Abstract
For several centuries, Catholic missions spread all over the four continents in the shadow of colonialism. This has contributed to create the image of Christianity as a proselytizing religion. Alongside political, economic and military colonization, there was also a religious colonization, which provoked the formation of local Churches as clones of the European ones. In recent times, starting from the Vatican Council, the Church witnessed a new trend with crucial change of paradigm. A great contribution is the one given by the magisterium and witnesses of the recent popes. In the last few years, Pope Francis is playing a decisive role in contributing in the processes of de-colonization of the Church at the center as much as in the peripheries. His attitude open toward all cultures and other faiths is contributing to a constructive dialogue which can offer a new image of Christianity.
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Notes
- 1.
For the emergence and evolution of this principle, see Francis A. Sullivan, Salvation outside the Church? Tracing the History of the Catholic Response, (London: Chapman, 1992).
- 2.
See Cantate Domine, Council of Florence, 1452 in Bernard Sesboüé, Fuori della Chiesa nessuna salvezza? Storia di una formula e problemi di interpretazione (Cinisello Balsamo - Milan: San Paolo Ed., 2009).
- 3.
Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia in Asia, New Delhi, 06.11.1992, n.2.
- 4.
It is enough to think of the so-called Thomas Christians in South India, especially in the state of Kerala. There Christianity claims to have arrived as early as the first century. Today, several Churches (Syro-Orthodox, Armenian, Mar-Thomas and Catholic Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara) survive and maintain their own Oriental rites, which, often, represent also a conflict ground among themselves and with Catholics of Latin rite.
- 5.
The Treaty of Tordesillas divided the “New World” of the Americas between Spain and Portugal, then the true world superpowers. The partition was implemented by drawing a north-to-south line of demarcation in the Atlantic Ocean, about 555 kilometers west of the Cape Verde Islands, off the coast of northwestern Africa and then controlled by Portugal. All lands east of that line were claimed by Portugal. All lands west of that line were claimed by Spain.
- 6.
The same happened later for the protestant missionaries who followed Dutch and British colonizers.
- 7.
For more details, see the interesting text (in Italian language): Mauro Forno, La cultura degli altri. Il mondo delle missioni e la decolonizzazione, (Roma: Carocci Editore), 2017.
- 8.
We refer here to the Jesuit experience of the ‘adaptation’ in Japan and China and to the pioneer work of catechisms carried out by the Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas in South America.
- 9.
See Mauro Forno, La cultura degli altri, 14–15.
- 10.
See Ibidem, 16.
- 11.
Pope John Paul II, Homily, Day of Pardon, Vatican City, 12 March 2000.
- 12.
See Benedict XVI, Address to the Meeting of Peace, Assisi, 27 October 2011.
- 13.
See Pope Francis, No alle colonizzazioni ideologiche, Homily at Santa Marta, 21 November 2017.
- 14.
Ibidem.
- 15.
See Ugo Sartorio, Conversione. Un concetto controverso, una sfida per la missione cristiana, Biblioteca di Teologica Contemporanea n. 207, (Brescia: Queriniana, 2021), 41.
- 16.
See William Lee Holladay, The Roots šûbh in the Old Testament: With Particular Reference to its Usages in Convenetal Contexts, (Leiden: Brill, 1958), 53.
- 17.
See Sartorio, Conversione, 42–43.
- 18.
It is enough to think of Paul and Augustine, but also Ignatius of Loyola, J. H. Newman, T. Merton, D. Day or, closer to us, C. De Foucauld etc.
- 19.
Consider the ghar wapsi (returning home) phenomenon suggested by some fundamentalist currents of Sanatana Dharma traditions in the Indian sub-continent. For this highly controversial topic, we suggest to see Yashasvini Rajeshwar and Roy C. Amore, “Coming Home (Ghar Wapsi) and Going Away: Politics and the Mass Conversion Controversy in India”, Religions 10 no.5 (2019), 313; doi: 10.3390/rel10050313.
- 20.
See Pierre Yves Brandt - Claude-Alexandre Fournier, La conversion religieuse. Analyses psychologiques, anthropologiques et sociologiques, (Genève, Labor et Fides, 2009) and William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study on Human Nature, Longmans, Green And Co., (London and Bombay, 1902) in Sartorio, Conversione, 19–20.
- 21.
Olivier Roy, Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways, (New York: Oxford University Press), 2014.
- 22.
See Sartorio, Conversione., 48 and Giuseppe Angelini, “Il fattore religioso e il destino dell’Occidente. Verso una santa ignoranza? La Rivista del Clero Italiano 100 no. 4 (2019), 303–313, here 308.
- 23.
See Ibidem, 49.
- 24.
See Ibidem, 48 and Angelini, Il fattore religioso, 307.
- 25.
See Ibidem, 51.
- 26.
See Peter L. Berger, The Many Alters of Modernity: Toward a Paradigm of Religion in a Pluralist Age, (Boston/Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 2014); Joseph Ratzinger/Benedetto XVI, Il problema di Dio nel mondo contemporaneo. Un’antologia. (Umberto Casale ed. by) (Torino: Lindau, 2011); Olivier Roy, L’Europe est-elle Chrétienne? (Paris: Seuil, 2019).
- 27.
