The tenth and final chapter of this document, Our Peoples And Culture will take us from today’s paragraph to the one numbered 546. The first topic will be “Culture And Its Evangelization.”
476. Culture, understood most broadly, represents the particular way in which human beings and peoples cultivate their relationship to nature and with their fellow humans, with themselves, and with God, so as to attain a fully human existence.(Cf. Gaudium et Spes 22) As such, it is the common heritage of all peoples, and likewise of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The presumption, a good one, is that elements of human interaction are potentially–if not inherently–open to being flipped to God. As God has made us social beings, and we use language, arts, and other expressions to define ourselves as human and interact with other humans, these means can also be utilized to communicate things of God and faith. Let’s see how that premise holds up in the days ahead.
For deeper examination, here’s an English translation of the 2007 document from the Aparecida Conference.
Catholic Sensibility 