Pope Leo XIV has cautioned against reducing the process known as inculturation to a “relativistic accommodation,” insisting that the Gospel must engage cultures deeply without being absorbed or distorted by them.
In a message published February 24 and addressed to participants at a theological and pastoral congress on devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Pontiff clarified a concept that has generated debate over the years, recently following the 2019 Synod on the Amazon.
“The Gospel — and therefore evangelization — does not identify with any particular culture, but it is capable of permeating them all without submitting to any,” Leo XIV wrote, echoing the teaching of St. Paul VI in Evangelii nuntiandi (1975).
Inculturation through the centuries
In the early Church, theologians such as Justin Martyr and Augustine engaged classical philosophy, discerning what could be purified and elevated. In later centuries, missionaries like St. Cyril and Methodius translated Scripture and liturgy into local languages, shaping Slavic Christianity.
The term “inculturation” gained prominence in the 20th century, especially after the Second Vatican Council, but the principle is ancient: the Gospel enters every culture to transform it from within, while remaining faithful to Christ.
Because Christ assumed “our human condition with all that it entails in its temporal configuration,” the Pope said, inculturation is not optional. “It is not a secondary concession or a mere pastoral strategy, but an intrinsic requirement of the Church’s mission.”
To “inculturate the Gospel,” he explained, means entering “with respect and love into the concrete history of peoples,” so that Christ may be known and received “from within their own human and cultural experience.” This includes embracing languages, symbols, and ways of thinking not as “external” tools, but as “real places where grace desires to dwell and act.”
Yet the Pope was equally clear about the limits.
“No culture, however precious, can identify purely and simply with Revelation or become the ultimate criterion of faith,” he wrote. To legitimize every cultural practice or worldview — especially those that contradict the Gospel and human dignity — would be a dead end. Each culture, like every human reality, “must be enlightened and transformed by the grace that flows from the Paschal mystery of Christ.”
Referring to devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Leo XIV offered a concrete example. Authentic Marian devotion, he said, does not canonize or absolutize a culture’s categories, nor does it ignore or despise them. Rather, they are “assumed, purified, and transfigured” into a place of encounter with Christ.
The Pope also addressed the growing challenge of transmitting the faith in large urban centers and pluralistic societies, where God is often relegated to the private sphere. Inculturation today must be capable of dialogue with complex anthropological realities, he said, while maintaining a critical distance from cultural patterns incompatible with Christianity.
The goal of catechesis and pastoral accompaniment, he added, is to guide each believer toward a faith that is personally understood and consciously lived — “even when this means going against the dominant cultural currents.”
