Indigenous Cultures: A New Springtime for the Church

by Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia

Plenary address at the CTA National Conference Nov. 7, 1999 in Milwaukee. Dom Samuel spoke in Spanish and occasionally in English. His line-by-line translators were Barbara and Jarier Alvarado of Madison, Wis. This written version was transcribed from the audiotape, edited slightly for space reasons.

Someone once told me that it is always best to speak out of your own life experience. And I have discovered over the years that the presence of God is revealed to us in the course of our own story. So as I give this talk, I am thanking God for the wonderful things God has done in our midst.

It is really amusing how unexplainable things keep happening to me. For example, many years ago, quite accidently, I got a reputation as an expert on evangelization in Latin America. This is how it happened.

An accidental prophet

Some time before the historic 1968 Medellín Conference of CELAM (the Latin American Bishops' Conference), a preparatory meeting of missionaries took place in Colombia. At that time there was a line of demarcation between Mexico and the rest of Latin America, because we Mexicans had a strong sense of superiority. As one of our popular songs says, Como Mexico, no hay dos: there can only be one Mexico. We had lived through religious persecution in Mexico, then we had enjoyed a religious renewal, and we felt we had little to learn from South America.

Two Jesuit missionaries who worked in our diocese decided to take a two-month vacation. They arranged to attend one of the two catechetical schools promoted by CELAM. One was in Quito, Ecuador and the other was in Santiago, Chile. They chose Santiago because it was a longer trip. But they made excellent preparations for the Colombia meeting, developing a detailed set of questions they would ask the meeting to answer. Questions like, "Should we be paying catechists a salary?" and "How are our catechists meeting the challenges of the culture?" They had visited several other Mexican dioceses and obtained their input for the questions. They also traveled through Central America gathering ideas, and nearly every month they would send me a report. They went to Bogotá, visited the offices of CELAM, and shared their work. The officials of CELAM were impressed, and asked these two to be in charge of collecting all the survey data about missionary work across Latin America. CELAM also asked them, "Which Mexican bishop would you suggest as a participant at the forthcoming meeting of missionaries?" Of course they named their own bishop - me! So that's how I got chosen for this meeting!

Church meets anthropology

The meeting was sheer torture for me - the content was way over my head, and so were the questions they kept asking me. But as I sat there next to several bishops from Guatemala, I began to hear for the first time about anthropology, and its bearing on our missionary activity. One of the speakers was Professor Dormatoff, a prominent anthropologist. His ideas shook our very foundations like an earthquake. What is culture? Culture, he told us, is the set of responses that a group of human beings makes to questions of transcendence and of living together, and passes along from one generation to the next. And he distinguished culture from civilization, which is the complex of technical means whereby a human group exercises dominion over its environment. Civilization is whatever a culture, or the people living in a culture, need to survive. Some human communities may have very little civilization, very few technical resources - subsisting on the fruits of the field or climbing the trees for coconuts - yet have a very rich culture with many values. Conversely, there can be human communities with enormous technical resources, but very meager cultural values. (We can verify this without alluding to any nation in particular!) Race is the complex of a human being's biological factors. For example, President Fujimori of Peru has been known to insist angrily, in Japanese, "But I am Peruvian!" Race has nothing directly to do with cultural identity. Any human being who lives within an ethnic group becomes a part of that group.

Through these ideas, Dormatoff began to tell us how the evangelizing activity of the Church was guilty of destroying cultures. Missionaries have been ethnocentric, acting like their own culture was the only true one in the world, and all other agents and all other factors must submit to it. I must confess that I have not been blameless in this regard. When I first came to Chiapas, I too was guilty of destroying the native culture.

As I listened to all this, I turned to my Guatemalan bishop friends and said, "Here we go again. First they told us we had to be good theologians, in order to hand on the faith. Then they told us we had to be canonists, in order to establish discipline in our dioceses. Now we must be anthropologists as well!"

I was angry. I stood up and addressed the speaker. "Mr. Dormatoff, I have two questions. First, in studying various cultures do you find that they have a central point around which all other factors are organized?" He said, "We wouldn't put it quite that way, but yes, every culture has a nucleus, a center." Then I asked, "In the cultures you have studied, would you say that religion is more central to its content, or more marginal and peripheral?" And Dormatoff replied without a moment's hesitation: "Religion is always central. In any culture of the world, and certainly in all the cultures of North and South America which I have studied, religion is the central point of the culture."

