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Inculturation of Liturgical Music in the Roman Catholic Church of Igbo Land: a Compositional Study

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Inculturation of Liturgical Music in the Roman Catholic Church of Igbo Land: a Compositional Study Journal of Global Catholicism Volume 1 Issue 2 African Catholicism: Contemporary Article 2 Issues July 2017 Inculturation of Liturgical Music in the Roman Catholic Church of Igbo Land: A Compositional Study Benedict Nwabugwu Agbo University of Nigeria, Nsukka, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://crossworks.holycross.edu/jgc Part of the Aesthetics Commons, African Studies Commons, Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Commons, Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Christianity Commons, Comparative Methodologies and Theories Commons, Cultural History Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Ethnomusicology Commons, Folklore Commons, History of Christianity Commons, History of Religion Commons, Liturgy and Worship Commons, Missions and World Christianity Commons, Musicology Commons, Music Performance Commons, Music Theory Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, Regional Sociology Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, and the Sociology of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Agbo, Benedict Nwabugwu (2017) "Inculturation of Liturgical Music in the Roman Catholic Church of Igbo Land: A Compositional Study," Journal of Global Catholicism: Vol. 1: Iss. 2, Article 2. p.6-27. DOI: 10.32436/2475-6423.1013 Available at: https://crossworks.holycross.edu/jgc/vol1/iss2/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by CrossWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Global Catholicism by an authorized editor of CrossWorks. 6 BENEDICT NWABUGWU AGBO Inculturation of Liturgical Music in the Roman Catholic Church of Igbo Land: A Compositional Study Benedict Nwabugwu Agbo conducts ethno-musicological compositional research at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM Benedict Nwabugwu Agbo | 7 INTRODUCTION enturies past have silenced the sounds that echoed in the temple of Jeru- salem. Yet many Christian churches have taken their escape velocity from what King David did: the merging of the human voice and instruments in Cpraise of God. The Roman Catholic Church, claiming to be the oldest, presents a case study after more than two thousand years of Christianity. The dawn of Vatican II, with its language of aggiornamento, brought a new concept of enhancing the solemnity of the liturgy within the context of the people’s worldview. That concept has been tagged “inculturation,” the process of bringing the people’s culture sys- tematically into the Church. According to the Vatican II document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, In certain parts of the world, especially mission lands, there are people who have their own musical tradition, and these play a great part in their religious and social life. For this reason, due importance is to be attached to their music, and a suitable place is to be given to it, not only in forming their attitude to- ward religion, but also in adapting worship to their native genius . .1 The Council made it abundantly clear that the Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in other religions and cultures. According to Tihagale, Inculturation recognizes that faith has its own life. It is not like a spirit impris- oned in a bottle or in a particular culture though it is always expressed in one or another cultural form. Inculturation argues that faith can find a home in an African culture and indeed open up its new home to new challenges. Faith, because it has its own life, its own norms, will necessarily transform the host culture so that it becomes of that culture and yet not of that culture.2 The tearing of indigenous drums, for example, in some churches as a symbol of conversion to Christianity is not a sound mark of faith, because the problem is not in the drums or xylophones which a cultural group is using but in their “unconvert- 1 Paul VI, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 119. 2 Tihagale, “Inculturation: Bringing the African Culture into the Church,” 1. VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 | SPRING 2017 8 | Inculturation of Liturgical Music in the Roman Catholic Church of Igbo Land ed hearts.” Pope John Paul II categorically states that “a faith that does not become culture is a faith not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived.”3 Acculturation is the opposite concept, encouraging the assimilation of a different culture to the detriment of one’s original culture. According to Ehusani, there al- ready exists a dislocation between the new faith and the old, and this calls “for an intense process of inculturation that will go beyond the superficial changing of vestments and musical instruments, to the more profound reflection of the African worldviews . .”4 Enculturation is yet another concept nearer to inculturation but which does not ex- press the ideal concept. According to Nwabeke, it denotes the process by which an individual becomes inserted into his culture.5 Inculturation, however, does