Inculturation: The Influence of Bartolomé de Las Casas on the Jesuits

Micah Wimmer

The European discovery of the Americas and its cultures introduced theological and anthropological questions for Christians that had not yet been fully answered on such a grand scale. The Catholic Church, not accounting for different cultural groups, seemingly had the anthropological question, “Who am I?” The Hebrew Bible most clearly proclaims that the human race was created in the image of God. Yet, despite this, Christians throughout history have struggled and failed to recognize and affirm the full humanity of all peoples. In turn, Christians have oppressed, enslaved, and killed countless persons whom they deemed not worthy of the title: “human.” The European Christians alongside the Indigenous inhabitants of these lands encountered cultures that were entirely different to their own. Two essential questions arose out of this cultural dichotomy for European Christians. The first was not, “Who am I?,” but “Who are these indigenous peoples?,” as their culture was evidently different from the European Christians.

This anthropological and theological conundrum only led to a second, equally important question: “How do we preach the Gospel to them?” The first question appears purely anthropological and the second purely theological at face value, however, as Bartolomé de las Casas (1486-1566) found, Christian theology and anthropology must go hand-in-hand to inform one’s thinking and way of life. This essay addresses how these two questions were answered by the radical, transformative Spanish Catholic missionary, Bartolomé de las Casas, through the use of both Christian theology and anthropology to form a decently novel idea regarding the peoples of the New World: inculturation; a practice of ministering the Gospel of Christ while being culturally sensitive and accommodating.[1] As a result of his teachings, this essay demonstrates the influential legacy of Las Casas’s theory of inculturation, a philosophy which shaped the missionary practices of the Jesuits.           

Las Casas’s Framework and Conversion

In the late fifteenth century, the Church and the Spanish State were very intertwined with the power held by the State.[2] This power had been exercised by popes for over a century, as they continuously permitted Christian kings the right to besiege and attempt to conquer the territories and peoples of the Levant and Northern Africa, to advance Eurocentric ideologies. As such, when Europeans encountered the Indigenous peoples of the New World, they viewed them as they had the Moors and Africans whom they had seen as individuals to be conquered and used in order to get rich quickly.[3] The reality is that the Latin American Natives were non-Spanish speakers, did not practice Catholicism, did not wear clothes, and were, according to the Europeans, reputed to practice both “cannibalism” and “sodomy.” These aspects strengthened the colonial argument that they were “not quite human.”[4]

When Las Casas first came to the New World in the early 1500s, he was just a young teenager on the island of Hispaniola (present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic).[5] However, he soon saw the murderous atrocities the Europeans committed against the already enslaved Natives. Las Casas, complicit in this system, owned two enslaved individuals. After seeing numerous European campaigns ending in the massacre of Natives, Las Casas went back to Spain at the age of twenty-two and determined that he would enter the priesthood to oppose any kinds of violence with peace. Yet, when Las Casas returned to Hispaniola, he continued to own the two enslaved individuals. While his practices were not as atrocious as most encomenderos, Spaniards responsible for the “Christianization Hispanization, and protection” of Natives[6], a preacher admonished his practices in 1511.[7] It was at this sermon that Las Casas began to question his own oppressive practices against Indigenous people.[8] Three years later, while preparing his own sermon, Bartolomé de las Casas experienced a revelation as he read the words of Ecclesiasticus 34:

“Unclean is the offering sacrificed by an oppressor. Such mockeries are not pleasing to God. The Lord is pleased only by those who keep to the way of truth and justice. The Most High does not accept the gifts of unjust people, He does not look well upon their offerings. Their sins will not be expiated by repeat sacrifices. The one whose sacrifice comes from the goods of the poor is like one who kills his neighbor.” 

