Inculturation

Before his Ascension, Jesus instructed his disciples to spread his teachings to the ends of the earth (Mt 28,18; Mk 16,15), Saint Paul's speech to the Greeks at the Areopagus of Athens (Acts 17:22-33) could be considered as the first inculturation attempt.

[6] Similar inculturation occurred when the Roman Empire ceased and the Germanic and Medieval cultures became dominant, a process taking centuries.

Attempts failed to return the sphere of influence to the cultures of the Middle East with the crusades and the Latin Empire in Constantinople (1204–1261).

However, at the same time, Spanish and Portuguese discoveries of the Americas, Asia and Africa broadened contact with other cultures and civilizations.

The Jesuits Matteo Ricci (from Portugal), Adam Schall von Bell and others were missionaries appointed to introduce Christianity to China.

Ricci had adapted the Catholic faith to Chinese thinking, permitting, among other things, the cultic veneration of ancestors, which he described as cultural practice.

[12] He opposed the latinization policies of the Vatican and decreed a number of measures that preserved the integrity and distinctiveness of other cultural expressions.

In 1939 Pope Pius XII, within weeks of his coronation, radically reverted the 250-year-old Vatican policy and permitted the veneration of dead family members in China.

[11] The December 8, 1939 issuance from the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, issued at the request of Pius XII, stated that Chinese customs were no longer considered superstitious but rather an honourable way of esteeming one's relatives, and therefore permitted to Catholics.

Pius emphasized this; he wrote in Summi Pontificatus that a deeper appreciation of various civilizations and their good qualities is necessary to the preaching of the Gospel of Christ.

In the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI promulgated the decree Ad gentes, teaching that inculturation imitates the "economy of Incarnation".

To avoid invoking the god of a competing religion, Xavier transliterated Deus into the phonetic equivalent Deusu (デウス).

Avoiding Xavier's difficulties, Matteo Ricci in China and Roberto de Nobili in India did not attempt the same phonetic transliteration in inculturation.