Nostra Aetate indisputably represented at its promulgation in 1965 a momentous step forward in Catholic theology of religions. But its perspective on other religions still remains deeply "Christianity-centric" in that it views other religions from the Christian vantage-point and uses Christianity as the yardstick to evaluate them. Graphically, its theology of religions may be represented by a series of concentric circles with Christianity occupying the center of the innermost circle and other religions occupying successive circles, with increasing distance from (...) the center, depending on the number of the elements of the true religion, which is Christianity, they possess. How would the "the relation of the Church to non-Christian Religions" look like if we start from other religions and see them on their own terms, as they see themselves, that is, not as "non-Christian," and inquire into their mutual relations? The essay begins with an examination of the theology of religions implicit in the use of the expression “non-Christian” when referring to religions other than Christianity. It is argued that the “non” is not a neutral descriptive term but represents the “fulfillment theology” of religions prevalent before and during Vatican II. Next a critique of this fulfillment theology is presented showing that it is seriously inadequate for interreligious dialogue. Finally the essay proposes a different way to conceiving the relation between Christianity and other religions by applying the insights of the Jewish-Christian dialogue, especially its rejection of supersessionism, its condemnation of the “teaching of contempt,” and its Trinitarian theology of religion. In summary, the essay attempts to formulate a Christian “kenotic theology of religion,” in which Christianity and the church no longer stand at the normative center toward which “non-Christian” religions move as their “fulfillment” and perfection. Rather all religions, including Christianity, must “empty” themselves so as to be “filled” by the “other” in mutual correction, learning, and enrichment. (shrink)

During his pontificate John Paul II received the teaching of Nostra Aetate: by interpreting the mystery of human suffering in the light of Christ; by linking religions and cultures; by recognizing the universal activity of the Holy Spirit; by constantly showing his friendship for Jews; by encouraging Catholics to collaborate with all people in the defence of life and all moral values. Nostra Aetate speaks of the revelatory and salvific dimensions of the divine self-communication , and pushes us (...) into confessing Christ not only as universal Saviour but also as universal Revealer. (shrink)

McInerney, Patrick Nostra Aetate is Vatican II's ground-breaking document on the Catholic Church's relation with people of other religions. The two previous Popes have called it 'the Magna Carta' of the Church's new direction in interreligious dialogue. For centuries church teaching and practice in regard to other religions had been encapsulated in the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Nostra Aetate represents a 'radically new understanding of the relations of the church to the other great world religions.'.

The question can be put whether Nostra Aetate is addressing dialogue between religions,as its title would suggest, or encounter among the followers of different religions. Attention is paid first to the way the Council, in its other documents, speaks of religions. When the text of Nostra Aetate is examined, it is seen that its approach to religions is by no means exhaustive. Only a few religions are mentioned, and only positive aspects of them referred to. As regards dialogue (...) or encounter, it is shown that this really takes place between individual followers of religions, but abstraction cannot be made of the religious systems to which they belong. (shrink)

O presente artigo constitui um estudo do conceito de amizade em Santo Agostinho, em particular tal como ele se apresenta nas Confissões e nas Epístolas, tendo especialmente em conta a influência que a noção de φιλία ou de amicitia produziram no seu pensamento. Mostra-se também que o modelo teórico ciceroniano é uma das principais fontes de Agostinho, mas não a única. Nesse sentido, a definição que Cícero dá da amizade transforma-se em motivo para uma verificação da medida em que Agostinho (...) está em sintonia com o autor Latino ou em que medida eles se diferenciam. Daí a atenção dada ao conceito de benivolentia, conceito esse que no pensamento de Agostinho tem uma conotação próxima do conceito de caritas e do afecto, coisa que não acontece nem em Aristóteles nem em Cícero. Por outro lado, mostra-se também que Agostinho mantém praticamente desde a sua conversão a mesma concepção de amizade, pois que, quer no Contra Académicos, quer na Epístola 258, se encontra presente a mesma doutrina sobre a amizade, à qual está subjacente uma espiritualidade monástica e fraternal, que resulta da consolidação de elementos tanto filosóficos como bíblicos. Por último, o artigo sublinha ainda até que ponto para Agostinho a amizade verdadeira entre amigos deverá manter um acordo entre as coisas humanas e divinas, acordo esse que consiste numa articulação, em consonância com a tradição bíblica, das rerum humanariam et divinarum cum benivolentia et caritate consensio. /// The aim of this article is to discuss the concept of friendship in Augustine, particularly in the Confessions and in the Epistles, considering in particular the influence that the notion of φιλία or amicitia had in his thought. Cicero's theoretical model is one of the main sources for Augustine but not the only one. The definition that Cicero presents is a fundamental motive for the author of the article to assess to what extent there is, in Augustine, a complete harmony with him, and in which aspects they differ. One of these concepts is benivolentia, which in Augustine's thought is reinforced and comes closer to caritas and affection, a meaning that it does not have in Aristotle and Cicero. The article also shows that after his conversion Augustine maintained practically the same concept of friendship, since both in Contra Academicos as well as in the Epístola 258 we find the same doctrine. Subjacent to this notion of friendship there is a monastic and brotherly spirituality which is the result of the consolidation of philosophical and biblical elements. Finally, the article shows that for Augustine a true friendship implies an agreement between human and divine matters. This agreement allows an articulation between the rerum humanarum et divinarum cum benivolentia et caritate consensio and the biblical tradition. (shrink)