From that moment on, Las Casas dedicated his entire life to affirming the full humanity of the Native Americans, and liberating them from the atrocities inflicted upon them by his fellow European Christians. [9]

Las Casas’s theories were grounded in Thomas Aquinas’ (1225-1274) theological account of natural law. Aquinas defines natural law as “nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated.”[10] This natural law, according to Aquinas, is held by all of humankind on account of them being rational, and created in the image of God.[11] Informed by Aquinas‘ evidence, Las Casas declared that “all the races in the world are [people], and of all [people] and of each individual there is but one definition, and this is that they are rational. All have understanding and will and free choice, as all are made in the image and likeness of God.”[12]

With this declaration, Las Casas rebutted the vast majority of Eurocentric theories and formerly answered the first essential question: “Who are these indigenous peoples?” They were, as they had always been, fully rational human beings. This anthropological belief stemmed directly from Las Casas’ theology, informed by Aquinas, in believing that all humans were created in God’s image. This mix of anthropology and theology, alongside Thomas Aquinas’ definition of natural law, allowed Las Casas to answer the first essential question.

In order for Las Casas’s new theory of inculturation to influence others, he had to convince the rest of the European settlers to adopt his anthropological ideas. This proved to be a lofty task for Las Casas, primarily due to the drastic cultural differences between the Indigenous tribes and Europeans. As a Spaniard himself, Las Casas did not fully understand the cultural practices of the Native Americans.  To remedy his uninformed position, Las Casas “exercised a profound level of humility and compassion in trying to understand indigenous practices and beliefs, especially in religious matters.”[13] To fully affirm the rationality and the humanity of the Natives, Las Casas needed to convince the Europeans to follow his lead. They needed to use their Christian theology to inform their anthropology. He argued against the popular Eurocentric belief that the Native Americans were incapable of receiving the Christian faith and “[were] inclined towards evil”[14] because of their Indigenous practices and beliefs. Las Casas argues for his theory of inculturation, supported by Thomas Aquinas’ beliefs, that Native Americans were fully rational human beings created in God’s image. He similarly asserted that this contention was something that “could have [been] known only by divine revelation.”[15] In one swift stroke of the pen, Las Casas vehemently rejected the notion that the Indigenous peoples were irrational and beyond saving simply because of their cultural and religious practices.

Las Casas’s self-discovery would successfully convince many of the Europeans to follow his teachings.[16] However, Las Casas would soon realize that the reverse was just as true: one’s anthropology will inform one’s theology. This realization occurred immediately after Las Casas answered the first question, and was faced with the second essential question: “How do we preach the Gospel to them?” He needed to develop a peaceful method that would aid in the conversions of the Natives despite the cultural divide that lay before him. Las Casas once again had to combine his theology and anthropology to form his beliefs that would result in his missionary practice of inculturation. This practice was grounded in the idea that if all humans are made in God’s image and are fully rational human beings that can be saved, there is no reason or basis for contending that all must come to Christ in the same way. This is why Las Casas states, “Our Christian religion is one and adapts itself to all nations of the world and by all it equally receives.”[17]

Once the humanity of the Natives was assured, the idea of Christian oneness and unity combined with the atrocities that Las Casas had seen, inspired him to assimilate Native and European culture. He was fully determined to address atrocities committed by the European missionaries such as “the crude attempts to impose such things as Christian marriage, European dress, and Spanish eating-habits.”[18] Las Casas disagreed with viewing the Indigenous Americans solely through a Eurocentric lens, and his theory of inculturation attempted to remedy his concerns. 

Furthermore, Las Casas noticed that Native Americans were very musically talented and used music in a multitude of settings. [19] So, he translated the story of Christ into the Native language, and then “set it to music using the indigenous drum and flute.” [20] In addition to using Indigenous music, he used plays put on by the Native peoples to tell Old and New Testament stories. Translating Christian stories through song and theater proved to be quite successful and useful [21]. However, due to the nature of some of the Native practices like idolatry and self sacrifice, there were a number of questions surrounding the possible assertion that they were antithetical to Christian values.[22] Lines had to be drawn to ensure that the crux of Christianity was not compromised. While analyzing the Natives’ practices, Las Casas observed that practical reason and justice within a political context orders social life to an end that is greater than the individual. A natural love for the good of the whole is expressed in the desire for permanence or constancy achieved by identification with the life of a city or an everlasting reign. The state and its political order are considered expressions of natural authority, so for the individual to desire the good of the whole community above himself is reasonably just and religious, even for a believer.[23]

