In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Walking the Bodhisattva Path/Walking the Christ PathU.S. Conference of Catholic BishopsCatholics and Buddhists brought together by Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, the San Francisco Zen Center, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) met 20-23 March 2003 in the first of an anticipated series of four annual dialogues. Abbot Heng Lyu, the monks and nuns, and members of the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association hosted the dialogue (...) at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage, California. The community had transformed their Confucius Hall into a chapel, with a large, newly constructed wooden cross on a wall above an altar facing out from a raised platform, so the Catholic delegation would have a space for worship. A special poster announcing the theme of the conference, "Walking the Bodhisattva Path/Walking the Christ Path," showing a Buddhist dharma wheel at one foot of a bridge and a Celtic cross at the other foot, had been created by the hosting community.The daily schedule for the dialogue did not interfere with the monastic routine at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which included early morning chanting (4:00-5:00 am), daily rituals in the Buddha Hall, and the single large meal for monastics before noon to which all participants were invited. Catholics and Buddhists meeting in the dialogue began each day with an optional forty-five minutes of quiet sitting together in the monastery meditation hall, each following their own form of meditation and prayer. There was a Eucharist on Friday and Saturday evenings for the Catholics and to which the Buddhists were invited, and additional meals of breakfast and supper throughout the meeting at the City's Jyun Kang Restaurant.Fourteen Buddhists and fourteen Catholics participated in the formal discussions. Each participant spoke on what it means to them to follow Christ or the way of the Bodhisattvas or enlightened beings. In addition to speaking, each participant distributed a short passage, usually from a traditional text, on this topic. Several passages from Master Dogen's Shobogenzo and the Gospel of John were among those shared by the group. Other passages shared were taken from the Avatamsaka Sutra and the Shurangama Sutra and from the other gospels and the writings of Zen master HakuinZenji, the Dalai Lama, Korean Zen Master I-sahn Hye-yeon, the teachings of Master [End Page 247] Hsuan Hua, Shantideva, Origen, St. Ignatius, St. Benedict, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of the Cross, and Chiara Lubich. A minute of silence separated the fifteen-minute segments for each presentation. With so large a group, most of the time in the formal sessions involved listening to series of presentations; however, during discussion periods the participants asked several challenging questions of one another.Some participants noted the tension they felt between belonging to a particular religious group and the need to let go of any consequential narrowness. The goal of the discussion was to promote understanding of the differences and similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. At one point, the participants noted several concerns about mutual enrichment: whether Buddhist methods can be separated from Buddhism and Christian methods from Christianity, and what specific aspects of Christian practice truly enrich Buddhists and which Buddhist practices likewise enrich Christians. Several times participants discussed their understanding of terms such as transformation, grace, the incarnation and the passion of Jesus, discernment of spirits, prayer, Buddha-nature, and related terms. There was consensus that Buddhists and Catholics can practically help one another regarding mental cultivation and religious precepts. They expressed this consensus in their choice of the topic forthe next dialogue, "Transformation of Hearts and Minds: Chan/Zen-Catholic Approaches to Precepts."The group agreed to reconvene in 2004 to respond to six presentations, three from each side, on different aspects of this topic.Chairing the sessions were Rev. Heng Sure for the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton for the San Francisco Zen Center, and Bishop John Webster for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Their three organizations are the sponsors of the Northern California Chan/Zen-Catholic Dialogue. Chan and Zen are respectively the Chinese and Japanese terms for the meditation school... (shrink)

Today is dedicated to the remembrance of the Holy Innocents, who were victims of a state sponsored terrorist attack at the very beginning of the Christian era. We believe this is an appropriate spiritual time to review and question the moral judgement of the Catholic Bishops of the United States of America that our nation's war on the people of Afghanistan is just. We do this in a spirit of fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic Church and (...) to the charism bequeathed to us as Catholic Workers by our founders, the Servants of God Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day of New York. Our statements, questions, and conclusions may seem startling to you, they may make you uncomfortable. This is because we come to you, not as the rich and powerful, but as the weak, poor, and powerless. (shrink)

The phrase "identity in difference" has been regarded by some thinkers as a matter of mere mystery-mongering. How can differences nevertheless be identical? The phrase is transparently absurd.