I turned to my Guatemalan bishop friends - Bishop Flores, and also Bishop Gerardi (the one who was recently assassinated) - and said, "So what do we do now? What is there to evangelize?" And I thought to myself: I am supposed to preach the Gospel. I thought that meant converting the pagan Indians to be Christians, even if we destroyed the Indian culture in the process. But why then has God permitted the existence of so many diverse cultures in the world? Just so missionary activity can come along later and destroy them? Or should I be sitting down and studying the culture, and waiting for the proper moment to preach? And since human beings' ultimate destiny is not the here and now, but beyond history, why would we work so hard to destroy cultures and replace them with one common culture? Why did God choose to have Jesus born into a particular culture, that of being a Jew in that time and place?

Gutierrez unpacks Vatican II

Gustavo Gutierrez came to discuss with us the Vatican II document on the missionary activity of the Church. (By the way, Gustavo Gutierrez at the present time is a novice in the Dominican order in France. Whether it's for protection or for devotion, I don't know.) Now I had been present at all four sessions of Vatican II, and I was familiar with that document. But now through Gutierrez I began to understand what it really meant. God loves all humankind, he said, and therefore God reveals Godself to all the ethnic and cultural groups of the world. So there is a process of salvation going on in every culture throughout the world. Before any missionary arrives to speak of Christ, a process of salvation and a revelation of God is already there!

This changes the whole meaning of the Church's missionary efforts. Vatican II talked about the seeds of the Word already planted in every culture. The missioner's first task is to see what God has been doing in that culture - to face the people and say (face to face, not with our backs turned): Dominus vobiscum. The Lord IS with you.

But to do that, we must have an instrument to help us discover what God is doing. Our evangelizing activity must recover what God has been doing in that culture, and take it forward in an evangelizing process. When the bishops of Latin America gathered in Santo Domingo, they put it beautifully: "We know in truth that Christopher Columbus did not bring God on board his ships."

If God is present in all these cultures, missionary work has a whole different meaning: announcing the presence of God already there. I remember talking about this once with a deacon in Canada, a native American. He told me, "Bishop, what you say is so true. Before I became a Christian, I worshipped the Great Spirit. And when I did so, I was not worshipping the devil. Now that I am a Christian, I know that the Great Spirit is a family - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But this is the same God I formerly worshipped as the Great Spirit." With this new understanding, pastoral work in our diocese changed profoundly.

When I was in Colombia, I met some Mexicans in the airport. One was a priest/social scientist who had contributed significant insights to CELAM's research into missionary activity. (Yes, now Mexicans are even becoming experts in sociology!) Missionaries across South America had been holding their own internal discussions, with some striking repercussions. We were just external observers of all this, but we spoke about it. By the time the meeting ended, they practically carried us out on their shoulders in triumph. They said we had saved the whole meeting.

On to Medellín

Having been given all this glory, I was asked to come to a preparatory session for Medellín and to present one of the themes. A document was circulated that gave the bishops' responses to a preliminary draft for Medellín. We were working on incorporating the bishops' ideas into the text. Everyone else had an assignment. The archbishop of Panama, who was chairing the meeting, said to me, "Ruiz, we have a job for you. We need an introduction to the document, and some notes." So I just took my stenographic notes on what he had said, and inserted them into the text. It was extraordinary. When he saw these things in the text, he couldn't remember that it all had come from him. He was very pleased, and the next thing I knew, I had been chosen to present a theme at Medellín. My topic was: catechesis and evangelization in Latin America.

I went to the Latin American library in Cuernavaca to start my preparation. I filled eight pages with the bibliography of things I would have to read. I decided I was going to make a fool of myself in any presentation to the bishops at Medellín. I didn't even know the difference between catechesis and evangelization. I thought they meant the same thing. Then I got a telegram: our apologies, Bishop, but some problems have arisen, and the topic assigned to you is now going to be addressed by the auxiliary bishop of Caracas. Thank God! But then, after a while, a cablegram came from Rome, from Msgr. Brandao of Brazil, president of CELAM. It said: we will divide catechesis and evangelization in two. Catechesis will be handled by the auxiliary bishop of Caracas. The topic of evangelization on the continent will be developed by you.

I started shaking in my boots. There wasn't much time. I went to Caracas and asked the other speaker for the documentation he had assembled for my topic. But what he had, I could not deliver as my own. My anxiety mounted: I had no idea what to say. I went to a meeting with other conference speakers to coordinate our presentations so we would not invade each other's territory. I told the archbishop of Panama I hadn't had time to prepare anything. He told me he had some ideas, and gave me some of his own notes on my subject.

