Our Response to the Gift of Internationality
Some Questions For Theological Reflection on One Mission in Many
Cultures by Gasper F. Lo Biondo, S.J. First, what is dialogue? Vatican II, in Nostra Aetate
urged Catholics to engage in a dialogue that will "acknowledge, preserve, and promote
the spiritual and moral goods found in other religions and the values in their society and
culture" in order to "join hands with them to work toward a world of peace,
liberty, social justice, and moral values." Through dialogue we communicate the good
news of God’s love. When North-South dialogue is a dialogue of life and action, it becomes cultural
dialogue as well. In the dialogue of life we share our joys, sorrows, and concerns.
Dialogue in action takes place when we collaborate for the integral development and
liberation of people. Then through reflection on our shared life and action, we come to
know the gift of internationality. It is a gift, born of our common experience of the way
God works in the world, especially in its many cultures. Every culture is itself the gift of the Spirit to humanity. Our cultural heritage is
our capacity to ask questions, to reflect with one another on our experience, and to reach
an answer to our life’s questions. It is the prism through which the light of
God’s wisdom is refracted in our way of life, the energy to ask new questions and to
understand one another in surprising ways. People naturally approach North-South dialogue from the perspective of their own
particular culture. That is why we must begin by paying attention to our own culture.
Attentiveness to the way in which we are part of a group of people who live, think, feel,
organize themselves, celebrate and share life helps us understand ourselves. Then, in common reflection with
others we can discover how the mosaic of many cultures colorfully expresses the one gift
of God’s love poured out into every heart through the Spirit which has been given to
us. But we do not receive this gift in a naive or primitive world. God’s love is at
work in a complex world in which science and technology are an integral part of our lives.
People are continually on the move. Technology has modernized their way of life and
technologies have become global. They share information instantaneously, and do business
daily across national and cultural boundaries. So North-South dialogue now goes on in a global economy which science and technology
have shaped. This raises important questions about how God’s love works to renew
international relations. Are the advances of the global economy leading us toward a new
world culture? Will that culture be the one way of expressing our faith? In order to
address these questions we must locate North-South cultural dialogue in the context of the
Church’s approach to cultures. Before the Vatican II, our understanding of
culture corresponded to the colonial world view of the nineteenth century. The unity of
faith seemed to depend on the attainment of a single cultural perspective of the North,
through which we all had to learn to share our experience of God’s love. Those who
belonged to another culture had an impediment that they could overcome only by education
into the "global" culture. Today, in contrast with the past, we believe that ethnic, cultural, and even religious
pluralism gives us all a rich opportunity to renew our appreciation of how God’s love
works. Far from being a barrier, pluralism becomes the enabling environment in which
peoples and nations can now share their experience of life as equal dialogue partners. For
God shows no partiality. Equal partners listen carefully to each other’s story of how God’s love has
been at work, refracted through the prism of each partner’s cultural identity. They
have to dialogue in order genuinely to understand others whose cultural identity is
different from theirs. From this kind of dialogue a fresh understanding of the faith
gradually emerges. The Spirit unleashes latent human energies that long have waited to
erupt into the world. Again people of different cultures know the meaning of Pentecost,
marveling that "Each of us hears the gospel in our own native tongue!" Also,
they can result in injustices on a massive scale. These injustices occur when societies
allow people to decide matters affecting others, exclusively according to market forces,
unfettered by concern for their social impact, especially on the poor. They occur when
people act without respect for cultures, producing the homogeneous
"modernization" of cultures in ways that destroy traditional cultures and values
by depersonalizing society. Growing equality among nations and - within nations - between
rich and poor, the powerful and the marginalized, makes things worse . How then does the Spirit work through all these phenomena? Recent papal encyclicals (Sollicitudo
Rei Socialis, nn.27ff and Centesimus Annus, n.49) help us to answer our
question. The Spirit works in the globalized economy through communities of solidarity,
personalized communities that strengthen society. These prevent society from becoming an
anonymous and impersonal mass of people who care little for the common good. They can
develop at every level of society where we can work together toward total human
development. In other words, the North-South dialogue in today’s global village is
about more than economic values. If communities of solidarity can pave the way for people to share their cultural
identities in different settings around the world, then there is no reason why they can
not do the same for international religious communities. They can, as long as we seek to
keep ourselves from getting out of touch with one another’s cultures. When we
understand each other’s world, we overcome barriers to false judgements and mistrust.
Here is the key to the renewal! International religious communities face the same kind of challenge that the world
community faces. The good news is that by fostering personalized networks of solidarity in
our own communities of life and work, we can discover the inter cultural miracle of
Pentecost at the heart of those same local communities. Once we do so our ministry will
never be the same again.
April 1997
Copyright © 1997
North-South Cultural Dialogue
North-South dialogue usually refers to the way rich and poor nations
negotiate terms of trade. However, it can mean much more than this. North-South dialogue
can also refer to international relations among ordinary people. From a faith perspective,
it can even be a graced response to the gift and challenge of living together on mission
in an international community.
One Faith, Many Cultures
God’s love renews us today in the same way as it renewed the world
when the disciples experienced it at the Pentecost event. Vatican II’s was a
Pentecost event whose treasures we continue to mine. The Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) marks a turning point in the
Church’s understanding of faith and culture. In particular Chapter Two, "The
Proper Development of Culture," summons us to think about cultural pluralism as an
opportunity, not a barrier to world unity.
Communities of Solidarity
How does the Spirit work in the globalized world economy and society?
Documents of the Thirty-Fourth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, held in 1995,
help us to sharpen this question. On the one hand, developments in technology,
communication, and business are producing many benefits. The global business economy
carries potential for much good. It draws from the advances of modern science and
technology that are responsible for great advances in the quality of life. It brings many
benefits in cultures and societies where deep-seated poverty blocks human potential.
See also: