Pedro Arrupe and Africa: Clear Vision and Bold Steps in a Moment of Unsettling Transitions (original) (raw)

2019, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu (AHSI)

The election of Pedro Arrupe as Superior General of the Society of Jesus in 1965 coincided with transitions of monumental proportions in Africa. Most African countries basked in the early sun of political independence, and Vatican II had just allowed greater inculturation in the practice of the faith. Now, with audacious calls for “Africanization”, Africans sought to expand their space in political and ecclesiastical institutions. These changing realities had a considerable impact on the missions of the Society in Africa. Hitherto the missions were scattered and directed by various provinces in Europe and America. As the Church was becoming more African, there was obvious need to make the Society more African too. To this need Arrupe responded decisively. Engaging directly with Africa, he practised a three-pronged policy of empowering, supporting and inspiring Jesuits on the continent so that they could live up to the challenge of their vocation in Africa. To this end he established administrative structures designed to allow grassroots experience to inform key decisions, which now could be made on the ground. He was particularly supportive of the new superiors he appointed. Arrupe also used the African experience to enrich his own theological reflection, which eventually contributed to shaping his ideas on inculturation and on mission.

The African Church & Missions [Current Trends in African Theology Research Paper]

Research Paper, 2019

The Church in Africa is changing the global face of missions especially in relation to sending missionaries abroad and the season for African Churches to engage more fully in missions work has come, this is because the vitality of Christianity is moving from the Northern Hemisphere to South of the Equator.

Globalization and African Catholicism: Towards a New Era of Evangelization

2015

This paper argues that evangelization takes place within the context of globalization, the phenomenon that integrates the economic, cultural, social, political and religious dimensions of human existence towards improved standard of living for humanity. While acknowledging the potential dangers of globalization, especially the expanding income disparity, marginalization, secularization, consumerism, the tendency towards monoculturalism and imperialism, the author advocates daily personal encounter with the person of Jesus as the springboard of Christian spirituality. This paper concentrates on the impact of globalization on African Catholicism’s appropriation of Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium for a new evangelization and recommends important changes in African Catholicism’s way of being Church.

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