Evangelization of culture

THAT´S the pastoral thrust of the Cebu Archdiocese for 2010. In its icon, Jesus in his usual appearance and robes talks to a man and a woman of today, of course dressed in today´s fashion. A fig tree stands in the middle to remind us of that Gospel message that we as trees should produce fruits and not just leaves, alluding to the need for our faith to bear fruit in our culture.

The whole point is that our faith and culture should meld in some way. Christian faith needs to be inculturated, otherwise it becomes a foreign body to us. Of course, being transcendent to any human culture, the faith can never be made an exclusive property of a given culture. Other cultures, different from ours, can as well be Christian-inspired.

Our culture should continue to be open and receptive to our Christian faith, going from stage to stage until it reaches a certain maturity that needs to be renewed and deepened endlessly. Our culture should feel the need for faith for it to properly develop. The faith-and-culture relation is a living affair. It cannot and should not freeze at a certain point.

The theological basis was explained during its launching recently. It was good and expertly done. The fine distinctions between faith and culture were made, as well as their relation. Already at this point, I think the project will accomplish much, since it will familiarize the faithful, including the clergy, with the fundamentals about faith and culture.

I have reason to believe that these fundamentals are hardly known by many people. And so, this yearly programming of pastoral activity contributes greatly in educating the faithful of our duties.

The ardent prayer is that the whole project finally takes off and can show some tangible results. That´s the challenge now. The pastoral thrust can only give some general directions and orientations that need to be fleshed out by all of us. I hope that some kind of office or body oversees the fleshing out of the general principles.

I was happy to note, for example, that with respect to the specific aspect of culture regarding the restoration and preservation of Church heritage, an office is now formed to check on any plans to renovate churches or to make an inventory of heritage items, etc.

This is a good and most welcome development. For years, I have been in agony to see old, beautiful churches left to rot, or otherwise given a make-over that causes cardiac arrest even to simple people who use common sense to distinguish between continuity and incongruity in what´s being done.

This is because no functioning office gave criteria, standards and supervision to these changes and renovations. Everyone seems to have the right to do anything to churches and other church properties. And the result can only be called horrible.

One time, I entered a church (not in Cebu) and I was shocked that an old image of our Lady, very beautiful and precious, was replaced by a cheap-looking, plastic-like copy. The sight broke my heart.

But the problem in this area is nothing compared to the challenges posed by the other aspects of our culture. Think of our business and political life, our sports, fashion and entertainment worlds, our academes and the different professional fields, and we surely will be bewildered by the enormity of the task ahead of us.

Still, to be practical about this project we need to identify specific areas of our culture where we can focus the infusion of faith.

Culture is actually everything about our life. Whatever we do toward it, no matter how small as long as it produces a kind of consensus among the people, ends up being part of our culture. It needs to be evangelized, since things just can´t be left to develop in a purely natural way. We have a supernatural life, and our culture also has to reflect this character of our life.

We now have to be wary of the secularizing and dechristianizing trends that are subtly looming in our midst. With globalization already entrenched in our lifestyle, we should be very discerning to know what is good and bad, what is safe and dangerous, etc. We cannot afford to be naïve anymore. Our church leaders should give strong and clear leadership in this regard.

More than that, we need to know the skills of struggle and combat, since some give and take, some cut and thrust will be involved in the process of evangelizing culture.