Paper long abstract:

Trans-national and global structure of the Catholic Church is lived by Catholics all over the world in different contexts and circumstances. This paper explores how the Catholic faith is lived and practiced in contemporary Ghanaian society. Basing on ethnographic field research in central Ghana I will portray practices, strategies, modes of identification present in lives of people who describe themselves as Catholics.

My aim is to analyze the notion of "popular Catholicism" in the context of a chosen contemporary African society. In case of Ghana Catholic Church appears as one of many Christian churches and congregations. Additionally it co-exists with Muslim communities and "traditionalists" (people practicing "traditional religions"). It is interesting to observe how the Catholic doctrine adapts to local circumstances and which aspects of "popular Catholicism" described in other cultural contexts and theorized on the ground of the anthropology of religion are promoted and present in Ghanaian Catholic communities.