The reception history of the French Revolution in France and England is well documented among Anglophone scholars; however, the debate over the Revolution in Germany is much less well known. Fichte's Contribution played an important role in this debate. Presented here for the first time in English, Fichte's work provides a distinctive synthesis of Locke's "possessive individualism," Rousseau's general will, and Kant's moral philosophy. This eclectic blend results in an unusual rights theory that at times veers close to a form (...) of anarchism. Written in 1792–93, just before Fichte moved to Jena to develop his philosophical system in a series of works—above all the Wissenschaftslehre of 1794—the Contribution provides invaluable insight into Fichte's early development. In addition, Fichte's work predates much of Kant's political philosophy, and can shed light on the rich dialogue in German political thought in the 1790s. (shrink)

There is an emerging consensus in recent literature that Nietzsche adheres to some form of “naturalism,” that his closest philosophical kin are Hume and Darwin rather than Derrida.1 Despite this consensus, however, scholars disagree as to the relationship between Nietzsche’s naturalism and his ethics.2 The most prominent interpretation is that Nietzsche is an ethical naturalist in the Aristotelian tradition. According to this interpretation, the good life for an individual is derived from natural “type-facts” about him.3 Each individual possesses certain natural (...) interests and capacities in virtue of being a member of a type, such that the satisfaction or fulfillment of these needs or capacities amounts to her.. (shrink)

While the Catholic Church has taken a number of steps to create a safe environment for children, its largely procedural approach to the sexual abuse crisis leaves a lot to be desired. If the Catholic Church wants to identify and counteract the elements that precipitated this crisis, it needs to enlist Catholic universities and parents, as universities possess the intellectual resources to understand the crisis in its full depth and breadth and parents are the most capable protectors (...) of children in the Catholic Church. Empowering these two constituencies and relying on them to lead child protection efforts represent the best chance to overcome a legacy of pain and distrust and to create a Church that is nurturing and safe for its children. (shrink)

Introduction: "A certain crime unobserved" -- On Catholic thinking -- The mind that is Catholic -- "Infinitized by the spirit" : Maritain and the intellectual vocation -- Chesterton, the real "heretic" : "the outstanding eccentricity of the peculiar sect called Roman Catholics" -- "The very graciousness of being" -- Reckoning with Plato -- On the uniqueness of Socrates : political philosophy and the rediscovery of the human body -- On the death of Plato : some philosophical thoughts on (...) the Thracian Maidens -- What is piety? -- The abiding implications of friendship -- Aristotle on friendship -- The totality of society : from justice to friendship -- The Trinity : God is not alone -- The medieval experience -- The point of medieval political philosophy -- "Possessed of both a reason and a revelation" -- Aquinas and the defense of ordinary things : on "what common men call common sense" -- Implications of Catholic thought -- The "realism" of St. Augustine's "political realism" : Augustine and Machiavelli -- "Mystifying indeed" : on being fully human -- Transcendence and political philosophy -- Mysticism, political philosophy, and play -- Things practical and impractical -- Sports and philosophy -- The real alternatives to just war -- Where does it lead? -- On choosing not to see -- The ultimate meaning of existence -- "The beginning of the real story" -- Conclusion: On being allowed to read Monte Cristo. (shrink)

