118. The Bishops of Oceania asked that the Church “develop an understanding and a presentation of the truth of Christ working from the traditions and cultures of the region” and invited “all missionaries to work in harmony with indigenous Christians so as to ensure that the faith and the life of the Church be expressed in legitimate forms appropriate for each culture”.[94] We cannot demand that peoples of every continent, in expressing their Christian faith, imitate modes of expression which European nations developed at a particular moment of their history, because the faith cannot be constricted to the limits of understanding and expression of any one culture.[95] It is an indisputable fact that no single culture can exhaust the mystery of our redemption in Christ.
[94] John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Oceania (22 November 2001), 17: AAS 94 (2002), 385.
[95] John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Asia (6 November 1999), 20: AAS 92 (2000), 478-482.
