Inculturation

I noticed where a fellow who converted from Episcopal to Roman Catholic said that whenever the Episcopal came to a crossroads between tradition and the culture, it always opted for the culture.  Umm, isn't that inculturation?  The missionaries in the far east, as we call Asia, did better when they took on the mores, dress, habits, language and values of the culture that they were missioning.  Mateo Ricci, SJ is a prime example of that.  Where we try and plop a western European monarchical structure with a Greek Philosophy to explain our theology, we do not do so well.  Oh, we might get some baptisms but most often the newly baptized take what they hear and translate into what they already know.  They will do their own inculturation.

Why are we having problems with the Catholic Church in China?  In part, we want to impose a monarchy, a western outdated monarchy as the Asian, and Communist culture see it.  The Chinese are not trying to shut down the church.  They just want to run it themselves in their own country by picking the clergy leaders.  European nations did that for quite some time in earlier centuries.  It may not be Rome's preference, but at least there will be sacraments, and who knows, maybe even a new Asian way of explaining Catholicism. Plato and Aristotle don't sell over there.  It is really about power and control on both sides.