What is acceptable in non-Western countries?

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If it means something spiritually to them, I guess it’s ok.

However, Brazil is a western country.
 
bpbasilphx said:
If it means something spiritually to them, I guess it’s ok.

However, Brazil is a western country.
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Various Slavic peoples have folk dances from their pagan past which havespiritual pagan roots (granted they have almost all but lost their original meaning and intent). Yet the Eastern rites didn’t allow those dances into their Divine Liturgy.

When the Russians brought missionaries to their Asian hinterland and to the North American Pacific, did they allow the natives to include their spiritual dances and practices in to the Divine Liturgy?

It seems that you accept this kind of cultural integration when it comes to the Roman rite, so would you accept likewise cultural integrations when it comes to the Eastern rites?
 
bpbasilphx said:
However, Brazil is a western country.
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Brazil and their European founders/inhabitants are western, but the culture of their natives and the culture of the descendants of African slaves is not.
 
Freshman88 said:
When the Russians brought missionaries to their Asian hinterland and to the North American Pacific, did they allow the natives to include their spiritual dances and practices in to the Divine Liturgy?
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No, but on the other hand, native arts such as scrimshaw were left alone. One Alaskan bishop even used an apprpriately carved piece of baleen as his crozier.

And the traditional laws of fast and abstinence were not enforced, as they were impratical in that climate.

Social cutoms of Africa (such as calling all your older female relaitives “mama”) that are not contrary to Orthodoxy continue among the faithful.
 
I think it depends on the meaning to the locals. You’d have to use discernment. Really use it.

Like, applause and dancing don’t belong in the Roman Rite, because they have connotations of the theatre. The worship is to be directed towards Him, not the people in or near the sanctuary. Mass is not meant, either, for people to whoop it up. Get your jollies elsewhere. Really.

Also, you get cults like Voodoo and Santeria which mix Catholic and pagan elements. You don’t want the local shaman or witches (or New Agers) putting one over on the priest by getting him to insert pagan elements into our rite, ‘for cultural reasons’.
 
Dance is the one art form that has never been incorporated in RC Church. Some nuns tried it and they just look grotesque & demented.

The clip is not of the ofical RC Church in Brazil but of

culto de candomblé

This is a mixture of Yoruba religion & spiritualism. Brazil has lots & lots of these cults where the African customs survived. Ritual slaughter of chickens & goats with trances & possession by spirits is not everyone’s cup of tea and best avoided at all costs.
 
bpbasilphx said:
No, but on the other hand, native arts such as scrimshaw were left alone. One Alaskan bishop even used an apprpriately carved piece of baleen as his crozier.

And the traditional laws of fast and abstinence were not enforced, as they were impratical in that climate.

Social cutoms of Africa (such as calling all your older female relaitives “mama”) that are not contrary to Orthodoxy continue among the faithful.
Click to expand...
But we’re talking specifically about liturgy here.

My point? The Latin liturgy should have just as much of a claim to protect the integrity of it’s Latin/Roman/Western European character just as much as the Easterners have to keep their liturgy Byzantine/Syrian/etc. Often Easterners will complain about the Latinizations of their rite, but will approve of the cultural integrations that take place with the N.O. It seems like a contradiction, IMHO.
 
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