Abstract

Pascoe, David The notion of stewardship is an emerging reality in the Catholic Church,1 albeit somewhat confined to some Western localities, particularly the USA, and also developing in the Australian context. While the notion is not new to the wider Christian Church, there remain questions as to the theological foundation for stewardship as a principle of Christian living in its Catholic context. There is, for example, a question of how stewardship is a lived reality for the people who are the Catholic Church, when stewardship is understood as giving expression to the nature and mission of the church. If, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, the one sole purpose of the church is 'that the kingdom of God may come and the salvation of the human race may be accomplished' (GS 45), how does stewardship play a part in accomplishing this purpose? And, perhaps more importantly, there is the question what is it about stewardship in our time that presents the Church with a renewed impetus to take up its central purpose as noted in Gaudium et spes, with more deliberate vigour?