Nolan, Malachy J When Japanese forces invaded New Guinea during the Second World War, there was a large missionary presence in the territory that had been built up in the preceding fifty years. The territory was previously a German possession but had been administered as a trust territory of Australia under a League of Nations mandate after the First World War. Geographically, it consisted of the northern part of the eastern half of the New Guinea mainland; the large islands (...) of New Britain and New Ireland, which lay to the north-east; and the Bougainville portion of the Solomon Islands, further to the east. There were missionaries from both Protestant and Catholic Churches and, because of history, many of these were of German background. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Catholic Conscience and Civil Disobedience:The Primacy of TruthAngel Perez-Lopez and Israel Perez-LopezIntroductionSacred Scripture describes different examples of moral conscience dictating civil disobedience. For instance, think of the situation of Daniel (see Dan 6:6–10). In this and many other cases, we always find, above all, a defense of truth and of its primacy over conscience and civil authority.1 In a culture that rapidly abandons Christendom and rejects the (...) class='Hi'>Catholic social values once prevalent, this same issue is gaining prominence.Recent civil mandates related to Covid-19 vaccination are raising anew the challenging moral question, among faithful Catholics, concerning the legitimacy of civil disobedience.2 Part of the difficulty consists in the struggle [End Page 773] to harmonize two statements from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) concerning the Covid-19 vaccines.On the one hand, it is affirmed that, under certain circumstances, the use of some of these vaccines is morally permissible: "When ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available (e.g. in countries where vaccines without ethical problems are not made available to physicians and patients, or where their distribution is more difficult due to special storage and transport conditions, or when various types of vaccines are distributed in the same country but health authorities do not allow citizens to choose the vaccine with which to be inoculated) it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process."3On the other hand, the CDF also affirms that vaccination should be voluntary; it is not obligatory as a rule: "Practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary."4Some Catholics are clinging to the first affirmation to advocate for the primacy of authority in the civil mandate to be vaccinated. Others, instead, are clinging to the second affirmation to uphold the primacy of conscience and the right to civil disobedience. The controversy is reaching a boiling point in the United States. It seems that tertium non datur.In this essay, however, aided by the guidance of our moral magisterium and Thomas Aquinas, we would like to show how these two statements from the CDF are not incompatible. We would like to offer a third option to the ones previously described. Our thesis is that the way to bring about the harmony of both statements consists in underscoring the primacy of truth, in our comprehension of conscience, authority, and civil disobedience.The essay will be divided into two different sections. The first section deals with the general principles at play in the Catholic understanding of conscience and civil disobedience under the primacy of truth. Thus, it focuses on providing some needed information to get rid of the relativistic and political lenses through which many Catholics today are approaching the vaccine mandates. The second section of the essay is instead more particular. It makes a moral evaluation of the recent mandates to be vaccinated. [End Page 774]General PrinciplesToo Political?As Catholics, we should not be so radical as to think that moral theology has nothing to say about these political matters. A legitimate understanding of the separation between church and state does not forbid the Church's magisterial teaching and moral theology to be concerned with this issue.The Church is not only a mother but also a teacher: "The church's motherhood can never in fact be separated from her teaching mission, which she must always carry out as the faithful Bride of Christ, who is the Truth in person."5Moreover, "life in common within the State possesses a relevant moral value and presents specific demands that—according to the law of the Incarnation, though with a completely particular modality—enter in to form a part of the following of Christ. Therefore, moral theology must treat of it."6Thus, we would like to invite our readers to divest from political biases that may be influencing their reasoning. This is not about being Republican or Democrat first and then using one's faith to express our political views. The... (shrink)

Augustine asserted that demons have material bodies, while Aquinas denied demonic corporeality, upholding that demons are separated, incorporeal, intelligible substances. Augustine’s conception of demons as composite substances possessing an immaterial soul and an aerial body is insufficient, in Thomas’s view, to account for certain empirical phenomena observed in demoniacs. However, Thomas, while providing more detailed accounts of demonic possession according to his development of Aristotelian psychology, does not avail of this demonic incorporeal eminence when analysing demonic attacks: demonic agency (...) is still confined to the material body. Aquinas’s account of demonic possession need not, on the face of it, require an immaterial cause. In his renouncement of the strong Christian tradition affirming demonic corporeality, Aquinas either conflates the need for a demonic agent with a requirement for a super corporeal one, or subordinates his demonology and angelology to a deeper, more fundamental Dionysian metaphysical principle of creative diffusion to which these adhere in a secondary way. (shrink)

Augustine asserted that demons (and angels) have material bodies, while Aquinas denied demonic corporeality, upholding that demons are separated, incorporeal, intelligible substances. Augustine’s conception of demons as composite substances possessing an immaterial soul and an aerial body is insufficient, in Thomas’s view, to account for certain empirical phenomena observed in demoniacs. However, Thomas, while providing more detailed accounts of demonic possession according to his development of Aristotelian psychology, does not avail of this demonic incorporeal eminence when analysing demonic attacks: (...) demonic agency is still confined to the material body. Aquinas’s account of demonic possession need not, on the face of it, require an immaterial cause. In his renouncement of the strong Christian tradition affirming demonic corporeality, Aquinas either conflates the need for a demonic agent with a requirement for a super corporeal one, or subordinates his demonology and angelology to a deeper, more fundamental Dionysian metaphysical principle of creative diffusion to which these adhere in a secondary way. (shrink)