The Pope had already arrived in Latin America to open the Eucharistic Congress, and to be present for the beginning of the CELAM Conference in Medellín. A Peruvian bishop friend of mine invited me to go downtown with him to a bookstore. While he was shopping, I was browsing through the shelves. Suddenly I came upon a book by Betty Stein about evangelization. It was my salvation! I started to read it. I was embarrassed to just lift quotes from the book, so I would change the words around a little. I practically transcribed the whole book.

When I gave my talk at the CELAM conference, no one realized that I was like Jesus when he said: "The words I speak to you are not mine!" So I became a specialist in evangelization!

Evidently all these things were having an impact on me. When I went home, I could not continue doing things as we had done them before. I began to raise the questions: how should we be doing catechesis, and what should be our approach for evangelization? We had only 13 priests spread across two dioceses. Nevertheless, we chose two priests, some sisters and some lay people to go and study a semester of anthropology at one of the Mexican universities. We hoped this would help us do a more adequate job of evangelization - discovering how to find God's presence in the midst of indigenous cultures.

Discovering God back home

We began to ask the various indigenous groups in our region: What holidays do you celebrate? Who are your heroes? What are your principal historical events? Sad to say, we found out that they didn't have any. A subjugated people has no history of its own.

For many years, Latin America had no church history. We were just an appendix to the European church. In the same way, the history of the indigenous peoples was the history of their master, not their own story. The only festivals were the feast days of patron saints.

We asked ourselves: if religion is more than morality or ethics, and more than dogmas to believe in, if religion is a history of salvation, how can we build a church amidst a people that does not have a history?

At this moment, God's providence came to our aid. The various dioceses in Mexico were coming together at a meeting in Chiapas. In the sociological research presented there, we made an amazing discovery. In the Tzeltal section of Chiapas, instead of the urban population growing, the rural population was growing. This was not happening anywhere else on the continent. At first we thought it was a statistical error. But no, there was no mistake. What was occurring was a flight, an exodus of the tribes from the city out into the jungle. So we asked people: why do you want to go back? What utopia are you pursuing? And we discovered a hidden history that had been submerged.

We called a meeting of 200 catechists. We asked them: what does being a catechist mean for you? Each person began to respond from his or her own point of view. A catechist is one who teaches by example. A catechist is one who knows the Word of God. A catechist is a witness. We filled the blackboard with the many individual answers. But then we discussed them. Shouldn't every Christian give good example, know the Word, be a witness? And soon we had erased all the answers and the board was empty.

We talked and talked. And believe me, when Mayan Indians discuss, they all talk loud and they all talk at the same time, even if no one is listening to each other. Finally, silence fell. We had arrived at a consensus. A catechist is one who harvests the thinking of a community.

From that moment on, everything changed. Before, catechists would wear badges indicating all the courses in Scripture and catechetics they had completed to become catechists. They would come into the communities to teach what the other people didn't know. From now on, the catechist would come into a village with one little notebook, with three little questions regarding the Gospel for that Sunday, and would gather the harvest of what the community had to say.

Catechesis of the Exodus

That was the beginning of our Catechesis of the Exodus. The three questions were very simple. 1. What is the plan of God in history? 2. Have men and women really followed this plan? 3. How can we live faith, hope and charity in a world where the will of God is not followed? But remember: this was after Vatican II. When we asked about the plan of God in history, we had to look for it in the political, the economic, and the cultural situation. And we found in these three aspects a reflection of the Trinity. The mystery of the Trinity is not a mathematical mystery of three in one. It is the manifestation of the Father in politics, the Son in economics, and the Holy Spirit in the culture. The three aspects are interrelated: politics and economics are intertwined in the culture. So we have a dim reflection of the Trinity.

Our 200 catechists went back to their 200 communities, and each community proceeded to respond to the same three questions. We then gathered the harvest from all 200 communities. The result has come to be called the Catechesis of the Exodus. Problems of justice emerged. There were problems of land no longer being agriculturally productive. That's why people had left. And I remember the result of one of these lessons. When asked, how can we live faith and hope in this political, economic and cultural situation, and what is charity in this setting, all 200 communities spontaneously said with one voice: charity cannot be defined. Charity must be lived. And we began to discover how charity can be lived - politically, economically, and culturally.

