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)

Cultural factors are operating in the aesthetic experience of pictorial realism, occurring in a transcultural manner, and their effects are salient in beholder’s affective reaction correlated with perceptual-cognitive operation. This paper aims to demonstrate this hypothesis, by developing two analytical tools that might explain the anti-hedonic valence of Hong Taeyong, an eighteenth-century Korean literatus’ aesthetic experience of a Western religious fresco depicting the Lamentation of Christ in a Jesuit Catholic church in Beijing. First, a complex multifold conflict between (...) «actual affect» and culturally modeled «ideal affect», operating simultaneously in his visual experience, might be translated into a highly negative valence of his global affective state. Second, the variance of processing fluencies at different levels would have made his global processing operation less fluid, and it might play a role in his negative affective valence, since the affect is inherent in processing fluency signal. (shrink)

Classical authors were generally artistic realists. The predominant aesthetic theory was mimesis, which saw the truth of art as its successful representation of reality. High modernists rejected this aesthetic theory as lifeless, seeing the truth of art as its subjective expression. This impasse has serious consequences for both the Church and the public square. Moving forward requires both, first, an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of the high modernist critique of classical mimetic theory, and, second, a theory of (...) truth which makes adequate reference to both subject and object. This paper argues that Lonergan offers just such an account of truth, and so cashes out the high modernist rejection of classical mimesis in Lonergan’s terms, thereby creating the opportunity for a synthesis of the two views. (shrink)

Classical authors were generally artistic realists. The predominant aesthetic theory was mimesis, which saw the truth of art as its successful representation of reality. High modernists rejected this aesthetic theory as lifeless, seeing the truth of art as its subjective expression. This impasse has serious consequences for both the Church and the public square. Moving forward requires both, first, an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of the high modernist critique of classical mimetic theory, and, second, a theory of (...) truth which makes adequate reference to both subject and object. This paper argues that Lonergan offers just such an account of truth, and so cashes out the high modernist rejection of classical mimesis in Lonergan’s terms, thereby creating the opportunity for a synthesis of the two views. (shrink)

The manner in which a person views the universe originates from her/his culture. If someone were asked of the predominant element found in every culture that has for centuries given people their perspective of the universe, certainly, the answer would be, Religion! The responsibility of generating and preserving the elements of one’s perspective of the universe has rested with religious institutions such as Methodist, Protestant, or Roman Catholic churches or spiritual leaders such as the Buddha. Whether the element is (...) developed through the teaching of the Holy Bible, Catechism, Vedas, or Koran, people in the universe, including the Garífuna-speaking people of Central America, have always felt the need to .. (shrink)

Northrop Frye once remarked that when art reaches a certain level of intensity it begins to speak about itself. Karsten Harries, in his excellent new book, provokes in the reader an image of the Bavarian rococo church having reached this degree of self-consciousness, to the extent that it calls into question not only its own special limits, but those of all sacred art. In Harries's words, the Bavarian rococo church is "no longer able to take seriously the pathos (...) and rhetoric of the baroque, yet refuses to give them up; so it plays with them." Harries's argument centers around three axes: first, the conflation of painting, architecture, and ornament into a single art form; second, the change in and thematization of the viewer's perspective resulting from this conflation; third, the encroachment of the aesthetic upon the sacramental, an encroachment which follows from this new emphasis on the viewer's perspective. Thus, Harries's claim: the very principles of the Bavarian rococo church lead to its own disintegration at the hands of an "aesthetic attitude," according to which "a work of art is governed by the demands of its own aesthetic perfection.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.2 (2003) 80-98 [Access article in PDF] Musical Spirituality:Reflections on Identity and the Ethics of Embodied Aesthetic Experience in/and the Academy Deanne Bogdan Music in/and My Life Several years ago, I attended a Pontifical High Mass at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. It was the feast of the Epiphany, a public holiday in the predominantly Roman Catholic country of Austria. 1 A "lapsed" (...) Catholic myself, my intention as part of the congregation that day was not primarily one of worship as it was to listen to a performance of the Pauckenmesse of Joseph Haydn, complete with soloists, full choir, and orchestra (in overcoats), including, of course, timpani.As I stepped from the brilliant winter morning into the narthex of that gothic splendor, the pungency of the incense propelled me into Proustian recollections of growing up female, Catholic, and Italian-Canadian in the cathedral parish in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada's steel town. My mother and father, first generation Italian-Canadians, whose own parents had emigrated as teen-agers, had been partners in a corner grocery located in another part of the city that was largely professional and white-Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Eager to assimilate (they never spoke Italian to my sister or me, and we never learned the language), my parents realized early on that their most valuable legacy to their two daughters would be the advantages of a solid education, religious and secular. For them that meant enrolling us in the local co-educational Catholic elementary school. Later we attended a convent secondary school as day students, and were the only members of our extended family, male or female, to attend university.It was memories of those elementary school years that were conjured up for me that crisp January morning at St. Stephen's. (In hindsight, I am struck by the synchronicity 2 of the fact that my original surname is Di Stefano, or rather "Distefan," as it had become in its anglicized form). 3 For a [End Page 80] whole complex of reasons, I identified strongly with my parochial school and the church that sheltered/shadowed it — a soaring pseudo-gothic structure reputed to have been replicated, stone by stone, wood carving by hand wood carving, from some European cathedral. The romance of that basilica — The Cathedral of Christ the King — its "daughter" school, and the priests and nuns who were our guides and teachers became my second family for the whole of my grade school education. For me, being at school was like a recognition scene. As Italian-American literary theorist Marianna de Marco Torgovnick writes: When I was a child, school was...a light-filled, wide awake world in which fear did not erupt except on rare occasions. I saw school as a place where I was valued for my intelligence, even though I was female — and this probably had something to do with my absence of fear there. I quite naturally chose to stay in school through college and into graduate school. It's in these relatively late years that I first became fully conscious of how even within the world of school I was and always would be female. 4My identification with my church/school centered around my musical development, which began at age four when the piano I grew up on arrived like a beacon in our home. Coterminous with my eager entry into first grade, piano lessons were begun with Sister Cecile, a somewhat nervous, gentle nun predisposed to mystical experience, who shepherded me through exams and recitals until high school. Because I could sight-read fairly well, I was regularly pulled out of class to accompany soloists and dancing groups rehearsing for annual Christmas and St. Patrick's Day concerts. Something about this made me feel special; I both reveled in and felt isolated by my difference from my classmates. I had found a sense of community through my music, and enjoyed a feeling of security in the knowledge that my schoolwork was strong enough... (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)

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.