This manuscript consists of two parts, Part I. and Part II. Part I., written by the same author and titled "THE PERSECUTED CHURCH: THE CLANDESTINE CATHOLIC CHURCH (ECCLESIA SILENTII) IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA DURING COMMUNISM 1948 – 1991," was published in the January issue of the Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe (OPREE), ISSN: 2693-2148.2 It includes a brief historical overview and introduces the Clandestine Catholic Church (Ecclesia Silentii) in Czechoslovakia during Communism from 1948 to 1991. Part II. directly (...) follows Part I. and continues with the following sections: Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References. Part II considers the collapse of the Czech Roman Catholic Church and the end destruction of the Clandestine Catholic Church by the Holy See, along with the process of secularization after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia from 1991 to 2021. (shrink)

ExcerptIn 1929, at the height of the conciliation process between the Italian State and the Catholic Church, sealed by the Lateran Treaty, Pope Pius XI referred to Mussolini as the man “sent by providence.”1 Conversely, in 1938, right in the middle of the clash between the Holy See and the Fascist government over the racial problem, Pius XI would say: “Today there is a mutual declaration of war between the Prime Minister and us. Mussolini might even win on some (...) battlefields, but one day he will be considered just like those peoples who won a battle but lost the war.”2. (shrink)

John Calvin started his career as a thoroughly trained humanist who possessed, in addition, a thorough knowledge of the Fathers of the Church. This article provides an overview of this particular knowledge. It also focuses on the use Calvin made of the patristic argument in both his instructive and apologetic writings. Some evident cases of Calvin’s misuse of the patres are discussed as well. It is concluded that Calvin’s special patristic knowledge gave his theology its special hallmark and still links (...) authentic Calvinism with the church’s catholic tradition through the ages. (shrink)

Homosexual activist groups have targeted the Catholic Church and the American military as institutions especially in need of transformation. Associations of healthcare professionals are also under assault from homosexual activists. It is, nevertheless, appropriate for the Church and the military to defend themselves against this assault, to affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian ethics and military service, and to help homosexuals free themselves from the vice of homosexuality. Arguments that homosexual reorientation therapy is unethical are unsound. Such therapy (...) is consistent with the Christian virtue of charity. (shrink)

Understanding the historical retrospective of state-confessional relations becomes especially relevant in connection with socio-political changes of the XX - the beginning of the XXI centuries. The Roman Catholic Church, as one of the subjects of these relations, increasingly expresses its attitude to socio-political events. Historical experience of the existence of the Roman Catholic Church testifies that the mentioned institution has had a significant impact on all spheres of public life, in particular political. In this context, we note that (...) the beginning of the XXI century. once again reveals the tendencies of the influence of the religious-church factor on the political life of many countries of the world, in the middle of which Ukraine. This influence is characterized by tension, a very complex dynamics, an increase in the interference of the political structure of religious affairs. Considerable interest in this aspect, in view of the sharp change in the political course of party-state leadership in relation to the Roman Catholic Church, is the final period of the Second World War. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the features of internal development and life of the Greek-Catholic Church in Eastern Galicia in the early of XX century. through the prism of personal experience of L. Fedorov, and his collaboration with Andrey Sheptyts’kyi.

Judaism and Christianity are religions whose theological epistemology is based on revelation. The primary source of revelation is Holy Scripture. However, history has also been recognised as a source of revelation, particularly the history of Israel and the Jewish people. Because they understood history as a source of revelation, many religious Jews altered their understanding of Jewish statehood in Eretz Israel during the twentieth century, from distinctly averse to increasingly supportive. On the same principles, the Catholic Church made arguably (...) the most profound change in its theology in the twentieth century, concerning its understanding of Jews and Judaism. This was prompted by an­­other major historical event, the Shoah. While in Judaism the historical phenom­enon of the State of Israel profoundly influenced theology, another historical phenomenon, the Shoah, was theologically approached with far more unease and ambiguity. In the Catholic Church, in contrast, the historical phenomenon of the Shoah prompted a serious reconsideration of certain tenets of theology, includ­ing soteriology, while the historical phenomenon of the State of Israel did not. This article addresses this apparent contradiction comparatively. (shrink)

