Cult of the Ancestors and Saints: A Liturgical Evaluation
This article is entitled “Cult of the Ancestors and Saints: A Liturgical Evaluation”. The paper is premised on the fact that over the past 100 years, amidst the confusion and darkness surrounding the Church's attempt to evangelize the African culture, a few ideologies have aided the Church. Some scholars like Sarpong and Obijiaku will subscribe to ancestral cult as one of them. The philosophy behind the Ancestral cult of the African (Igbo) experience is anchored on the basis that their ancestors are at the Headquarters in the spirit land. Mbiti rightly corroborated that Africans are “religious people” who hold ?rmly to the cult of their ancestors and to the worship of other major and minor divinities. While not condemning outright what sustained their fore-fathers/fore-mothers in faith, the Church can use the values of African spirituality in the life and liturgy of the Church in Africa. Areas where this inculturation and contextualization can be experimented include the liturgy of baptism, at the Christian prayer for the dead, and of course, in celebration of the feasts of All Saints and All Souls. In all, through critical liturgical catechesis therefore traditionalists could come to understand fully the place of the dead in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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