Interesting article. I need to dig deeper into how these Catholics view the relationship between their faith and their daily lives. Many of us in the West have bifurcated the two, and I think that is because the daily comforts our standard of living allows prejudices us toward the temporal and away from the Eternal. I don't know if it is possible, but if the Pillar could arrange some guest posts from native African clerics, these would be most welcome.
I recall that back in the 1970's, our Midwestern parish for a time hosted a priest from Africa, and I was amazed (I was in my teens at the time, and had never travelled outside the US) that he was so fluent in English and so well versed in the faith that he could have been from Chicago. The African priests I have heard lately seem all to be similarly at ease with "Western" Catholicism. It would be good to have a sense of what the laity are like.
We need to face some hard facts in the West: our "success" with the Enlightenment experiment has come at a great cost to our faith. If we want our faith to endure (I do), we may need to redirect our resources toward implanting it into cultures that value it more deeply than we do.
I don't remember where I heard this sentiment first, but I really do believe that the future of the Church will come from Africa. Thanks for this article.
Interesting article. I need to dig deeper into how these Catholics view the relationship between their faith and their daily lives. Many of us in the West have bifurcated the two, and I think that is because the daily comforts our standard of living allows prejudices us toward the temporal and away from the Eternal. I don't know if it is possible, but if the Pillar could arrange some guest posts from native African clerics, these would be most welcome.
I recall that back in the 1970's, our Midwestern parish for a time hosted a priest from Africa, and I was amazed (I was in my teens at the time, and had never travelled outside the US) that he was so fluent in English and so well versed in the faith that he could have been from Chicago. The African priests I have heard lately seem all to be similarly at ease with "Western" Catholicism. It would be good to have a sense of what the laity are like.
We need to face some hard facts in the West: our "success" with the Enlightenment experiment has come at a great cost to our faith. If we want our faith to endure (I do), we may need to redirect our resources toward implanting it into cultures that value it more deeply than we do.
I don't remember where I heard this sentiment first, but I really do believe that the future of the Church will come from Africa. Thanks for this article.