摘要：This article analyzes the concept Catholic substance and its implications for the construction of a missiology that respects the universality of spirituality and cultural manifestations. It starts from the Tillichian comprehension of catholic substance, as the relation between the manifestation of essence in existence and the affirmation of the meaning of the Christ event. In this rereading of Tillich, the Protestant principle is seen as a subset of catholic substance that leads us to say that catholic substance presents itself in non-historical and historical dimensions as an underlying identity. This reading of Tillich permits us to see history and culture as a substance that, beyond every situation, provides the symbols of an ultimate situation, the universal unity of the Kingdom of God. Within this universal unity of the Kingdom of God is found the Protestant principle as a founding event of Christianity which has a relation of centrality with catholic substance. Based on this comprehension, this article affirms the importance of the concept, here reformatted as the Melquisedeque factor, for missiology, that should recognize the manifestation of the essential in cultures, and denounce idolatrous expressions that threaten the human community.
