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In this scholarly (peer-reviewed) book chapter, I contribute to an edited volume that engages embodying ecclesial diversity. My contribution specifically tackles catholicity - as unity in diversity - in terms of race and inculturation. Specifically, I take up the difficulty topic of white culture, tease out its distinction from racial whiteness, and offer a path forward for its inculturation.
Stay tuned for the publication of this volume (the version of record) cited below and check back here to access the author’s preprint version of this manuscript. In the meantime, check out the paper’s précis below.
Version of Record for Research & Citation
“Catholicity Amid white Normativity: How Inculturating White Culture Fosters Ecclesial Diversity.” In Embodying Ecclesial Diversity, edited by Cristina Lledo Gomez and Brian Flanagan. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, McMillan. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. (Forthcoming 2025)
Paper Précis
Catholicity as unity in diversity is one of the marks of the Church and flourishes through the process of inculturation. In the multi-cultural reality of the U.S. where 64% of Filipino Americans, 54% of Latino Americans, 27% of Vietnamese Americans, and 21% of white Americans are Catholic, the inculturation of these distinct U.S. cultures is especially crucial for catholicity.
Problematically, however, the normativity of White culture in the U.S. significantly inhibits American catholicity. Indeed, White culture is an unquestioned and invisible norm which evaluates of other cultural perspectives but is rarely itself evaluated. In this sense, White culture sets the terms within which other cultural forms of Church can flourish. In its most harmful form, White culture promotes white supremacy in the form of white Christian nationalism. At the same time, the normativity that insulates White Culture from evaluation also obscures the need for the inculturation of White culture itself. Indeed, most white Catholics no longer identify themselves culturally according to their distant European-immigrant roots but also cannot fully articulate their own White cultural identity. As long as White culture occludes its own cultural subjectivity and remains normative, White culture reinforces the supremacy of whiteness, constrains other cultural forms of U.S. Catholicism, and ultimately inhibits the catholicity of the American church.
To address these obstacles to U.S. catholicity, I argue that the inculturation of White culture remains a necessary and outstanding task. I contend that inculturating White culture requires following the model of inculturation found in the history and living example of Black Catholicism. To this end, I tease out the distinction between whiteness as a racial caste and Whiteness as a people’s culture. I also surface the outsized impact teología del pueblo has had on magisterial teaching concerning inculturation and distill the primary fruits of inculturation as put forth in teología del pueblo. Using these fruits, I demonstrate the aptness of Black Catholicism as a paradigm of inculturation for White Catholicism and propose some practical steps parishes can take to catalyze the inculturation of White culture.
Ultimately, by inculturating White culture, the U.S. church can transform White culture from an invisible norm to a contextual perspective alongside other cultures in a diverse American church and help untangle White culture’s spiritually diseased connection to racial caste and white supremacy.
