Against the backdrop of decolonisation and the waning of European political influence in Africa, the theology of inculturation provided the Church with a theoretical framework for redefining its presence in societies that had become independent. This theological current, which proposes a reflection on the criteria for the 'incarnation' of the Gospel within a culture and on the corresponding integration of that culture into the life of the Church, was systematised following the Second Vatican Council, when Christianity was recognized as capable of expressing itself beyond European cultural forms. This perspective faced a structural difficulty: for such dialogue to be possible, 'culture' had to be clearly identifiable, and therefore unitary. The process of inculturation presupposed, in other words, a reified conception of culture, treating it as an interlocutor with clearly defined boundaries. Where such unity was not immediately apparent - as in contexts characterised by great diversity, for example in the DR of Congo - a process of selection and synthesis became necessary. This was, in effect, an operation of cultural construction that consolidated this diversity, transforming it into an identity conceived on a national scale. It was against this backdrop that the Zairian Catholic rite came into being: presented as an expression of Congolese cultural distinctiveness, it appears instead to be the result of a complex process of mediation, in which the diversity of local traditions was synthesised into a single liturgical model. Through this endeavour Catholicism redefined the nature of its presence in the postcolonial world: with political support having waned, the Church redefined its power in moral terms, presenting itself as the guardian and guarantor of local cultural identities. It survived no longer as a foreign system imposed from outside, but as an element capable of promoting and protecting indigenous cultures, whilst keeping its universalist claim intact.