He therefore recognized that the vast majority of the cultural and religious practices of the Natives, while different from everything the Europeans knew, were not inherently evil. This was especially true because the Natives’ motive for these practices was to better the community. So while Las Casas “wholeheartedly condemned the worship of the gods and its demonic influences as seen in acts of human sacrifice,” he was able to “distinguish forms of idolatry aimed at the promotion of the commonwealth from vicious forms of idolatry concerned with vain and narcissistic pursuit.” The former, he deemed, was not in contradiction to the crux of Christianity and should be allowed and even encouraged.  Las Casas believed  Christians should seek to transform the person, not the culture. A radical idea at the time, Bartolomé de las Casas respected the culture of the Natives to the degree that he “saw a reverse influence possible from [Native] cultures on Christianity. [They] could bring Spaniards to a consciousness of the meaning of their own Christianity and bring them to a consciousness of the presence of grace outside Spanish/Christian forms, and to a consciousness of the presence of created nature apart from their own.”[24]

Las Casas believed wholeheartedly that the Native Americans could be Christians whilst continuing their original practices. He also believed that their practices could benefit European Christians in their own pursuit of a deeper understanding of the Christian faith. This novel methodology of not only accepting Native culture but also conforming to it was a direct result of the inescapable interconnection between Christian theology and anthropology. “Who are these indigenous peoples?” It was through the process of answering this question that Las Casas was also able to answer the second essential question: “How do we preach the Gospel to them?” And like his first answer, his second was clear and concise: Christians should accept and adopt the culture in which they are evangelizing. Ultimately, through his missionary practice of inculturation, “Las Casas showed that natural law could be brought into helpful dialogue with culture in a way that preserved the distinctiveness of the Christian faith and its moral teaching while also acknowledging the moral status of new cultures.”[25]

Constantino Brumidi, Potrait of Barolomeo De Las Casas, 1876; Source: Flickr, US-Gov-PD.

Bartolomé de las Casas’ Influence on the Jesuits

In the middle of the sixteenth century and in the middle of Las Casas’ missionary work, a group of Catholics, captivated with the European “discovery” of the New World and the potential converts it would bring, banded together to go to the Holy Land. They did so with the intent to live where Jesus lived and to work for “the good of souls.” It was this first trip outside of Europe that formed a strong desire to complete religious missions throughout the entire world.[26]  Pope Paul III (1468-1549) officially formed a new religious order called the Society of Jesus on September 27, 1540.[27] This initial desire to conduct missions throughout the world was so strong that Ignatius of Loyola, the society’s first superior general and co-founder, exclaimed that the Society was “founded chiefly for this purpose: to strive especially for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine.”[28]

This ultimate purpose was fairly novel in the sphere of Catholic religious orders. The customary three vows of Catholic religious orders consisted of poverty, chastity, and obedience. However, this fourth vow highlighted changing ideas surrounding Christian missions in the world and was greatly influenced by the work of Las Casas. In 1537, Pope Paul III promulgated a bull entitled Sublimis Deus based on Las Casas’s book The Only Way to Draw All People to a Living Faith.[29] The bull “[enunciated] by fiat all the principles of The Only Way, not just for the [Natives] of the New World, but for all peoples to be discovered in the future.”[30] This landmark proclamation affirmed Las Casas’s decision that all human beings are equal and eligible for salvation once more.

This idea, which was largely opposed by the Church thirty years prior, now gave way for new missionaries to preach the Gospel with Las Casas’s anthropological bedrock now firmly established. The Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, was formed in an advantageous time for ministry. Las Casas’s groundwork significantly reduced the theological questions the Jesuits were tasked with answering. This allowed them to expedite their missionary goals and more easily spread their message.

