Indigenous Pacific Theologians of the Moana and a Synodal Church

The invigorated attempt to engage and dialogue with Indigenous peoples within Catholicism at an institutional level is an encouraging step to the Church being truly universal and synodal. At the same time, the voice of lay Catholic theologians from the Moana (or Oceania) remains largely missing in the global church, even more so female voices. The term ‘Oceania’, used by the Catholic Church, includes Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and the island groupings of under the colonial names of Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia. This paper uses an Indigenous Pacific Island, Pasifika, theological lens formed in the diaspora of Aotearoa.

Dialogue between Rome and Oceania has grown and developed from its initial missionary beginnings. The 1998 Synod for Oceania, the first of its kind for the region, began with its opening Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica infused with music and dance from the Pacific (Gibbs, 2020). Anecdotally, some within the Curia were unimpressed with the Sāmoan men participating in the Mass openly displaying traditional tattoos marked on their bodies (Gibbs, 2020). Twenty years later, Pope Francis wrote in Christus Vivit about the voice of one of the young auditors from Sāmoa who “spoke of the Church as a canoe, in which the elderly help to keep on course by judging the position of the stars, while the young keep rowing, imagining what waits for them ahead…Let us all climb aboard the same canoe and together seek a better world, with the constantly renewed momentum of the Holy Spirit”. The significance of this validation of Indigenous Pacific worldviews in an Apostolic Exhortation for young Pasifika Catholics is not to be underestimated. This highlights Francis’ strong disposition to listen to the voices of those at the supposed ends of the earth, far from the centre of Rome.

Key themes regarding inculturation and localisation emerged in the Oceania response to the working document of the Continental Stage of the Synod on Synodality

“Some regard the traditions of the universal Church as a kind of imposition on local culture, and even a form of colonialism. Others consider God present in every culture so that every culture already expresses Christian truths. Another view is that Christians cannot adopt and adapt some pre-Christian cultural practices. For instance, when a priest takes on the symbolism of the chief of a village, the priest becomes a symbol of power rather than of service.” (Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania, 2023, §§13, 16).

As a lay female, Pasifika Catholic early-career theologian who is a māmā and wife, I speak into the space of where many of my peers are grappling with binary discourse that to be Indigenous means to reject Christianity or being Christian is to reject Indigenous spiritualities. I also draw from research grounded in Practical Theology, lived experiences of Pasifika expressions of Catholicism in Aotearoa and its impact on mental wellbeing for individuals. Indigenous stories need to be told by and with Indigenous peoples.  “Synodal life is not a strategy for organising the Church, but the experience of being able to find a unity that embraces diversity without erasing it,” (IL, 2023, §49) and the role of lay Indigenous theologians is important in the future of a synodal church and a part of the living legacy of Vatican II.