Gallicanism is specifically related to the Catholic Church of France, and it is a set of ecclesiastical and political doctrines and practices which tried to limit the powers of the Papacy in France in general. In particular, it characterized the situation of the Catholic Church in France at certain periods. The emergence of Gallicanism as a specific idea came about in the 14th century and was first used as a term in 1810. Almost everything expressed by Gallicanism is (...) a distinctive development within the French Catholic Church. Gallicanism was mostly about the riches of the Catholic Church and administrative matters rather than a theological movement. These issues were mostly related to episcopal jurisdiction, appointments of bishops, church properties and revenues, and at the core of all these issues lay the sharing of church revenues. The French Crown began to acquire gains, especially regarding the property and financial income of the church with the weakening of the power of the Papacy. This new situation left the bishops between the popes and the kings, and prepared the ground for the development of Gallicanism in the country. However, Gallicanism did not come around as a separatist movement and did not lead to the separation of the Catholic Church of France from the Roman Catholic Church. Due to the conflicts of interests between the king, parliament and the clergy, Gallicanism could not develop into a monolithic thought or doctrine, it manifested itself in different perspectives. These manifestations have been treated as Episcopal, Parliamentary, and Royal Gallicanism in most academic studies. Each of these different Gallican ideas brought to the fore the institutions indicated in their naming and received support from them. However, all three versions of Gallicanism shared some common ideals. These are the common ideals of different Gallicanisms: (1) the independence of the king of France in worldly affairs, (2) the supremacy of an ecumenical council over the pope, and (3) the restriction of the pope's intervention in the French Catholic Church. Royal Gallicanism aimed to gather the powers snatched away from the Papacy in the hands of the king. Parliamentary Gallicanism shared similar principles with Royal Gallicanism. (shrink)

The Catholic Church, as part of the year 2000 Jubilee celebrations, issued a prayer of confession for sins committed in the past. Most notable was the confession for "actions that may have caused suffering to the people of Israel." In this paper I identify two prominent metaphors in the magisterial literature associated with this act of contrition—the metaphor of Church as mother, and the metaphor of repentance as purification of memory. I analyze these metaphors and place them in the (...) context of important conversations about the Catholic Church and the Holocaust, and about collective responsibility and repentance. (shrink)

The arrticle deals with the ambivalent attitude of Church authorities towards evolutionary theory.

Under normal circumstances the church would function as an agent of change and transformation, but this article focuses on the church herself that needs radical change if she is to remain relevant in mission and ministry in this current era. Clericalism and the centralisation of hierarchical control can be identified as the root causes of institutional pathology and weakening collegiality. To address clericalism may require the adjustment of seminary training, as in the current system seminarians are nurtured in a sense (...) of separateness, promoting male-ego and feed gender exclusivity and doctrinal self-righteousness. While the seminary was once an instrument of reform in the Catholic Church, established to counter problems such as clerical concubinage and illiteracy, but now it is no longer suitable as it has become the forum that breeds other problems. Priority attention should be paid to purge the church of rampant clericalism, discriminatory scapegoating of gay persons, marginalisation of free thinkers, exclusion of women priests, the perceived moral laxity of family life issues and reception of communion by divorced Catholics without the benefits of annulment. Discrediting the personal authority of the pope is hardly an enlightened option. What ought to be transformed is the centralisation of control and allowing increased localised dominion whereby crises such as sexual abuse scandals could be addressed and solved more speedily and liberally, and limit the need to go to the top for solutions. To wait for centralised, hierarchal structures to deal with urgent issues is not desirable, as speedy accountability is needed to address issues that hurt the church in its entirety. (shrink)

Waters, Ian; McGuckin, Robert The following document has been produced to assist priests and deacons of the Latin Catholic Church in their parish pastoral ministry. It does not attempt to be a scholarly or technical treatment. Often, as regards questions about marriage, a canonist will need to be consulted.

