The Church's pastoral approach to the practice of healing among the Banyankore of the Archdiocese of Mbarara: Toward an integrated healing mission

From time immemorial, the search for healing has been an essential and universal dimension of human life. Human beings are motivated by the natural and spontaneous instinct to preserve life in its entirety, especially when health is threatened by, sickness or disease. The mission to heal belongs to all members of the human family, regardless of gender, race, age, or religion. The Church bases her mission to heal on this prerogative and on Jesus' mandate to his disciples to preach and heal. This study is a theological and pastoral analysis of the Church's involvement in the healing ministry among the Banyankore of the Archdiocese of Mbarara. The research investigates the Church's pastoral activity in this regard, examining the successes but also the challenges encountered. From the hypothesis that a theological and pastoral analysis of the Church's approach to the practice of heating in the context of Christian living today, will help to develop an integrated healing mission for the Church in the Archdiocese of Mbarara, the study set out to investigate the Church's contribution to the healing ministry at the local or diocesan level. It is an attempt to discover how best the Church can use an integrated approach to healing to fulfill Christ's legacy. As illustrated in Chapter one, the present study uses the contextual approach to theology inspired by Stephen Bevans' Anthropological and Synthetic models of contextual theology, and Theresa Okure's Incarnational paradigm as theological key to inculturating the Church's healing mission. The local Church is perceived as agent and mediator of healing. The present study takes seriously people's cultural and native practices of healing, while at the same time acknowledging the contribution of other healing traditions. Grounded in the above approach, Chapter two of the thesis looks at the Church's past and present approach to healing in the Archdiocese of Mbarara. It becomes apparent that the Church's ministry of healing at this level lays greater emphasis on the medical model - through health care services offered hospitals, dispensaries, medical clinics. Yet this approach alone is Insufficient to care for all the sick and afflicted, and does not treat sicknesses that are not physiological in nature. People search for alternatives, thus showing that there is a need for a more integrated approach to healing. Chapter three studies the Banyankore native concepts and practices of healing. The study reveals that because of their holistic world view, many sick Banyankore are attracted to native practices of healing. This discovery further emphasizes the need for integration: some of the native beliefs and practices of healing could enlighten the Church's healing ministry. Chapter four is a christological analysis of the healing dimension in the various African faces of Christ. All the dimensions contribute toward the image of Christ the Divine Healer. In other words, Christ's healing ministry as presented in the New Testament, and the Gospels in particular, finds expression in the various metaphors or images employed by African theologians. In this way African Christology makes an invariable contribution toward an integrated approach to healing. Chapter five highlights inculturation as theological key to help the Church in the actualization her healing mission. Just like Jesus' mission of healing was facilitated by his Incarnation, so does the success of the Church's healing mission depend on how much this mission is inculturated in the concrete lives of the people. Thus, inculturation, based on the incarnational model becomes essential for the realization of integral healing. The last chapter proposes that the local Church mediate the various healing traditions: conventional medicine, native healing, and religious or faith healing. The search for integration in this regard requires that the local Church be attentive and learn the components of each healing tradition so as to contribute to healing the individual and the community as a whole. With the urgent need for integration in mind, the chapter makes various suggestions for improving the Church's healing ministry. In the final analysis the study reemphasizes the need for the Church in Mbarara to adopt an integrated approach to healing. Even if this thesis focuses on one particular region of the Banyankore of the Archdiocese of Mbarara, the findings are pertinent for the rest of the Church in Africa as well as the universal Church. This work does not answer all the questions regarding healing, but it is certainly a valuable contribution in the search for an integrated approach to healing