Cultural Appropriation and Catholic Social Teaching

by CAPP-USA

What is Cultural Appropriation?

Cultural appropriation is when elements of a minority or marginalized culture are adopted by members of a dominant cultural group in ways that ignore or misuse the original meaning, context, or significance of those elements.

It is often difficult to pin down what is appropriate and what isn’t, but some examples might include: using sacred religious symbols as fashion accessories; commercializing traditional practices, art, or music while the original culture doesn’t benefit and engaging with cultural elements without giving credit and showing respect.

Context matters! The difference between appreciating another culture and appropriating it is often defined by relationships of power where the dominant culture ‘tramples’ on the minority.

What does the Church Say?

Certainly to mock, oppress, or deceive by appropriating what another culture holds sacred and serious is not condoned by the Church.

Catholic social teaching more fully embraced culture when Pope St. John Paul II wrote extensively of its importance in Centesimus Annus. “All human activity takes place within a culture and interacts with culture.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 51)

This was close to the heart of the pontiff, as Nazism and Communism had worked hard in the 20th century to eliminate certain cultures, including his own Polish roots. When he wrote that “Man is understood in a more complete way when he is situated within the sphere of culture through his language, history, and the position he takes towards the fundamental events of life, such as birth, love, work and death” (Pope St. John Paul II, 24) it came from personal experience.

The Catholic faith does not replace culture, it elevates it, transcends it. As St. Paul says, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27)

The Christian does not usurp, laugh at, show disrespect, colonize, or conquer a culture. “The Christian…While paying heed to every fragment of truth which he encounters in the life experience and in the culture of individuals and of nations…will not fail to affirm in dialogue with others all that his faith and the correct use of reason have enabled him to understand.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 46)

Catholic social teaching is interested in a “culture of life” and a “culture of peace”. Of evangelizing “the culture of the various nations, sustaining culture in its progress towards the truth, and assisting in the work of its purification and enrichment.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 50)

Woke Culture and Cancel Culture

The “woke” and “cancel culture” aggressively attempts to shut down anything or anyone who disagrees with their vision. Yet their use of the term “woke” is, itself, a form of cultural appropriation, originating in African American culture as a response to legitimate racism. It has now been usurped to mean whatever the progressive left wants to target.

Pope Francis refers to the cancel culture as “ideological colonization”. (Apostolic Visit to Canada)

“This mentality, presumptuously thinking that the dark pages of history have been left behind, becomes open to the “cancel culture” that would judge the past purely on the basis of certain contemporary categories. The result is a cultural fashion that levels everything out, makes everything equal, proves intolerant of differences and concentrates on the present moment, on the needs and rights of individuals, while frequently neglecting their duties with regard to the most weak and vulnerable of our brothers and sisters: the poor, migrants, the elderly, the sick, the unborn…” (Apostolic Visit to Canada)

“As a result, agendas are increasingly dictated by a mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity and the cultural roots that constitute the identity of many peoples…leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the ‘cancel culture’ invading many circles and public institutions. Under the guise of defending diversity, it ends up cancelling all sense of identity”. (Pope Francis)

And Pope St. John Paul II also addressed this saying, “when a culture becomes inward looking, and tries to perpetuate obsolete ways of living by rejecting any exchange or debate with regard to the truth about man, then it becomes sterile and is heading for decadence.” (Centesimus Annus, 50)

A culture cannot thrive outside of the Truth. “The way in which he [humankind] is involved in building his own future depends on the understanding he has of himself and of his own destiny. It is on this level that the Church’s specific and decisive contribution to true culture is to be found.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 51)

The Bottom Line

“Different cultures are basically different ways of facing the question of the meaning of personal existence. When this question is eliminated, the culture and moral life of nations are corrupted.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 24)

It is good for cultures to interact in a healthy dialogue. It is good also for cultures to retain their identities while at the same time disposing of practices and beliefs that contradict the Truth. No culture should ever be appropriated for reasons of power, manipulation, amusement, or selfish goals.

Cultures can and should celebrate one another and work together as part of the “irrepressible search for personal identity and for the meaning of life, to rediscover the religious roots of their national cultures, and to rediscover the person of Christ himself as the existentially adequate response to the desire in every human heart for goodness, truth and life.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 24)