The study of the historical path of the development of Christianity from the time of its occurrence and to this day makes it possible to conclude that at all stages of the existence of this religion for her was characterized by the division into separate directions and branches, which led to a struggle between them. The whole history of Christianity is a multitude of divisions, conflicts and heresies. But there is no doubt that the evolutionary process of the development of (...) Christianity is followed by the reverse flow - the desire to unite into a single Christ's church. Representative of this trend was the Roman Catholic Church. In the XI-XIII centuries. it reached the peak of its power and began its unifying activity in the East. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How to Inherit a Kingdom:Reflections on the Situation of Catholic Political Thought*Russell Hittinger and Scott RonigerPrudenceIn 1890, in his Sapientiae Christianae, Pope Leo XIII wrote: "The political prudence of the Pontiff embraces diverse and multiform things, for it is his charge not only to rule the Church, but generally so to regulate the actions of Christian citizens that these may be in apt conformity to their hope of (...) gaining eternal salvation" (§37). The title of the encyclical means on principles of Christian practical wisdom, the truths concerning the pursuit in this life of our supernatural end. Leo was also referring to the regnative prudence of the pontifical office, directing citizens qua baptized. Even if the direction is about political morality, the prudential directives presuppose sanctifying grace and a supernatural end. In other words, such prudence is here proffered under the formality of the New Law.1In the concrete, directing those who have sanctifying grace to right [End Page 971] judgment and action regarding what belongs or does not belong to Caesar is not easily given or received. The lines and entanglements are contingent and fluid. At a consistory immediately after World War II, Pope Pius XII remarked that the triumph of democratic forms of government has at least one advantage: "The distinction between the Church and even the democratic State becomes increasingly clear."2 Divine providence includes two comprehensive communities, polity and ecclesia, which differ in their respective origin and end. In the thick of events, they are not always so clear. For the better part of two millennia, ecclesial and civil governments look very much alike from an institutional and sociological point of view. They share families, languages, costumes, arts and sciences, banks, moral principles, the same contemporary media—indeed, even sharing the same laws and international protocols. More than half of the European Union countries are under at least one concordat with the Holy See. Yet when we casually speak of "Church and state," it is easy to imagine two teams in the same order of things. Even so, Pius XII acknowledged that democratic government makes clear(er) that the first subject of the polity is the populus, the people, whereas the first subject of the ecclesia is the Holy Spirit.Beginning with Leo (1878–1903), pontifical prudence had to reckon with the benefits and challenges of representative governments. Whenever public responsibility is vested in the citizens, the baptized citizens bear a greater burden of distinguishing what properly belongs to the Church and to civil government. For in representative governments the citizens are not vassals or retainers of the king and his court. Therefore it falls more directly upon the people to understand the difference between Church and civil government.3Leo understood the world he inhabited. In Rerum Novarum (1891), he mused, "Nothing is more useful than to look upon the world as it really is" (§18). This marks an important change in papal letters after 1789. Christian wisdom has to be communicated not merely to Catholics who are subjects but also to Catholics who are citizens: in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, [End Page 972] and so on. Thus, Leo observed in an allocution two years after Sapientiae Christianae: "Faith embodied in the conscience of peoples rather than restoration of medieval institutions is the way to final victory."4As it turned out, Leo's greatest problem was the French Church and the Third Republic, which became more aggressively laicist with every passing decade, even though it was still under the 1801 concordat signed by Napoleon and Pius VII. For Leo, much was at stake, chiefly the law of divorce, which had been excised from the Napoleonic Code. Born in 1810, Leo had seen the historical events: the captivity of Pope Pius VII and then his release by the French, the demise of Napoleon, the loss of the papal states (the longest continuous temporal government in western Europe, until the summer of 1870), and Otto von Bismarck's Kulturkampf. He possessed those chief parts of prudence: memory, foresight, circumspection, and above all caution!Writing to the French Church in 1892, he observed that:Founded by Him who was, who is, and who... (shrink)