The Society of Jesus incorporated inculturation into their missionary practices, embracing the novel idea that “to become a Christian one did not have to become a European.”[31] While their manifestation of this idea was undoubtedly neoteric and extreme for their time, the fundamental methodology that they developed was directly influenced by Las Casas. Pope Pius V (1504-1572) gave the first group of Jesuits (heading to Peru) directives for their missions. Two years after Las Casas’s death, Pope Pius “handed [a group of cardinals] Las Casas’ last two works, and told them to confer with Francis Borgia,” the third Jesuit general. It resulted in a set of “papal exhortations on good treatment for the [Natives], drafted by Borgia, that read as if they had been written by Las Casas.”[32]

So, while the missionary practices of Jesuits in Peru were directly influenced by Las Casas's central ideas, in other parts of the world his practices and writings were exemplars for Jesuit missionaries to follow. This can be seen through Las Casas’s first adaptation of Native culture in his evangelism, when he used the Indigenous Americans’ love and talent for music, as well as their instruments to teach the story of Christ.[33] This same practice was used years later in 1553 by the nineteen-year-old Jesuit Jose de Anchieta (1534-1597) in Brazil. Skilled in rhyme and verse, he “set Christian beliefs to Native tunes” to “capitalize on the [Native’s] marvelous musical talent.”[34] Las Casas’ practices and beliefs influenced Jesuit missionaries beyond the Western Hemisphere.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “The Jesuit teacher” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1877.https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-f328-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

In Japan, Jesuit missionaries adapted Las Casas’s beliefs regarding Native culture to form their own way of adapting to a culture juxtaposed to their own. During the late sixteenth century, Jesuit missionaries found themselves encountering a deeply-rich Japanese culture that they had trouble understanding. They needed a way to address this difference in light of their missions. To address these issues,  “the missionaries [abandoned] European dress, diet, and customs so as to conform themselves as far as possible with the culture of Japan.”[35] The Jesuits directly adapted Las Casas’s inculturation, mirroring his disapproval of “attempts to impose such things as Christian marriage, European dress, and Spanish eating-habits.”[36]

Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), an influential and controversial Jesuit Missionary, adapted inculturation throughout his missionary work in China (1582-1610) [37]. His drastic embrace of Chinese Christians partaking in certain ancestral and Confucian rites arguably started the Chinese Rites Controversy in which Christian missionaries in the 17th and 18th century argued about the compatibility of Christianity, Confucianism, and other Chinese rituals . This was due to the fact that the Chinese had a practice of making offerings to their ancestors that “from one point of view certainly look[ed] like ancestor worship.” This caused many questions regarding whether or not Chinese Christians needed to stop this practice in order to be true Christians.[38] Ricci addressed this very similarly to the way Las Casas addressed the Natives’ practice of idolatry. Las Casas, as was aforementioned, permitted forms of idolatry that were not acts of worshiping gods, but were “aimed at the promotion of the commonwealth.”[39] Ricci similarly permitted the Chinese to make offerings to their ancestors because they were not worshiping them, but were “[making] the fulfil[l]ment of their duty to their relatives, namely, to serve them in death as though they were alive. . . . this ceremony was begun . . . to teach the children and the ignorant ones to honor and serve their living relatives.”[40] Thus, Ricci made the same argument that Las Casas made in permitting native idolatry that benefited the community by permitting offerings from Chinese Christians to their ancestors for the betterment of their children, “the ignorant ones,” and their living relatives.[41]

Conclusion

Bartolomé de las Casas faced two essential questions: “Who are these indigenous peoples?” and “How do we preach the Gospel to them?” Assumptions of white European colonial-settler superiority made answering those questions challenging. Through reading Ecclesiasticus thirty-four and Thomas Aquinas’s definition of natural law, Las Casas answered the first question: Indigenous peoples were indeed rational and made in the image of God.  This led to the answer of the second question: if all people are rational and made in the image of God, then the Gospel can and should be accommodated to any and all peoples and cultures as there is nothing in their culture or their personhood that would deem them irrational or unfit for the Gospel.

