave birth to Latin Christianity. Tertullian wrote in Latin. The first Latin translations of Scripture were done in Africa. Early Christianity in Europe and Asia Minor spoke Greek, the language of the New Testament. St. Augustine was from Africa as was St. Cyprian of Carthage and St. Cyril of Alexandria.

I’ve heard it said that there are more Catholics in Nigeria than Rome right now. I enjoy the “African Mass” that my wife’s family participates in every year and wish that every Mass had the joy and devotion that I experienced.

Not sure why you are so concerned with the “Africanization” of the Latin rite. We are in a worldwide “universal” Church full of diversity.

 

[Digitonomy]

Would it not be beneficial, to both sides, to “create” a new rite for Africa, one conducive to its cultures?

That was the point of the Zairean Rite, now known as the Congolese Rite. I think it is more properly the Congolese Use of the Latin Rite. While supposedly permitted only in the DR Congo, it has spread to a number of other countries in the region.

A more ambitious approach would be to establish a separate African Church with its own patriarch. Joseph Ratzinger proposed this some years ago, but he later changed his mind.

 

[Digitonomy]

I’ve heard it said that there are more Catholics in Nigeria than Rome right now.

I would hope so! There are 2.7 million residents of Rome, while 167 million live in Nigeria. Even if only 1 out of every 50 Nigerians were Catholic, there would be more Catholics in Nigeria than people in Rome.

 

[gobind001]

It’s so hard to say not good.

Bucket elevator | Screw press | Pressure Leaf Filters

 

[Marybeloved]

They already have the Ethiopian Church

The Ethiopian church is virtually non-existent outside Ethiopia and Eritrea. My own country is Ethiopia’s neighbour, and we have thousands of Ethipian and Eritrean Refugees, but the only non western (Latin Catholic & Protestant) forms of Christianity are two coptic churches in the whole country! I guarantee you that 99% of Catholics in Africa are Roman Catholic. I didn’t even know about Eastern and oriental Christianity until a few years ago when I read a book at a library that I assumed was based on the Catholic catechism because it was …well…Catholic! Then I discovered “the Church” in it was something called Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church was ‘heretical’ and what not. If the Westerners had not come about a century and a half ago, my people would still be pagans and maybe muslims. I don’t understand why the Church in Ethiopia did not try to evangelize us for 2,000/1,500 years!

Peace!

 

[Marybeloved]

From what I gather about Western Catholicism, Catholicism in Africa: our experience and even “fights”, are the typical western fights with Protestants as our religious rivals and political progressives as the others- The typical Catholic stances No abortion, no condoms, Absolutely no homosexuality under any circumstances!! (this last one is a mixture of Catholic values and traditional African values which does not even allow room for discussing it!) Just like in the West, the no illicit sex and no artificial contraceptives teachings mostly fall on deaf ears . But we have no strange church liberals running a political movement in the church- And I doubt that African Catholics would tolerate the idea of 'women priests"! We can tolerate women pastors (protestants) but Catholic Priests? That idea is like one of the most alien ones to us. They’ll just wonder why if you like it so much you don’t become a nun?

The Pope is the Pope is the Pope is St. Peter, is our beloved JPII, is B16 in Rome- the Catholic Mecca. Devotion to the Virgin is very strong, Oh yes, Fatima is practically an article of faith! As a child, the few times I went to mass I didn’t know much about the faith but I knew about Lucia, Fransisi na Yesinta (in Swahili) who saw Bikira Maria (Virgin Mary) or Mama Maria, and she said that we should pray the Rosary for ourselves and sinners! How? It was told in our songs sang at the end of mass. Only as a curious reading adult did I discover Lourdes, Guadalupe and all the others (There’s even a Church approved Apparition just near here in Rwanda that I discovered only recently!) but Fatima! That was practically in the Bible!

It’s very much like the Latin American experience, from what I gather but w/out the spanish flavor. Catholics here are very much involved with the parish, obey the Priest, have poor catechesis (most) and practice folk Catholicism (not at all excessive)- Devotion to our Lady, Novenas (sometimes pilgrimages) abound. Eucharistic Adoration is very much practiced. Along the big/main church where the mass is held on Sundays, there’s usually a small chapel where the Eucharist is adored and daily mass is held. It’s wholly carpeted and people leave shoes outside on a rail when they enter. If the Eucharist is in the monstrance exposed, people don’t just genuflect but prostrate all the way down before the Eucharist like the Muslims, for a few moments on the aisle before sitting/kneeling in the pews and again when they leave. It’s become practically law, as everyone does that when they enter the small chapel with the monstrance on the alter.

