By Professor Januarius Asongu

Part VI: Conclusion—The Future of Catholicism Between Memory and Prophecy

Returning to Fr. Michael Evelyn Galabe

This essay began with the death of Fr. Michael Evelyn Galabe, CMF.

It concludes there as well.

The choice is deliberate.

Galabe's life and death are not merely biographical details. They constitute an interpretive lens through which broader realities become visible. His passing in relative obscurity raises questions that extend far beyond Cameroon, beyond the Claretian congregation, and even beyond Catholicism itself.

How do institutions remember?

Whom do institutions reward?

What kinds of voices shape the future?

What kinds of voices disappear from collective memory?

These questions lie at the heart of every institution because memory is never neutral. Institutions construct narratives about themselves. They identify heroes. They celebrate successes. They preserve particular forms of knowledge while allowing others to fade. In doing so, they establish implicit criteria for determining what matters.

The significance of Galabe's death lies in its capacity to expose these criteria.

By conventional ecclesiastical standards, Galabe did not occupy the highest offices of the Church. He was neither bishop, archbishop, cardinal, nor head of a major ecclesiastical institution. Yet by other standards—intellectual depth, theological curiosity, commitment to truth, and willingness to ask difficult questions—his contribution was substantial.

The contrast between institutional recognition and intellectual significance reveals a tension that extends throughout Christian history.

Many prophets die without offices.

Many administrators die with honors.

History frequently remembers them differently.

The Recurring Tragedy of Ecclesial Life

Throughout this study, a recurring pattern has emerged.

The Church venerates prophets retrospectively while often resisting them contemporaneously.

John Henry Newman spent decades under suspicion before becoming a cardinal and eventually a saint (Ker, 1988).

Yves Congar endured restrictions before becoming one of the principal architects of Vatican II (Congar, 2012).

Henri de Lubac experienced marginalization before receiving widespread recognition (de Lubac, 1994).

Hans Küng remained one of the most influential theologians of the modern era despite his conflicts with ecclesiastical authorities (Küng, 2002).

Leonardo Boff profoundly shaped global discussions of liberation theology despite institutional sanctions (Boff, 1985).

The pattern extends far beyond Catholicism.

Socrates was condemned by Athens.

Jeremiah was rejected by Jerusalem.

Martin Luther King Jr. encountered resistance from institutions that now celebrate his legacy.

The phenomenon appears almost universal.

Institutions often recognize prophetic insight only after the threat associated with that insight has disappeared.

Critical Synthetic Realism interprets this phenomenon as a consequence of epistemic fracture.

Institutions naturally seek stability.

Prophets naturally disrupt stability.

Institutions preserve memory.

Prophets challenge memory.

Institutions reward predictability.

Prophets introduce uncertainty.

The resulting tension is therefore structural rather than accidental.

The Limits of Both Prophecy and Authority

A central argument of this chapter has been the rejection of simplistic binaries.

The history of Catholicism cannot be reduced to heroes and villains.

Nor can it be reduced to prophets versus bureaucrats, critics versus defenders, or reformers versus traditionalists.

Such categories obscure more than they reveal.

Prophets are not immune from epistemic fracture.

History contains examples of critics whose proposals proved destructive, misguided, or incomplete.

Not every challenge to authority represents progress.

Not every reform constitutes development.

Similarly, authority is not inherently oppressive.

Institutions perform indispensable functions.

They preserve tradition.

They safeguard collective memory.

They transmit accumulated wisdom.

They create the conditions under which communities can endure across generations.

The challenge is therefore not choosing between prophecy and authority.

The challenge is integrating them.

This insight lies at the heart of Critical Synthetic Ecclesiology.

The Church requires prophets because institutions are fallible.

The Church requires institutions because prophets are fallible.

Neither can fulfill the Church's mission alone.

Each requires the corrective presence of the other.

Synodality and the Future of Ecclesial Discernment

The contemporary emphasis upon synodality reflects an implicit recognition of this reality.

At its best, synodality represents an attempt to institutionalize mutual correctability.

Its purpose is not simply greater participation.

Nor is its purpose merely organizational reform.

Its deeper goal is the creation of structures capable of improving ecclesial discernment.

Synodality assumes that truth becomes more visible when diverse voices participate in the search for understanding.

The assumption resonates strongly with CSR's commitment to critical synthesis.

No individual possesses exhaustive access to reality.

No institution possesses exhaustive access to reality.

Consequently, truth emerges through continuous engagement among multiple perspectives, experiences, and forms of knowledge.

The Church's future may therefore depend upon its willingness to cultivate epistemic humility.

