Economic autonomy and autonomy of thought. These are the prerequisites for facing the great challenges that the Church of Africa finds itself experiencing today. The vice rector of Ucao, Father Benjamin Akotia, speaks
Inculturation, identity, autonomy, young people, synodality, homosexuality… Father Benjamin Akotia is a river in flood when it comes to reflecting on the themes and challenges that the African Church finds itself experiencing today. With a look from inside and outside. Father Akotia, in fact, is originally from Togo, but is used to discussing and comparing himself between two continents: the one of origin, Africa, and the one where he studied and where he often returns, Europe. Born in 1965, a seminarian in Italy, he was ordained a priest in Lodi and continued his studies in Sacred Scripture and Anthropology in Strasbourg, where he obtained both degrees. Dean of the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of West Africa (UCAO), based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, since February 2023 he has become vice-rector. But Father Akotia remains a traveler, in deed and in thought. And therefore, it comes naturally to first address the theme of inculturation, a central question in the first Synod of Bishops for Africa in 1994, as well as in the reflections and practices of those years, but which subsequently seems to have been a little “lost” .
Is this really true of Father Benjamin?
«When I was a seminarian and then when I became a priest there was a lot of talk about inculturation and a lot of effort was also made to introduce new elements into the liturgy. Inculturation, however, no longer seems to be today’s challenge. In fact, I see a contrary movement. Paradoxically we are trying to be more like the West. And this is worrying, also because so many efforts are being wasted. The generation that preceded me and mine too had direct contact with the missionaries. Inculturation was also experienced as a search for an identity. Today I have the impression that we are more concerned with doing as everyone else does: in the new generations of priests, even in Africa, I see a return to traditionalism or perhaps a certain superficiality and laziness. There is no more push, not even to claim to be yourself. It’s as if, instead of going to the tailor to have a tailor-made suit made, you buy one already made, perhaps second-hand.”
This search for identity, however, seems to emerge more through opposition to the West than through proactive and innovative dynamics…
«Anti-Western sentiment is sometimes a way of expressing the fact that we no longer want to feel inferior, that we no longer accept the lessons of others. But not in the right way. We think we are equal because we know how to do what Europeans do. It is a problem of self-reflection. Who are we really? What are we capable of? What can we bring that is authentically ours?”.
Even from a theological point of view, figures or schools such as there have been in the past are struggling to emerge.
«In universities, even some greats of the past such as Jean Marc Ela or Engelbert Mveng and others are barely mentioned. Also because it is believed that in their theological reflection they used the categories of Western thought. It was a cycle that ended. Now, the new cycle that is timidly opening is that of a theology that starts from African traditions, for example by rereading the Bible in the way in which we pass on our stories. The attitude is no longer that of “purifying” African culture, but of understanding it and using it to reinterpret Christ, the sacraments, God, our way of life.”
But what are the great themes and challenges of the Church in Africa today?
«The first, it may seem trivial, but perhaps the most important, is the economic challenge. We appreciate the generosity of a mother who nourished us, but the time has come for weaning. It is a delicate phase both for the “child” and for the “mother” herself. But this process must take place in peace to avoid unnecessary trauma. Personally I am optimistic. I see many things being born, I see that we are becoming very inventive. And I see that the African Church is growing quickly, not only in numbers. And anyway I think we have no choice. Only if you do not depend on others, only if you are autonomous, do you also become capable of producing your own thoughts.”
What topics in particular?
«I think that Africa can finally say how it wants to live Christianity. There are signs. For example, we have not yet treated the themes of witchcraft or polygamy in depth in an African Christian spirit, using our schemes, our categories. This is not the case, however, for the question of the blessing of homosexual couples, which in Africa is experienced as a marginal issue, worse, as something imposed from elsewhere. Only if the Church of Africa is able to face challenges and priorities that it feels are more its own and more urgent, will African Christianity finally have its own face and give its contribution to the heritage of universal Christianity”.
Is this what is already happening with the Synod on Synodality?
«Africa is the continent that has probably experienced this path most intensely: it believes in it a lot, also because it corresponds to the ways of functioning of our societies, which have the word at the centre. We talk and move forward slowly. Everyone talks. And the boss never speaks only on his behalf. When he does, it’s because everyone else has already spoken. There is already a strong sense of synodality in our communities.”
And how do young people experience their belonging to the Church? In many contexts, including African ones, it seems that at a certain point in their lives they move away from it, that they no longer find stimuli for their faith and their existence…
«It’s difficult to generalise. We see many young people who discover the Christian faith when they come from the villages to the city or to university, where they meet someone who is Christian. For some, the Church is synonymous with “modernity” and everything that the Western world represents. But we do not “sell” modernity, we announce Jesus Christ, an announcement of salvation. On the other hand, we also see many young people who spend their days on social media which today have the effect of prolonging and amplifying the epochal cultural changes that our societies have also gone through in their encounter with the West. They appear homologated to us, but it is only a superficial impression. The “putty” they are made of, the one that the screen or cell phone shapes, is not the same as that of a young Westerner. And even the answers of faith must take into account that “paste” and everything it is made of in terms of culture, traditions, categories of thought. And also ways of living the faith.”