See Joel Robbins, “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 33 (2004), https://www.jstor.org/stable/i25064840117–143; Matthias Deininger, Global Pentecostalism: An Inquiry into the Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, (Hamburg: Bedey Media GmbH, 2013), https://www.anchor-publishing.com/document/287372.
- 28.
See Papa Francesco, La gioia della missione, (Cinisello Balsamo-Milano: San Paolo Ed. 2019), 14.
- 29.
Ibidem, 75.
- 30.
See Christoph Theobald, Urgenze pastorali. Per una pedagogia della riforma, (Bologna: EDB, 2019), 114 in Sartorio, Conversione, 104.
- 31.
Benedict XVI, Holy at Mass for the opening of V General Assembly of CELAM, Aparecida, Brazil, May 13, 2007.
- 32.
See Pope Francis, “Interview” by Luigi Scalfari in La Repubblica, October 1, 2013.
- 33.
Pope Francis, Address to Pontifical Mission Society of Milan (PIME), May 20, 2022.
- 34.
Pope Francis, Address to Priests, Religious, Consecrated Persons and the Ecumenical Council of Churches, Rabat (Morocco), March 31, 2019.
- 35.
See Pope Francis, Message for the World Mission Day 2013, Vatican City, May 19, 2013.
- 36.
See Ibidem.
- 37.
Francis of Assisi, Regula non Bullata, Cap. XVI. Available online at https://friarmusings.com/tag/regula-non-bullata/. Accessed 15.05.2022.
- 38.
Ibidem.
- 39.
Pope Francis, Address to Priests.
- 40.
See Pope Francis, General Audience, St. Peter’s Square, October 23, 2019.
- 41.
Ibidem.
- 42.
See Pope Francis, Message for the World Mission Day 2013, Vatican City, May 19, 2013.
- 43.
Ibidem.
- 44.
Nostra Aetate, (Vatican City, 28 October 1965.), n.2.
- 45.
See Papa Francesco, La gioia, 57.
- 46.
See Ibidem, 55–56.
- 47.
See Bertram Stubenrauch, Pluralismo anziché cattolicità? Dio il cristianesimo e le religioni, (Brescia: Queriniana, 2019). 22. (Original title: Pluralismus statt KatholizitäGott, das Christentum und die Religionen, (Regensburg: Verlag Friederich Puster, 2017).
- 48.
See Ibidem, 23.
- 49.
See Ibidem, 148.
- 50.
Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Dialogue and Proclamation, Rome, May 19, 1991, n. 48.
- 51.
Benedict XVI, Address to the Roman Curia on the occasion of Exchange of Christmas Greetings, Vatican City, December 21, 2012.
- 52.
Pope Francis, Address to the International Conference on Peace, Cairo, April 28, 2017.
- 53.
See G. Colzani, “Pluralismo, relativismo e dialogo. L’universalismo di Cristo e il ruolo della Chiesa”, Euntes Docentes 59 no.1 (2005), 128.
- 54.
Pope John Paul II, Address to Exponents of non-Christian Religions, Madras (Chennai), 05 February 1986.
- 55.
Already at the end of the last millennium, the engagement was active in other faith traditions. See, for instance, H. Fitte (ed.), Fermenti nella teologia alle soglie del terzo millennio, LEV, Città del Vaticano, 1997; especially, the two following contributions: David Rosen, “Presenza del dialogo interreligioso nello sviluppo del pensiero teologico. Prospettiva ebrea”, 56–65 and Hmida Ennaïfer, “Presenza del dialogo interreligioso nello sviluppo del pensiero teologico. Prospettiva islamica”, 66–75.
- 56.
See Erio Castellucci, Annunciare Cristo alle genti. La missione dei cristiani nell’orizzonte del dialogo tra le religioni, (Bologna: EDB, 2008), 166.
- 57.
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, Vatican City, November 23, 2013, n.250.
- 58.
Pope Francis, Catechesis “Healing the world”: 2. Faith and human dignity, General Audience, Vatican City, August 12, 2020.
- 59.
Ibidem.
- 60.
See Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, n.12, Vatican City, December 7, 1965.
- 61.
Pope Francis, Catechesis “Healing the world”: 2.
- 62.
Ibidem.
- 63.
Pope Francis, Address to “VII Congress of Leaders of the World and Traditional Religions”, Nur-Sultan, September 14, 2022.
- 64.
Ibidem.
- 65.
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, n.250.
- 66.
See Pope Francis, Address to “VII Congress of Leaders of the World and Traditional Religions”.
- 67.
See Pope Francis, Baptized and Sent: The Church of Christ on Mission in the World. Message for World Mission Day 2019, Vatican City, June 9, 2019.
- 68.
Ibidem.
- 69.
Pope Francis, Address to the International Peace Conference.
- 70.
Pope Francis, “You shall be my witnesses”. Message for the World Mission Day 2022.
- 71.
Ibidem.
- 72.
Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, Vatican City, December 8, 1975, n.60.
- 73.
Ibidem.
- 74.
See Stubenrauch, Pluralismo, 199.
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Catalano, R. (2023). Colonization, Proselytism and Conversion: Can Interfaith Dialogue Be the Answer? Pope Francis’ Contribution. In: Barreto, R.C., Latinovic, V. (eds) Decolonial Horizons. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44839-3_6
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