Africae Munus

This book engages the theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI in dialogue with African Catholic theological concerns and challenges. After an Introduction by Matthew Levering arguing that African Catholic theology is an important resource for the whole Church, the book contains ten chapters by African and non-African Catholic theologians. Paulinus Odozor investigates whether and, if so, how the God of Jesus Christ stands in continuity with the God known to African Traditional Religions. Paul Ọlatubọsun Adaja addresses faith and reason in light of the current African anthropological crisis. Tegha Nji and Valery Akoh connect Ratzinger's idea of "pro-existence" with traditional African understandings of solidarity. Jacob Phillips compares the theologies of Robert Cardinal Sarah and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Dennis Kasule examines the requirements of a New Evangelization for Africa, in light of the case of Uganda. Joseph Lugalambi proposes that the Catholic liturgies of Africa are in need of reform. Mary-Reginald N. Anibueze explores the Eucharist as a socio-communitarian event. Emery de Gaal reflects upon Ratzinger/Benedict's theology of inculturation. Joseph Ogbonnaya treats Caritas in Veritate with a focus upon the case of Nigeria. Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai meditates upon Ratzinger's understanding of political power.

There is no more urgent theological task than to provide an account of hope in Africa, given its endless cycles of violence, war, poverty, and displacement. So claims Emmanuel Katongole, an innovative theological voice from Africa. In the midst of suffering, Katongole says, hope takes the form of "arguing" and "wrestling" with God. Such lament is not merely a cry of pain—it is a way of mourning, protesting, and appealing to God. As he unpacks the rich theological and social dimensions of the practice of lament in Africa, Katongole tells the stories of courageous Christian activists working for change in East Africa and invites readers to enter into lament along with them.

The story of Africa is a ghost story with two plots. One is foreign or imported and the other indigenous or local. The foreign plot has its origin in colonial history. The indigenous plot is African in origin. But both plots end in the same place: African trauma and culture complex. These narratives create in modern Africa a splintered consciousness and the political and economic conditions that lead to physical and psychological violence. Unmasking the African Ghost is both a theological exploration of the reasons the political and economic systems in African countries have failed and a proposal for the paths toward recovery, anchored in the belief that Africa is a continent continuously trying to redefine its identity in the face of Eurocentrism. For the church in Africa to be a church at the service of its people, theology in Africa must take misery and oppression as the context for its reflections and its reconstruction of the social order. An African solution to African problems must be able to meet the needs of the time. It must look to the African past to draw from its riches--particularly the African sociopolitical ethic of ubuntu. It must also look ahead and draw from the best available sociopolitical system of modern states: liberal democracy. A hybrid of these two yields ubuntucracy. Ubuntucracy removes the ghosts of both Africa and its Western colonizers and begins a new story that can help Africa survive its double bind.

ORIGINAL ARTICLES The Boundaries and Authority of Catholic Social Teaching: A Reply to John Finnis Bernard G. Prusak Struggling with Self-Love: A Thomistic Perspective on Anxious Attachment and the Vice of Self-Debasement Sheryl Overmyer Synodality in the Catholic Church: Toward a Conciliar Ecclesiology of Inclusion for LGBTQ+ Persons Ish Ruiz CATHOLIC PEACEBUILDING IN TIMES OF CRISIS Catholic Peacebuilding in Times of Crisis: Hope for a Wounded World Caesar A. Montevecchio Truth, Healing, and Reconciliation: The Challenge for Future Relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the Catholic Church Maka Black Elk Walking Towards Peace: Generating Synergies at a Regional Level Isabel Aguilar Umaña and Cecelia Suárez Trueba Peacebuilding in an Interfaith Context in the Great Lakes Region of Africa: The Challenges of Creating New Approaches Emmanuel Ntakarutimana, OP Imagination in Catholic Thought and Peacebuilding Eduardo Gutiérrez González BOOK REVIEWS Gary Chartier, Understanding Friendship: On the Moral, Political, and Spiritual Meaning of Love Nickolas L. Becker, OSB David C. Cramer and Myles Werntz, A Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence: Key Thinkers, Activists, and Movements for the Gospel of Peace David Kwon David DeCosse, Created Freedom under the Sign of the Cross: A Catholic Public Theology for the United States Matthew A. Shadle Christine Firer Hinze, Radical Sufficiency: Work, Livelihood, and a US Catholic Economic Ethic Mary M. Doyle Roche Kate Jackson-Meyer, Tragic Dilemmas in Christian Ethics Thomas Ryan Bradford E. Hinze, Confronting a Church in Controversy Federico Cinocca Richard Horsley, You Shall Not Bow Down and Serve Them: The Political Economic Projects of Jesus and Paul Najeeb T. Haddad Marc A. Pugliese and John Becker, Process Thought and Roman Catholicism: Challenges and Promises Simeiqi He

The study of Christianity in the non-Western world reveals a demographic shift in the center of Christianity from the Northern Hemisphere to the South. But the contradictory aspect of the massive African conversion to Christian faith is the grinding poverty level in Africa. This condition raises important theological and ecclesiological questions that demand urgent answers. Therefore, the research objectives of this book are to examine African Catholicism's involvement in human promotion and to seek a new way of theologizing Christianity that moves sub-Saharan African peoples to action against the massive injustices that keep them poor. Drawing on Africae Munus, the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of the Second African Synod (2011), and Bernard Lonergan's notion of culture, African Catholicism and Hermeneutics of Culture argues that to truly be "the spiritual 'lung' of humanity," African Catholicism must appropriate the Christian message to transform African attitudes and personhood and so foster a self-reliant commitment to integral African development.

"A disciplinary map for understanding African Catholicism today by engaging some of the most pressing and pertinent issues, topics, and conversations in diverse fields of studies in African Catholicism"--