Canning, Raymond I was born on 15 September 1947. That same year, on 5 August, the International Council of Christians and Jews, meeting in Switzerland, had issued what have become known as 'The Ten Points of Seelisberg'.1 As grief and shame over the Shoah took root, the necessity for a radical change of theological, cultural and political attitudes on the part of Christians became clear. These Ten Points articulate key dimensions of that growing perception. They can therefore be understood as (...) forming an initial basis for the Christian-Jewish dialogue that was already gathering momentum.2 They also represent a first step in the process that led, eighteen years later, to Nostra Aetate, the document on the Catholic Church's relation to non-Christian religions that would emerge from the Second Vatican Council in late 1965. At various stages during the council years, it had appeared that the bishops' engagement with the new demands and manifold ramifications of Christian-Jewish relations expressed at Seelisberg might fail to produce any new official statement of Catholic Church teaching on the matter. Would the council after all remain silent on this crucial question? Yves Congar expressed the sentiments of many when, faced with this prospect in May 1965, he wrote in his council diary: 'For myself, however, I am in no way in favour of the pure and simple withdrawal of the text. Twenty years after Auschwitz it is impossible for the Council to say nothing'.3 And, as we now know, with the declaration Nostra Aetate the 'something' the council did succeed in saying, however small it may have appeared at that time, continues to resonate more than fifty years later. (shrink)

In an earlier article in Classical Quarterly, S. J. Harrison explored the varying frequency of hexameter-endings of the type discordia taetra, where a noun that ends in short a is followed by its epithet with the same termination. It appears from this that while most pre-Augustan poets allow a fairly high frequency of such verse-endings , some Augustan poets and their imitators show a distinct tendency to avoid them , while some almost exclude them altogether . The hexameters of elegiac (...) poetry might be subject to the same restriction; the following are figures for elegy from Catullus to Martial. (shrink)

The following article proposes an empirical study to explore communication strategies in the Cosa Nostra. Psychological studies on the characteristics of the language within the criminal organization are undoubtedly recent, but crucial to thoroughly understand the characteristics of implicit and explicit communication it adopts in the various contexts it works, as well as the power and value they assume. The data we have obtained from some videos concerning interviews and police interrogations to men of honor have been analyzed through (...) a method that refers to the grounds of qualitative research in clinical psychology, the Grounded Theory by Glaser and Strauss. The analysis we have carried out and its relevant data show us a world of the Mafia where the care for linguistic choices, for both form and contents, is characterized as a crucial activity, even when words are replaced by silence or gestures. (shrink)

On the path of the continued application of the Second Vatican Council’s Document Nostra Aetate, which turns 50, presenting a deepening biblical material based on written and oral tradition of the Jews and the Church's teaching from the same Vatican II up to the present days, by confirming the teaching of the last Popes, narrowing the route of mutual regard and friendship in dialogue with Judaism and the common heritage present in the Pentateuch and in all the Holy Scriptures.

Este artículo reseña: Massimo La Torre. Nostra Legge è la Libertà. Anarchismo dei Moderni. Roma : Derive Approdi, 2017.

