Last month’s Eucharistic procession along Summit Avenue in St. Paul was one of the most beautiful communal Catholic devotions I’ve ever participated in.
But in the midst of walking down the mansion-lined avenue with my fellow Minnesota Catholics, from the stately St. Paul Seminary to our glorious Cathedral overlooking the state Capitol and downtown St. Paul’s skyline, a simple phrase kept running through my mind: “and now, for something completely different.”
Here’s why. Less than 24 hours after the procession’s concluding Benediction at the Cathedral of St. Paul, I was on a 13-hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya, for the start of a three-week reporting trip on the Catholic Church in Africa. As I write this, I’m traveling back to Kenya after visiting Kampala, Uganda, for Martyrs Day, the annual celebration of St. Charles Lwanga and companions.
In so many ways, African countries like Kenya and Uganda are completely different than Minnesota.
The ways in which this is true are almost too many to count, not just regarding metrics like the national GDP or standard of living (which are quite disparate), but in a more fundamental, “worldview” sense.
For instance, for the first few days of my trip, I found it strange that when I’d ask someone a seemingly basic question like, “How many kids do you have?” or “How many people live in your village?”, I’d get very evasive and noncommittal answers. I soon learned why: In Kenya, it’s considered rude and ungrateful to count your children, since they’re a gift from God and you should accept them without numbering them.
On the topic of religious fervor, the theologian John Mbiti once described his fellow Africans as “notoriously religious,” utterly saturated in the spiritual, and in sharp contrast to the secularism and hyper-rationalism of the West. You can literally see how this manifests in Africa, with a multitude of Catholic parishes and seminaries being built to accommodate the Church’s growth, but also tendencies toward superstition, syncretism, and breakaway sects, evident in the prevalence of Pentecostal “healing churches,” self-styled prophets, and persistent polygamy and ancestor worship.
So yes, on some level, Africa and Minnesota might as well be on different planets.
But amidst all these profound cultural differences, I’ve been struck that a Minnesotan and a Kenyan can still share what is most fundamental: membership in the body of Christ, the Catholic Church.
I’ve experienced this sense of solidarity with my African Catholic brothers and sisters in so many ways during my weeklong stay. For instance, at a Mass in the Kenyan Archdiocese of Kisumu, where even though I didn’t understand the Swahili hymns and couldn’t participate in the rhythmic dancing, I was still able to unite with those gathered in the Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist.
Or consider my conversation with a Catholic hotel manager, Eva, and a Protestant receptionist, Laurine. Though the two Kenyan women had a world in common that I did not, it was Eva and I, two strangers distinguished by race, sex and nationality, who found ourselves gushing about our shared Catholic faith, as Laurine listened curiously.
But probably the most significant experience of this kind was at Martyrs Day. I was one of a tiny handful of people of European descent there, surrounded by over a million Africans, there to celebrate a saint who is especially revered on the continent. But St. Charles Lwanga is also my confirmation saint, a choice I made as a 16-year-old growing up in northern Minnesota, in part because I was struck by the universality of the Church.
All these experiences reinforce St. Paul’s teaching that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Not because these differences don’t matter, but they aren’t ultimate; belonging to the body of Christ is.
At various points, it’s struck me that, in the realest of ways, I am more connected to my African Catholic brothers and sisters than I am to a fellow Minnesotan who shares my preferences for alt folk music, ButterBurgers with mayo and extra pickles, and Wisconsin sports teams, but isn’t a Catholic.
In fact, back home in the archdiocese, we call Kitui, Kenya, our “sister” diocese precisely because we are family, united by our shared faith. This despite the multitude of cultural differences that distinguish us.
Halfway across the world, this reality can be hard to see. But it is there. And we can live it out by keeping our African brothers and sisters in our hearts and in our minds, especially those who suffer persecution and poverty, supporting them through our prayers and assistance. Because in Christ Jesus, there is neither Minnesotan nor Kenyan.
Liedl, a Twin Cities resident, is a senior editor of The National Catholic Register and a graduate student in theology at The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.
