Inkulturacja w ujęciu Świętego Jana Pawła II

Abstract

Inculturation is a concept introduced into the evangelizing mission by Saint John Paul II. It is a process aimed at embedding the Church in the cultures of mission countries, which consists in the mutual exchange of values and goods. To some extent, it is a novelty that by proclaiming the message of the Good News in a form readable for a given cultural circle, the Church herself takes over mainly what is valuable and useful for the common good. What was unthinkable in the pre-conscription times is mutual gifting and enrichment; both sides experience mutual self-esteem and joy from such a constructive transfer. That is why the Saint drew attention in his documents and numerous pilgrimages to many countries and cultural circles - so far not always overlooked or even neglected - to the historical necessity of such inculturation. Thus, he inaugurated the visionary era of the new evangelizing mission in the contemporary Church, precisely for this purpose, specifying its scope and conditions, rules and areas, so that it would be assimilated by the natives, above all - it retained the authentic wording in its formula, which would not affect the specificity and the integrity of the Christian faith. According to the Pope, inculturation understood and applied in this way should open the way to the Christianity of the third millennium, into which he was to introduce with his pontificate. Above all, by remaining faithful to his own message of the Good News, he made an important contribution to the work of opening the Church to the various cultures and lives of nations in which it will be welcomed and taken root. For the fully understood common good, the Church should be in this tangible way a harbinger of new evangelization and, credible by her missionaries, the “culture of life and love” that the modern world most needs. Keywords: the essence of inculturation; stages; rules; fields; evangelization dilemmas.