ABSTRACTThe discursive analysis of criminal organizations’ family dynamics and ideological devices may provide important insights into the inner functioning of these groups. In this article, we describe and analyze a specific set of discursive strategies and the thematic narratives emerging from a TV interview with Giuseppe Riina, a member of Cosa Nostra and the son of one of the most important mafia bosses. Our analyses demonstrate the existence of recurring ideological devices such as reductionism, amoralism, familism, verticalism, normalism, victimism (...) and religious relativism. The results are discussed in light of previous research that examines how discursive strategies and narratives may represent powerful tools for understanding criminal organizations. Family-related discourses, in particular, reveal meanings, values and ideas that contribute to constructing criminal organizations’ internal structure, as well as their relationship with the external world. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyse and explain the differences between the text written by Arnau de Vilanova and edited by M. Flacius Illiricus in 1562 under the title Collocutio Friderici Regis Siciliae et nostra, and the text edited by M. Menéndez y Pelayo in 1879 under the title Interpretatio facta per magistrum Arnaldum de Villa nova de visionibus in somniis dominorum Jacobi Secundi Regis Aragonum et Frederici Tertii Regis Siciliae. Since Menéndez's edition, the idea has spread (...) among Arnau de Vilanova scholars that both works were the same and that the differences were simple textual variants of little importance. The article concludes that the Collocutio is actually the complete and definitive version of the work, and that the Interpretatio is a partial version corresponding to a previous stage in the redaction of the work. Collocutio is also the definitive... (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Text versucht in Auseinandersetzung mit den Ansätzen von Jürgen Moltmann, Johann Baptist Metz und Odo Marquard und im Anschluss an lutherische Theologie zu einer Verhältnisbestimmung von Theodizeefrage und Kreuzestheologie zu gelangen. Dabei wird Luthers Einsicht fruchtbar gemacht, dass Gott verborgen im Leiden wirkt, das Leiden aber nicht zu seiner Wesenseigenschaft wird. Vielmehr eröffnet sich in der Klage des leidenden Menschen die Möglichkeit, das Leiden an Gott zu beenden und gegen Gott zu Gott zu fliehen. Von Luthers Kreuzestheologie her ist (...) eine gegenseitige Durchdringung von Theodizeefrage, Hamartiologie, Kreuzestheologie und Eschatologie anzumahnen. Gleichzeitig verhelfen Klage und Anklage dazu, sich aufgrund von erfahrenen Leiden nicht in sich selbst zu verschließen, sondern kontrafaktisch an Gott festzuhalten.SummaryDiscussing the thoughts of J. Moltmann, J. B. Metz and O. Marquard the essay attempts – whilst following Martin Luther's theologia crucis – to find a relation between the theodicy-question and the theology of the cross. For this concern it refers to the aspect that God acts in suffering in a hidden way but does not posses suffering as an intrinsic characteristic. Rather, the lament of suffering people address to God, as we find it in the Psalms, gives the opportunity of bringing suffering from God's hiddenness to an end and to “flee from God to God”. Returning to Luther's theologia crucis should lead to further reflections on theodicy, sin, theology of the cross and eschatology. At the same time, lamentation as bringing human suffering before God provides an aid for suffering people not to lock their suffering in themselves, but to maintain the relationship to God – even against the supposedly factual evidence of the experience of suffering. (shrink)

Discusses Stoic ethics and cosmology in Lucan. Argues that Lucan's Cato embodies a perverted, distorted form of Stoicism that corresponds to the inversion of Stoic cosmology and theology generally. All those forms of inversion serve to create alienation and a dystopian world view.

In recent years, a new type of Neo-Augustinian theology has received extensive attention: Radical Orthodoxy. Leading figures behind Radical Orthodoxy such as John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward assert that they reclaim Augustine's theology over and against almost every major types of modern theology. Their leading claim is that an Augustinian participationist theological ontology overcomes Enlightment sourced secularism. In this essay, the Augustinian character of Radical Orthodox theology is put to the test in terms of a comparison and confrontation (...) between Radical Orthodoxy and Augustine's Christology. It is shown that Radical Orthodoxy's sole concern with regard to Christology is in the manifestation or expression of the ontological relationship or unity of God and the world. Thus, Radical Orthodoxy has its roots in a post-Hegelian rethinking of unity in difference rather than being a rediscovery of Augustine's theology. Subsequently, it is shown that Radical Orthodoy's reading of Augustine denies his understanding of the manifestation of the being of God in Christ; furthermore, it does not account for Augustine's doctrine of atonement: where we recover our original justice and happiness through the substituting life and death of Christ, an atonement which prepares us for the vision of God in the Eschaton. (shrink)

This work proposes research on a still unexplored psychical world: thoughts, emotions, and real events experienced by racket victims of the three largest criminal organizations of the South of Italy: Mafia, Camorra, and ‘Ndrangheta. The purpose is to understand the multifaceted psycho-anthropological and social issues criminal organizations have settled on, and particularly which psycho-relational dynamics and sociocultural codes come into play in the complex and controversial relationship between victim and criminal system, between victim and support systems. With entrepreneurs and tradesmen (...) victims of organized crime, we have analyzed lived experiences—in particular fear—and psychological problems they had to cope with; events and motivations that allowed them “breaking” the silence and asking for help; the representation of a support network before and after their possible pressing charges; the kind of help offered by support systems. Dignity and self-respect, the fight for one's own freedom and honor,.. (shrink)

This article addresses new approaches to the novel in the twenty-first century. It begins with an affirmation that even the most avant-garde of contemporary critics in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century share a commonality: a background in what was identified as “close reading” in the Anglo-American academic world and analyse de texte in French. After numerous declarations in recent decades about the death of the novel, the death of the author and the death of literary criticism, it is (...) evident that the novel as a genre has survived, authors remain a subject of study, and new approaches are possible. The study of trauma in fiction, as well as eco-criticism, are promising new points of departure. The required close reading implied by Twitter also opens up new possibilities. (shrink)