In 21st century Catholicism, you can’t ignore Africa any more

[rug]

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor November 20, 2014

It’s commonplace to say that the Catholic Church, and the Vatican in particular, needs to hear the voices of the developing world. Two-thirds of the planet’s 1.2 billion Catholics now live outside the West, a share that will reach three-quarters by mid-century, and it seems only fair that those folks claim a seat at the table.

Today we’re hearing their voices loud and clear, above all from the 150 million Catholics — and climbing — in Africa, and sometimes it makes for a bumpy ride.

A recent reminder comes from Kenya, where the country’s Minister for Health recently announced that a national medical institute will conduct joint tests with all stakeholders, including physicians advising the Catholic Church, on a tetanus vaccine being distributed to women aged 14 to 19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.

The tests became necessary after Catholic bishops told a parliamentary committee in late October that sampling carried out by Catholic physicians had detected the presence of a hormone that induces miscarriages and eventually sterility, fueling suspicions that the immunizations are actually a “disguised population control program.”

http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/11/20/in-21st-century-catholicism-you-cant-ignore-africa-any-more/

[Sanity Claws]

1. The real story is hidden

IMHO the real story is a hormone in the immunizations. Huh? Or else the real story is that the physicians who allegedly detected the hormone are liars and have some kind of ulterior motive to make defamatory remarks about immunization.

[rug]

2. Here's an earlier story on the tetanus vaccine.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12215494

But here I think he's making a larger point about the characteristics of the Church in Africa.

On sexual morality, many African Catholics are profoundly convinced that there’s a secular Western conspiracy to cram a liberal ethic down their throats, and some believe it even reaches into the Church. Likewise on economic matters, many African Catholics are equally convinced that international structures are designed to keep their people in poverty, and thus are ferociously resistant to any effort to reconcile Catholic social teaching with the new realities of the global financial system.

As a result, both liberal and conservatives in the Catholic fold in the West sometimes face an uphill climb in convincing Africans that their intentions are benign.

The fact of the matter is that African Catholics often look at the West, both its secular and ecclesiastical expressions, with skepticism. Given the sorry history of Western colonial intervention on the continent, it’s hard to argue that bias is completely irrational.

In today’s Catholic Church, Africans have both the numbers and the self-confidence to back up their concerns. Whether they have legitimate reasons in any given case is almost beside the point, because anyone who wants to move the ball ignores that African pushback at their peril.

There's a similar geographic tension within the Anglican Communion.