For example, charity in our economic situation meant starting a transportation cooperative. This immediately provoked reaction. The people who controlled regional transportation got very upset because they were losing control. So they drank a little alcohol to make it look like an accident, and then drove their trucks into the native people's vehicle to immobilize it. Our people went to the official agencies to try to resolve the problem: "We are a cooperative. Give us three days to bring all relevant parties to the table." "Well, how many are there?" the officials asked. "Twenty-five thousand," the people said. The agencies quickly decided to cooperate.

I remember a lesson we learned about culture and education. An old man came in who was very sad. He entered the meeting where the reports from all the communities were being delivered. I said to him, "Pedro, why are you sad?" He said, "I ran into my compadre's son on the road, named Pedro like myself. He called out to me, 'Hey Indian, where are you going?' I stared at him and said, 'Aren't you the son of my compadre?' He answered, 'Yes, but I am no longer an Indian. I have my horse, I have my ranch, and whenever you want work, I can give you work. But you'll always be poor because you just hide behind the priest. You don't even know how to read and write.' I answered, 'I never had an opportunity to go to school. My masters never let me. But it's not true that I don't know how to read and write. I may not know how to write things down on paper, but I certainly know things in here,'" he said, pointing to his heart.

This is how people are recognizing their dignity as well as their socio-economic situation. The Catechesis of the Exodus truly formed the people of the jungle.

How much more speaking time do I have? When you speak of things you love, you can easily lose all sense of time. Besides, I have become one of the indigenous people myself! One of the culture shocks for me has been trying to change my own sense of time. For my people, if we aren't going to be able to finish something, we don't even start it!

Manuel Gomez Lopez was sent to an agricultural school to learn things that would help his local community. He was away for a couple of months. When he returned home, people came to him and said, "Manuel, what happened? Where have you been? We thought you had left your wife and run off with another woman!" He said, "No, brothers and sisters, I've been away to learn." "Well, what did you learn?" He replied, "Why don't you sit down here, and I'll tell you about it." That was at 4 PM. He began to share what he had learned about soil, and seeds, and production. How you could select certain seeds over others. How you could fertilize without using chemicals. How you could organize your family, etc., etc. At 10 p.m. he said, "I think we should go to bed." "No, no, brother," they insisted. "We're not tired. Keep going!" The meeting ended at eight the next morning. Soon they were taking the dogs and chickens and hogs out of their houses and building pens and corrals. They they were cleaning their homes and taking new precautions about sanitation. The entire community was reorganized according to the ideas that Manuel had brought home.
Culture shock about the use of time had a great impact on us. We had to learn the sacred meaning of "coffee break," and the importance of finishing meetings on time.

In preparation for the congress of indigenous peoples in our diocese, San Cristobal, in 1974, people had a whole year of gatherings in their local communities, reflecting on Bartolome de las Casas, the first bishop of Chiapas. He was a defender of the native peoples, and participated in the creation of the "Laws of the Indies." They reflected on themes of the land, trade, and education. When they came to education, they said: we have to re-educate education. Our children by age 8 or 10, for example, already know the names and uses of hundreds of medicinal plants. Then along come the textbooks and try to teach them in incomprehensible scientific jargon about plants they already know.

Finding God in every culture

Let me sum up. Since Vatican II, we are witnessing the emergence of autonomous communities throughout the continent of Latin America. This means acknowledging the revealing presence of God in all the indigenous cultures. In former days, the evangelization of our continent involved the imposition of a culture. There was no interreligious dialogue between Christianity and pre-Colombian religions. When people were converted, a Western Christian culture was imposed upon them. But since the Council, we have a situation not unlike that of the early Church. In order to become Christians, pagans at first had to submit to the Mosaic Law and become Jewish. But then a contrary decision was made: the Gospel had to become inculturated in the Roman Empire. Later on, we forgot in the Western hemisphere this lesson which we learned in the East. When missionaries came to evangelize here, they proceeded to impose Western culture. But now we see the emergence of indigenous communities that are conscious of their own cultural identity. This is a marvelous new Springtime in our Church. The worldwide Church is being enriched by all these cultures.

A brief example. When they were translating the Gospels into a tribal language in Africa, they took the words "Thy Kingdom come" and translated it literally, word for word. But it meant nothing to the people. Then they asked the local communities to make a cultural translation. It came out like this: "May your drum resound throughout the jungle." The meaning is the same, but with an enriching cultural description.

So I say to you, be prepared for the emergence of native peoples as subjects of their own history. They are aware that the cultural values they possess must now be placed on the table of civilization, toward a total transformation. For them to participate in that process does not mean to take what pertains to them, but rather to contribute what they already have. And that is the understanding of community that the Church of the West badly needs at this time.

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