not refer to the insertion of the individual into his culture but rather the process by which the church becomes part of the culture that exists among the people already there. There is a problem here now. What Umezinwa calls the problem of “alienation”6 is the dislocation Ehusani talks about. For example, the typical modern-day Igbo Christian, born and bred in Lagos and knowing little or nothing about his culture, suffers from a cultural identity crisis. One may find it difficult here to choose the term most appropriate to use for him or her. In Ecclesia in Africa, John Paul II states that inculturation is a two-way process comprising “‘on the one hand the ultimate transformation of authentic cultural values through their integration in Christianity’ and, on the other, ‘the insertion of Christianity in the various human cultures.’”7 The former case is needed even more in today’s society in which younger generations do not have a grasp of their own culture; the latter is also necessary in those cases where Christianity (as is happening in many Pentecostal churches today) is busy assuming foreign cultures. 3 John Paul II, “Foundation Letter of the Pontifical Council for Culture,” quoted in Pontifical Council for Culture, Towards a Pastoral Approach to Culture, Introduction. 4 Ehusani, “Fully African, Truly Christian: The Challenge of Inculturation.” 5 Nwabeke, Worship and Christian Living, 40. 6 Umezinwa, “Nzewi, African Music, and the Rethinking of Alienation in the Arts,” 112. 7 John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 59. JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM Benedict Nwabugwu Agbo | 9 I have argued elsewhere8 that the Christian religion cannot be monopolized by any particular culture whether Asian, European, or African. Although Christ was a Jew, his religion was not essentially Jewish. Christianity is meant to assume as many cultures as it incarnates: Greek, African, etc. Stuart C. Bate states that “incultur- ation is a two-way process by which the Universal Church becomes local and the local Church becomes Universal . Each culture provides a dimension of the faith which illuminates the whole and evangelizes the whole of humanity.”9 Bate argues that the Catholicism, Methodism, or Pentecostalism (or whatever re- ligion) that we profess today is itself a culture, and so inculturation should not be seen merely as the integration of faith/Christianity with “culture,” as if Christianity itself were not a culture. He argues for the “cultured-ness of Christianity itself as a way of life into which people have been enculturated and socialized and in which they often feel much more at home than what some zealous ‘inculturalists’ would like to pretend.”10 From this wider perspective, I agree with Bate but argue that inculturation should do more than two things: (1) fit the Christian principles of worship into the already existing culture of worship in Igbo land; (2) transfer authentic cultural values to modern-day Christians through their integration into Christianity; and (3) make the African (Igbo) cultural value an object of influence even on the wider Church. HISTORY OF INCULTURATION IN IGBO LITURGICAL MUSIC Commenting on the developmental trends of inculturation in the Roman Catholic liturgy of Igbo land, Umezinwa recognizes three periods: the Latin, the imitative, and the innovative. According to him, the first conscious adaptation of the West- ern musical idiom in the Igbo context was made by Reverend Father Arazu in his translation into the Igbo language of the Latin Psalms in volumes I, II, and II of his Abuoma nke Bible.11 Arazu made concerted efforts to capture native airs and idioms 8 Agbo, “Inculturation in Nigerian Church Music,” 480. 9 Bate, “Inculturation in South Africa,” 26. 10 Bate, “Inculturation in South Africa,” 30. 11 Umezinwa, “Nzewi, African Music, and the Rethinking of Alienation in the Arts,” 112. VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 | SPRING 2017 10 | Inculturation of Liturgical Music in the Roman Catholic Church of Igbo Land in the parishes where he worked such as Enugwu Ukwu and Ihiala. For the first time, liturgical songs were rendered in original tunes with African identity. Such psalms like “Abu maka Echichi” (Ps 2), “Ndi ilo m azogbuena m n’ukwu” (Ps 55), and “Ukwe iji kpoku Chineke mgbe mmadu no na mkpa” (Ps 102) were composed in native airs.12 It was the earliest effort to put into practice Vatican II’s recommendations on in- culturation, use of the vernacular, and local instruments to enhance the people’s active participation in the liturgy. He was followed by people like Nicholas On- yediefuna, the composer of Missa Odudo Nso and Ndi biara uka ga-anata ngozi, and Peace Val Ihin, the composer of Missa Ncheta and Bianu umu Chineke, as well as Fr. Bede Onuoha, Fr. I. P. Anozie, Fr. Cyril Ezenduka, Fred Uche, Dorothy Ipere, Jim Madu, Joe Onyekwelu, and a host of others. Inculturation in the Roman Catholic Church of Igbo land was fast-tracked as composers went beyond mere translation or imitation of English tunes to creative and innovative compositions that could be said to have a truly African charac- ter without destroying the Catholic sense of the solemnity of the liturgy.
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