A Critical Comparison of African and Western Catholic Models of Moral Upbringing

This article surveys the modes of ethical upbringing in African and Western Catholic education in an effort to appreciate the fact that moral living is not universal, but contextual, given the different contexts in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The data collection tool employed is document analysis. It engages four Catholic moral theologians, three of whom are Africans, namely, John Samuel Mbiti of Kenya, Laurent Magesa of Tanzania and Benezet Bujo of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The fourth moral theologian, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), is an epitome of Western Catholic moral reflections. African refers to what is related to the continent of Africa in terms of various cultures, traditions, customs, descent, ethnicity, nationality, languages, literature, art, music, spirituality, and history (Mbiti, 1969). Western Catholic refers to the Roman Catholic Church, whose supreme head is the Pope, as opposed to the Eastern Catholic Churches (O’Collins and Farrugia, 2020, p. 2). Froebel (1886) defines education as an activity, “that raises man to a free, conscious living in accordance to the divine. It guides man to clearness about himself and in himself to peace with nature and to union with God” (p. 3)