| Evangelization in the Catholic Church entails the inculturation of faith within the cultures of the nations. The process of inculturation is a vital tool for incarnating the message of Christ to cultures. This process of incarnating the message of Christ to cultures requires not just the expertise of clergy and religious trained in seminaries and religious houses, but also the contributions of the laity trained in Catholic schools and universities. Consequently, this study was dedicated to examining the role that Catholic schools and universities should play in the process of inculturation in Nigeria.; A content analysis of 17 Church documents pertaining to inculturation in the Church and through Catholic schools was conducted to determine Church directives regarding the role of Catholic schools in the process of inculturation, which may be applicable to Nigeria. In this study, 27 themes emerged, namely: dialogue between faith and culture, formation of the human person, presentation of individual subjects, synthesis of faith and culture, witness of lives of teachers, discernment of values in cultures, participation in the evangelization of cultures, orientation of cultures to the Gospel, establishment of Catholic cultural centers, training and research in specific cultures, sensitivity to the cultures of the world, Gospel affects the mentality of students, mandate by Bishops, recognition of the limits of culture, critique of cultures, focus on family, creation of bond between teachers and students, pastoral guidance in research, setting up of national commissions, consultation between Bishops and university communities, promotion of culture, liturgical celebrations and publications, recognition of the independence of Gospel to cultures, awareness that cultures are open to revelation, introduction of students to the values of the environment, and participation of the laity through research.; These themes related to Catholic schools and universities in Nigeria in four simultaneous phases, namely: reaffirmation of indigenous cultures, study to discover the positive and negative values of cultures, explicit proclamation of the Gospel message and the participation of the community as evangelizers. This model demonstrated that inculturation through schools requires that the local cultures should be included in the curriculum of Catholic schools and universities. |
