CHARLOTTE — Father Basile Sede, pastor of Our Lady of Consolation Church, has written a third book entitled “Comparing Cultures and Religions in a Postmodern World: Joseph Ki-Zerbo Versus Jaques Maritain.”
In his latest book, Father Sede illustrates how culture and religion are basic to every human society, and the history of a people always sustains its cultural and religious values.
“This book highlights the idea that every history is an embodiment of culture, tradition and religion,” Father Sede explains. “Globalization is bringing lots of challenges to the world today because, though people have different origins with different cultures and religions, they are conditioned by necessity to live together.
“Accordingly, some knowledge of the major world cultures and religions is truly relevant for peaceful co-existence.”
He notes that he decided to use African cultures and religious practices as his departing point “for the mere fact that Africa is generally considered as the cradle of civilization, and it is a very historic and controversial continent.”
“However, while examining some prominent world cultures and religions (in a comparative manner), my major focus is on the Christian-Thomistic culture and religion as illustrated by Jacques Maritain in comparison with the African culture and religion as expressed by Joseph Ki-Zerbo,” he explains.
Ki-Zerbo was a historian, politician and writer from Burkina Faso who is considered one of Africa’s foremost thinkers. Raised Catholic, he briefly trained for the priesthood before dropping out to study history and law at the Sorbonne. A socialist and an advocate of African independence and unity, he died in 2006.
Maritain was a Catholic convert and French philosopher who was one of the leading interpreters of St. Thomas Aquinas in the 20th century. A close friend of St. Paul VI, he also was influential in the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He died in 1973.
"While regretting that the world of today within our own eyes, in the name of development and civilization, is tending toward barbarianism at an accelerated speed, Jacques Maritain encourages the secularization of the human person, but a secularization that is spiced by Christian culture, not along the dictates of the state" Father Sede notes..
Father Sede asserts that both thinkers considered that amid ongoing multiculturalism and globalization, authentic humanism or personalism – based on the sacredness of the human person – should be endorsed as a new civilization or culture.
“Only such a culture can make the future of humankind essentially meaningful and interesting,” he says.
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter
The book is available online at www.amazon.com.