“Is shamanism or ethnic tradition a culture of the devil that has to be wiped out?”

🔥The question: “When Catholicism arrives, do Mongolia and the region have to give up their old culture and their customs for honoring ancestors?”

🕯️First, the admission: In the course of mission, Christians imposed European culture as though it were the Gospel itself, and suppressed indigenous languages, names, art, and communities as primitive. Destroying cultures and forcing assimilation was wrong, and we have to listen to the communities that were harmed and help them recover their memory, their language, and their rights.

🛡️The Church's answer: A people's culture was not an empty vessel before the Gospel arrived. Love of family, hospitality to guests, respect for nature, and a people's language, music, and art already carry precious wisdom and goodness. Catholic faith has to respect that and let local people themselves live the Gospel in their own language and their own forms of expression. At the same time, in any culture, customs that frighten or harm people and trample on human dignity can be criticized, and Catholics have to distinguish cultural courtesy from worshipping other spirits as the lords of salvation. The same standard applies to the missionaries' culture and to the customs of the Church.

A further note — we do not put a whole culture on trial

Within a single tradition there can be both a hospitality that keeps people alive and customs by which people oppress one another. So we do not sort things into “what is foreign is Gospel, what is indigenous is superstition.” Whoever is speaking, we look concretely at whether it fits human life, freedom, and dignity, and the love of Christ.

🧐If they press further: “Is remembering our ancestors not allowed either?” — Remembering those who have died, giving thanks for them, and praying to God is fine. Just keep it distinct from treating ancestors as gods or worshipping them as masters of spiritual power.

✨In one sentence: “Catholic faith is not out to erase a people's culture; it respects the good within it and honestly discerns only what runs against human dignity and the Gospel.”