Las Casas’s answers to these questions influenced the beliefs and practices of Jesuit inculturation.  Las Casas wrote a multitude of widely-circulated books in his lifetime and traveled across the world preaching and spreading his beliefs and practices to a multitude of friars, bishops, and other ecclesiastical persons. It was likely that the majority of Jesuit missionaries would have been aware of Las Casas's beliefs and practices of inculturation and would have adapted them into their own missionary work or used similar tactics. Some may argue against Las Casas’s impact, but it cannot be denied that he was a pioneer in regard to the way he answered two essential questions using an intertwined anthropology and theology.

Ultimately, both Bartolomé de las Casas and the Jesuits came to the understanding that all cultures and peoples are beautiful and useful for the propagation of the Christian faith.[42] Thus, all human beings contain qualities of virtue and excellence that Christians from all cultures can learn from and adopt to spread the Gospel more effectively. In the end, Bartolomé de las Casas and the Jesuits have both affirmed that anthropology and Christian theology are beautifully intertwined in an inseparable symbiotic relationship.  This acknowledgement is crucial for the formation of answers to the two essential questions that allow current and future generations of Jesuits to stand in the face of cultural differences and bridge the divide through ministering the Gospel of Christ while being culturally sensitive and accommodating.

Living out this definition of inculturation is critical if Jesuits, and Christians as a whole, are to effectively preach the Gospel in this world of increasingly diverse and celebrated cultures. Positive affirmation of various cultural identities, beliefs, and practices is at an all-time high. Unless Christians wish to isolate themselves and once again attempt to become monocultural, they should learn from Las Casas and the Jesuits of the 16th and 17th centuries and affirm cultural differences when preaching the Gospel. Culture and the Gospel are not at odds despite what the 15th and 16th century European missionaries believed. Christians must ensure that they do not revert back to those atrocious Eurocentric beliefs and practices. Instead, they must continue and expand upon the work of Bartolomé de las Casas and the Jesuits, and seek to make an eternal impact through one simple practice: inculturation.

Bibliography

Alden, Dauril. Review of Robert Himmerich, The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, no. 4 (1993): 798–800. https://doi.org/10.2307/206309.

Blume, Anna. “Dialectics of Conversion: Las Casas and Maya Colonial Congregación.” In Religion and the Secular: Historical and Colonial Formations, ed. Timothy Fitzgerald, 25–46. Acumen Publishing, 2007.

Casas, Bartolomé de las, Helen Rand Parish, and Francis Sullivan. The Only Way. Translated by Francis Patrick Sullivan. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press International, 1992.

Casas, Bartolomé de las. Bartolomé de Las Casas: A Selection of His Writings. Translated by George Sanderlin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1971.

Casas, Bartolomé de las. History of the Indies. Translated by Andrée Collard. New York and London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971.

Casas, Bartolomé de las. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. London, England: Penguin Classics, 1992.

Checketts, Levi. “Thomas Aquinas Meets Joseph Smith: Toward a Mormon Ethics of Natural Law.” Dialogue 51, no. 1 (Spr 2018): 79–100. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bethel.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLAi9KZ180507000080&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Doyle, Dennis M. “The Concept of Inculturation in Roman Catholicism: A Theological Consideration.” U.S. Catholic Historian 30, no. 1 (2012): 1–13.

The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. Translated by George E. Ganss, S.J. St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970.

Lantigua, David M, and David A Clairmont, “Between Inculturation and Natural Law: Comparative Method in Catholic Moral Theology.” Journal of Moral Theology 2, no. 2 (June 2013): 60–88. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bethel.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=CPLI0000593734&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Luttio, Mark D. “The Chinese Rites Controversy (1603-1742): A Diachronic and Synchronic Approach.” Worship 68, no. 4 (July 1994): 290–313. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bethel.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLA0000881289&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Maynard, Theodore. Saint Ignatius and the Jesuits. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1956.