The ‘Our father’ is said with gestures of the hand held forward, kinda like how someone who receives in the hand holds the hands. The instruments are African, the songs are African as are the dances. Small children dress in African wear and dance in the different processions (and it is not at all disrespectful :nope And our songs are distinctly Catholic- everyone immediately recognizes them from others. Though I once saw the Coptic church on TV singing them, but people from here can tell Catholic songs from others regardless of their own denomination.

And our grandparents also occasionally tell us stories from long ago when the white priests faced the same direction as the congregation and everyone spoke a strange Church language which they somehow all mustered but never understood, and women never went to church with uncovered heads, and there were some long processions accompanying the Eucharist and the girls dressed in pretty dresses and threw flowers before the procession . But here, there’s no bitter fight/complaint about it because even then it was relatively new, totally western and had not yet become ingrained into the culture.

Peace!

 

[MisterCorduroy]

The Patriarch of Alexandria has canonical jurisdiction over Africa. The Latin Patriarchate was abolished in 1964, but even before that was just titular and resided in Rome. I suppose the Synod of African Bishops would have the Apostolic oversight of the African Church like the USCCB does in the USA.

The Congolese Rite is mostly a modified Latin rite, but what I find interesting is that the blessing of the Reader is a custom in the Eastern Rite. Another “cultural concession” was to allow that ancestors be petitioned for prayers during the Mass. I know of Ukrainians asking for the intercession of ancestors, but only in private devotion, where the pictures of departed family members are kept in the icon corner. Then there’s the dancing, which is common in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church especially after Communion.

 

[AJV]

They already have the Ethiopian Church

But not all Africans have the same culture as Ethiopia.

 

[AJV]

That was the point of the Zairean Rite, now known as the Congolese Rite. I think it is more properly the Congolese Use of the Latin Rite. While supposedly permitted only in the DR Congo, it has spread to a number of other countries in the region.

A preliminary English version of this rite can be read here, for those interested.

 

[TheMc]

An idea occured to me.

There is a very fast evangelization of peoples in Africa. The Church is using primarily the Latin Rite to do this. Why?

The Latin Rite is so very European. Its music, its actions, its history, are all undeniably and supremely European. Even its classic vestments are European in style.

Obviously, Africa is not Europe. The cultures are supremely different. Many aspects of the Latin Rite, especially the music, would seem obscene to Africans. So it seems common to have traditional African music and other cultural aspects as part of the masses celebrated in Africa. However, many of these cultural characteristics seem obscene and irreverent to European Catholics and Catholics of those American places conquered and colonized by Europeans.

This is all fine and dandy except… it isn’t, is it?

What is the point in forcing the Latin Rite on people whose culture is so different from the cultures which built the Latin Rite? This seriously messes with the identity of the Latin Rite. Inherently, as African culture seeps into the Rite, the Rite changes. A typical US Sunday Latin Rite mass doesn’t look the same as a typical African Sunday Latin Rite mass. They’re very different, no?

Would it not be beneficial, to both sides, to “create” a new rite for Africa, one conducive to its cultures?

It seems that whenever the Church decides to go evangelize some new place, they just pick the Latin Rite to use and slap it down and expect it to work. Well… it has worked, in Africa, yes, but not without vast cultural adaptations, and not the kind of adaptations you can find in Germany versus the US. I can’t help but think that this will do harm to the Rite in the future. So why not, for the benefit of both European and African cultures, create a new rite for the African countries? Would this not better serve both places than what currently exists, which is a patchwork of European and African cultures?

It seems that Vatican II was so insistent on “de-Latinizing” the Eastern Rites, and rightly so, but at the same time, the Latin Rite itself has been “de-Latinized” in Africa, and I can’t help but think that these things will start to cross borders eventually. Africa needs to be Catholicized, to be sure, but is Africanizing the Latin Rite the best way to do it, when it potentially poses a threat to the Latin Rite?

Or am I just scared for no reason?

I think that’s a very interesting viewpoint, and I think you might be right.

 

[promethius]

Or am I just scared for no reason?

You are scared for no reason. A large portion of the latin rite leaves music and other signs of reverence (particular by the laity) as subjective to the local authority based on need.