CONCLUSIONThis brief survey of the assessment of the Resurrection of Jesus in contemporary Catholic Christology indicates the presence of widely varying views on the nature of the Resurrection, on the manner of its revelation, and on the role attributed to it in the overall structure of theology. While it is improbable that a unified consensus will be achieved in the near future, if ever, a few concluding remarks may serve to direct attention to some central issues which underlie the (...) variations.First, more explicit attention could profitably be directed to the correlation of the understanding of the nature of the Resurrection with the theological function attributed to it. It is not at all certain that all opinions on the nature of the Resurrection are compatible with all of its theoretically possible theological functions. Is it, for example, consistent to understand the Resurrection as inseparable from Jesus' death, while assessing the Crucifixion in negative terms and attributing to the Resurrection the function of legitimating the claims of the historical Jesus ? Authors such as Kiing and Kasper seem to have drawn eclectically on disparate sources without having adverted sufficiently to the problems involved in a synthesis of different conceptions. Thus their positions on the function of the Resurrection in Christology are reminiscent of Wolfhart Pannenberg, 74 while their descriptions of the connection of death and resurrection draw heavily and explicitly on Karl Rahner. It would seem, however, that Rahner's conception of the nature of the Resurrection is incompatible with Pannenberg's christological argumentation. 75 At the very least, more expb'cit discussion of this issue would help to dispel the appearance of inconsistencies in the viewpoints of some authors.Secondly, it would seem that the central disputed issue with regard to the theological function of the Resurrection is the question of the sufficiency of the historical Jesus as basis and criterion of Christology. This question is also central to current Protestant Christology, as the opposing views of Pannenberg and Gerhard Ebeling76 clearly indicate. Its discussion is unfortunately often impeded by the use of identical terminology for different referents: some who assert the sufficiency of the historical Jesus and most of those who deny it are inclined to abstract from Jesus' death when they refer to the historical Jesus, while others not only include the Crucifixion but even attribute to it a very prominent position in their understanding of Jesus' life. Now the question of the sufficiency of the historical Jesus in abstraction from his death is quite different from that of his sufficiency when his death is included. The charge that theologies which assert that the historical Jesus is sufficient basis and criterion of Christology are inevitably reductionist is quite telling when raised against those whose conception of the historical Jesus abstracts from his crucifixion, but it is not necessarily valid when directed against those who do not do this. An uncritical presumption of Pannenberg's problematic distinction between Jesus' actions and his double fate of crucifixion and resurrection 77 may be at the root of many problems here. In view of the fact that Jesus' death was the consequence of his public activity, assessment of his public life in abstraction from that death is scarcely possible. The views which assert the sufficiency of the historical Jesus while incorporating the Crucifixion into their understanding of the historical Jesus require and deserve more careful examination. They possess the major advantage that in such approaches Christology's basis and criterion is accessible historically, while other proposed criteria, such as Küng's ‘biblical Christ’ or Kasper's ‘earthly Jesus and the risen and exalted Christ’ presuppose the resolution of what Rahner rightly considers the first and most basic christological question, the legitimacy of the step from the historical Jesus to the christological kerygma of the early Church .This leads immediately to a final remark: The key to discussion of the Resurrection is the theological interpretation of Jesus' death. Although critical assessment of the theory of satisfaction and of the category of sacrifice pertain to this question, 78 the matter is far more complex than these aspects alone. Further systematic study, which could profitably draw on the renewed exegetical examination of the various interpretations to be found in the New Testament, 79 is urgently needed. Avoidance of isolation of Jesus' death from his public life is one major precondition for the development of a valid interpretation of it. 80 While neither a survey of existing opinions nor a constructive proposal can be offered here, it might be suggested, without advocating false glorification of the Crucifixion, 81 that a theology which evaluates Jesus' death in exclusively negative terms will ultimately prove unable to provide a well‐grounded positive christological assessment of his life. (shrink)

Half a century has passed since the time of the Second Vatican Council - half a century for which a significant part of the world has unrecognizably changed - many-sided and trivial global processes have unfolded; new outlines of world civilization have emerged, geographic boundaries and demographic scales of religions have changed - but because of this, the Roman Catholic Church by the mouths of its head and the highest spiritual pastor of Pope Benedict XVI defines the Second Vatican (...) Council as "the most important ecclesiastical event of the 20th century". (shrink)

The Theological Consequence is of a more scandalous nature for Catholic ‘insiders’—the literate laity etc.etc.—than is the ‘mere’ ‘Humanist’ one. The pair together can to ‘Evangalisation’ no good at all.The Eminence, who on the BBC programme looks slightly comic. is, when one reflects a very disquieting figure indeed. So: A squib is comic: a serious one is, serious.Note the ‘BBC Panorama’ presentations have been seen in Australia, and so, possibly, in other countries in which this Journal is read.