Such humility does not weaken authority.

It strengthens it.

Authority grounded in humility remains capable of learning.

Authority grounded in certainty often becomes defensive.

Similarly, criticism grounded in humility remains capable of dialogue.

Criticism grounded in certainty often becomes ideological.

The future requires both authority and critique to embrace their own fallibility.

Only then can genuine discernment occur.

The Church as a Community of Epistemic Pilgrims

One of the most significant implications of Critical Synthetic Realism is its rejection of triumphalist ecclesiology.

The Church is not a community that has arrived at complete understanding.

It is a community on pilgrimage toward truth.

This claim does not deny revelation.

Nor does it deny doctrinal authority.

Rather, it recognizes that finite human beings continue interpreting revelation within changing historical contexts.

The Church therefore exists in a permanent state of learning.

Its doctrines develop.

Its practices evolve.

Its understanding deepens.

Its blind spots become visible.

Its assumptions undergo revision.

Its wisdom grows through engagement with reality.

Such a vision transforms the meaning of ecclesial life.

The Church becomes not merely a guardian of inherited truths but also a learner before reality.

It becomes a community committed to ongoing conversion.

This conversion is intellectual as well as moral.

It involves the continuous purification of knowledge.

The continuous correction of error.

The continuous expansion of understanding.

The continuous integration of new insights.

From this perspective, synodality represents not simply a reform initiative but a theological expression of the Church's identity as a learning community.

The Fate of Prophets and Apologists Reconsidered

The title of this chapter speaks of prophets and apologists.

Yet the analysis suggests that the distinction itself may be inadequate.

The deepest vocation of the Church is not to produce prophets or apologists.

It is to produce truth-seekers.

Prophets become dangerous when they cease listening.

Apologists become dangerous when they cease questioning.

The prophet without accountability drifts toward ideological certainty.

The apologist without self-critique drifts toward institutional defensiveness.

Both become vulnerable to epistemic fracture.

The Church flourishes when prophecy and apologetics remain in creative tension.

When criticism sharpens authority.

When authority disciplines criticism.

When each contributes to a common search for truth.

This vision differs significantly from many contemporary ecclesial debates.

Too often, discussions become contests for victory.

One side seeks triumph over the other.

One group seeks to defeat its opponents.

One ideology seeks dominance.

CSR proposes a different approach.

The goal is not victory.

The goal is reality.

Truth is not served when one faction defeats another.

Truth is served when competing insights are brought into critical dialogue and subjected to continual correction.

This is the essence of critical synthesis.

A Final Word on Galabe

Perhaps the final lesson of Fr. Michael Evelyn Galabe's life is not that institutions failed to recognize him sufficiently.

Such judgments are ultimately impossible to verify.

The more important lesson concerns the questions his life provokes.

What kinds of voices does the Church hear?

What kinds of voices does it ignore?

How many prophetic insights disappear because they emerge from the margins rather than the center?

How many reforms arrive decades after they were first proposed?

How many truths remain hidden because institutions mistake familiarity for fidelity?

These questions remain unanswered.

Yet asking them is itself an act of ecclesial service.

For institutions remain healthy only so long as they retain the capacity for self-examination.

The death of Fr. Michael Evelyn Galabe therefore invites more than remembrance.

It invites discernment.

It invites humility.

It invites a renewed commitment to truth.

Most importantly, it invites the Church to become what it claims to be: a community capable of hearing both prophets and guardians, both critics and defenders, both reformers and traditionalists, within a common pilgrimage toward reality.

Such a Church would not eliminate disagreement.

Nor would it eliminate conflict.

But it might finally learn how to transform disagreement into discernment and conflict into growth.

If that occurs, synodality may become more than an ecclesiastical program.

It may become the practical expression of a Church committed not merely to preserving truth but to continually seeking it.

Concluding Theoretical Proposition

The central thesis of this chapter may therefore be stated succinctly:

The recurring marginalization of prophetic voices and the advancement of institutional apologists within Catholicism are not primarily the result of individual failures but manifestations of a deeper structural tension between institutional continuity and epistemic correction. Critical Synthetic Realism explains this tension through the concept of epistemic fracture and proposes its resolution through epistemic sovereignty, institutional fallibilism, and critical synthesis. The future success of synodality will depend largely upon the Church's ability to cultivate structures of mutual correctability in which prophecy and authority function not as rivals but as partners in the pursuit of truth.

In this sense, the fate of Fr. Michael Evelyn Galabe is not merely a local story.

It is a window into one of the most important questions facing Catholicism in the twenty-first century.

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