O’Malley Sj, John W. The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Orbis. One Faith, Many Cultures. Edited by Ruy O. Costa. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988.

Vickery, Paul S. "Bartolomé De Las Casas: Prophet of the New World." Mediterranean Studies 9 (2000): 89-102. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41166913.

[1] Dennis M. Doyle, “The Concept of Inculturation in Roman Catholicism: A Theological Consideration,” U.S. Catholic Historian 30, no. 1 (2012): 1–13.

 [2] Bartolomé de las Casas, Helen Rand Parish, and Francis Sullivan. The Only Way, trans. Francis Patrick Sullivan (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press International, 1992), 10.

[3] Las Casas et. al, The Only Way 10.

[4] Las Casas et. al, The Only Way 11.

[5] Las Casas et. al, The Only Way 13.

[6] Dauril Alden, Review of Robert Himmerich’s Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, no. 4 (1993), 798.

[7] Las Casas et. al, The Only Way 16.

[8] Las Casas et. al, The Only Way 10.

[9] Paul S. Vickery, "Bartolomé De Las Casas: Prophet of the New World," Mediterranean Studies 9 (2000), 92.

[10] Levi Checketts, “Thomas Aquinas Meets Joseph Smith: Toward a Mormon Ethics of Natural Law,” Dialogue 51, no. 1 (Spr 2018): 79–100.

[11] Checketts, ibid.

[12] Bartolomé de las Casas, Bartolomé de Las Casas: A Selection of His Writings, trans., George Sanderlin, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1971), 200.

[13] David M. Lantigua, and David A. Clairmont, “Between Inculturation and Natural Law: Comparative Method in Catholic Moral Theology,” Journal of Moral Theology 2, no. 2 (June 2013), 71.

[14] Bartolomé de las Casas, History of the Indies, trans. Andrée Collard (New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971), 279.

[15] Las Casas, History of the Indies, 279.

[16] Las Casas et. al, The Only Way, 37.

[17] Latingua et. al. 71

[18] Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, (London, England: Penguin Classics, 1992), xxvi.

[19] Anna Blume, “Dialectics of Conversion: Las Casas and Maya Colonial Congregación,” In Religion and the Secular: Historical and Colonial Formations, ed. Timothy Fitzgerald, 25–46, (Acumen Publishing, 2007), 26.

[20] Blume, 26.

[21] Blume, 27.

[22] Latingua et. al., 72.

[23] Latingua et. al. 74

[24] Orbis, One Faith, Many Cultures, ed. Ruy O. Costa, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 46.

[25] Latingua et. al. 86

[26] John W. O’Malley SJ, The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present, 2.

[27] O’Malley SJ, 3.

[28] Jesuits, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, trans. George E. Ganss (S.J. St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), 66.

[29] Las Casas et. al, The Only Way, 38.

[30] Las Casas et. al, 38.

[31] O’Malley SJ, 52.

[32] Las Casas et. al, 56.

[33] Blume, 26.

[34] O’Malley SJ, 23.

[35] Ibid., 49.

[36] Bartolomé Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, xxvi.

[37] Theodore Maynard, Saint Ignatius and the Jesuits (New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1955), 131.

[38] Maynard, 131.

[39] Latingua et. al. 74

[40] Mark D. Luttio, “The Chinese Rites Controversy (1603-1742): A Diachronic and Synchronic Approach,” Worship 68, no. 4 (July 1994): 290–313.

[41] Mark D. Luttio, 290.

[42] Orbis, One Faith, Many Cultures, 46.

Micah Wimmer

Micah Wimmer is a current first-year Master of Science in Counseling & Student Personnel: Professional School Counseling student at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Bethel University, MN in Psychological Sciences as well as in Biblical and Theological Studies. He hopes to be a high school counselor who provides mental health support to students in a culturally and religiously/spiritually sensitive way.