For example, in the Latin Rite, the pride of place should be given to chant, polyphony, and the pipe organ… under the proviso that all other things are considered equal. With that in mind, all other things are NOT equal in Africa, and therefore other music can and should be used (with the approval of the bishop). The same goes for other local customary signs of reverence.

Second, have a little faith in the mass. If God’s liturgical rites could be destroyed so easily, then we would not be worshiping a very powerful God. The latin rite will survive, and probably improve, as a result of the zest and passion that African converts are bringing to the church.

 

[promethius]

But not all Africans have the same culture as Ethiopia.

Well, that’s the problem with an African Rite in general… the cultures even within single countries are often vastly different. There’s not really a way to construct a rite which will appropriately capture the entirity of African culture… so why not the already global, largely universal, and experienced at evangelizing Latin Rite?

 

[ConstantineTG]

The Ethiopian church is virtually non-existent outside Ethiopia and Eritrea. My own country is Ethiopia’s neighbour, and we have thousands of Ethipian and Eritrean Refugees, but the only non western (Latin Catholic & Protestant) forms of Christianity are two coptic churches in the whole country! I guarantee you that 99% of Catholics in Africa are Roman Catholic. I didn’t even know about Eastern and oriental Christianity until a few years ago when I read a book at a library that I assumed was based on the Catholic catechism because it was …well…Catholic! Then I discovered “the Church” in it was something called Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church was ‘heretical’ and what not. If the Westerners had not come about a century and a half ago, my people would still be pagans and maybe muslims. I don’t understand why the Church in Ethiopia did not try to evangelize us for 2,000/1,500 years!

Peace!

I’m not saying that the Ethiopian Church is widespread. But as per the OP, why do we need to inculturate the Roman Rite when Africa has its own Rite in its own culture already. I mean, it would be easier to adopt the Ethiopian Rite to other African cultures than the Latin Rite which is completely foreign to them.

 

[puzzleannie]

An idea occured to me.

There is a very fast evangelization of peoples in Africa. The Church is using primarily the Latin Rite to do this. Why?

The Latin Rite is so very European. Its music, its actions, its history, are all undeniably and supremely European. Even its classic vestments are European in style.

Or am I just scared for no reason?

I don’t know what fear has to do with the issue.

Have the Africans themselves asked for a new rite? Shouldn’t this be coming from them or their bishops?

 

[ConstantineTG]

Well, that’s the problem with an African Rite in general… the cultures even within single countries are often vastly different. There’s not really a way to construct a rite which will appropriately capture the entirity of African culture… so why not the already global, largely universal, and experienced at evangelizing Latin Rite?

Is the Latin Rite really the right one for all cultures? If you take a closer look, the Latin Rite is mostly in places that were colonized or conquered by Western Europeans. Thanks to the expansion of France, Spain, Portugal, and to some extent, Great Britain, the Roman Catholic faith is found in many countries around the world. But it wasn’t because the Latin Rite just fit into every other culture. In many cases, the faith was forced onto other cultures (Spanish Inquisition).

 

[YoungTradCath]

Is the Latin Rite really the right one for all cultures? If you take a closer look, the Latin Rite is mostly in places that were colonized or conquered by Western Europeans. Thanks to the expansion of France, Spain, Portugal, and to some extent, Great Britain, the Roman Catholic faith is found in many countries around the world. But it wasn’t because the Latin Rite just fit into every other culture. In many cases, the faith was forced onto other cultures (Spanish Inquisition).

Exactly. I was going to talk about Mexico or Brazil, for example, but I decided not to.

 

[Marybeloved]

I’m not saying that the Ethiopian Church is widespread. But as per the OP, why do we need to inculturate the Roman Rite when Africa has its own Rite in its own culture already.

The Ethiopians and Eritreans and Somalians are semitic/cushitic groups- They are very different from what the West call “sub-saharan” Africans, or the race that the scientists would call negroid and are genetically much closer to Caucasians than us. Basically, Africans who are ancestors to African-Americans in Africa are distinct from the cushitic groups and semitic groups and the Arabs up north. I suspect that this maybe why an entire millenium passed w/out anyone bothering to teach us about Jesus Christ ? Because I see no other reason. Ethiopia was an established civilization for 1,000 years and many African groups were tribal societies. If they had any interest in converting us, they would have done so- easily. At least many of us. I think most of the Continent would have been Coptic if nationalistic/racial differences hadn’t gotten in the way- I mean 1,000 years is a LONG time!