La Religieuse is a classic French Enlightenment work in its elucidation of forced religious vocation as well as the hypocrisy and abuses of the Catholic Church. In reviving and effectively re-envisioning the novel, filmmakers Jacques Rivette and Guillaume Nicloux succeed in bringing Diderot’s ideas to bear on contemporary issues such as the image and role of the Church post Vatican II, and the effects of patriarchal and religious oppression on the individual. This article examines the context and (...) reception of all three works (the original text and two film adaptations) and their engagement with specific historical circumstances as well as more universal concerns; by extension, this project represents an effort to probe the perhaps unexpected, continued interest in Diderot’s writings in popular culture today. An analysis of the literary and cinematic posterity of La Religieuse underscores the ongoing pertinence of French Enlightenment thought while illuminating the linked political and aesthetic inheritance of Diderot’s novel. (shrink)

La Religieuse is a classic French Enlightenment work in its elucidation of forced religious vocation as well as the hypocrisy and abuses of the Catholic Church. In reviving and effectively re-envisioning the novel, filmmakers Jacques Rivette and Guillaume Nicloux succeed in bringing Diderot’s ideas to bear on contemporary issues such as the image and role of the Church post Vatican II, and the effects of patriarchal and religious oppression on the individual. This article examines the context and (...) reception of all three works (the original text and two film adaptations) and their engagement with specific historical circumstances as well as more universal concerns; by extension, this project represents an effort to probe the perhaps unexpected, continued interest in Diderot’s writings in popular culture today. An analysis of the literary and cinematic posterity of La Religieuse underscores the ongoing pertinence of French Enlightenment thought while illuminating the linked political and aesthetic inheritance of Diderot’s novel. (shrink)

This article is a critical investigation of the buildings and writings of Étienne-Joseph Gaboury, a prolific French Canadian architect who, in the 1960s, designed several modern parish churches and engaged with various liturgical documents issued in the context of the Second Vatican Council. How have the various calls of priests and theologians advocating for artistic and liturgical renewal—calls which became increasingly frequent in the North Atlantic world after World War II—been adapted and implemented in specific architectural landmarks by Gaboury, such (...) as his famous Précieux-Sang Church and Blessed Sacrament Church in Manitoba? I argue that Gaboury’s account of the origins of Christianity and his description of religious experience in both embodied and spiritual terms, found in his essay “Design for Worship”, can be understood not simply as an aggiornamento, or bringing the Church “up to date,” but also as echoes, in aesthetic and architectural terms, of some of the key tenets of the “new theology,” which were central to the changes put forth by the Second Vatican Council. I also argue that Gaboury’s interests in materiality and in the evocative power of light need to be read through the rise of phenomenology in postwar North American architecture. By looking at various archival documents, I propose that Vatican II was not a unilateral, top-down paradigm shift, or a rupture with tradition, but rather a complex and ongoing negotiation between the architect, ecclesial authorities and lay people. (shrink)

This essay is a critical theological and pastoral study of the Working Document of the Second African Synod. The article engages the articles in the document which deal with the theme of reconciliation. This essay begins by exploring the Christological and ecclesiological foundations for an African theology of reconciliation as found in the working document. While engaging the significant aspects of the working document which relate to articulating an African theology of reconciliation, this essay shows the limitations of the document (...) in its historical and cultural analysis of the situation in Africa. Drawing from a phenomenological hermeneutical engagement with African history, cultural grammar, and Christ‐centered African Christian imagination, the essay widens the scope of theological engagement with the task of reconciliation in Africa. It does a theological aesthetics of reconciliation in Africa, by integrating diverse cultural, ontological, and Christological symbols within the African world on vital participation and vital union. Through the inculturation of vital participation as analogous to Trinitarian Communion, the essay shows how the Church in Africa can deal with the ever‐revolving cycle of violence, conflicts, and divisions in the churches and political institutions which have all hampered the mission of building relationship and God's kingdom in Africa. The essay concludes by recommending four pastoral approaches through which the Catholic Church in Africa can be both a reconciled community and an instrument for reconciliation in Africa. (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)

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Museums in Transition:Thoughts from an EmpiricistSean UlmerIn March 2005 Daniel Siedell, curator of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, approached me with an invitation to participate in a symposium for the Journal of Aesthetic Education that he was guest editing. He said that the symposium would be dedicated to curatorial and educational issues and suggested that each of the contributors (...) could use David Carrier's forthcoming book as a starting point for their essays. At that time, I did not know of Carrier's thoughts but had a number of thoughts myself on issues related to curatorial and educational strategies within the museum setting. My experience in a variety of positions in three—now four—institutions had provided me with a number of perspectives about different facets of the museum and its curatorial and educational missions.In Carrier's book, Museum Skepticism, released in May 2006, the author posits a number of thought-provoking observations regarding the birth, evolution, and decline of the museum. Tracing this development from the French Revolution and the opening of the Louvre, through the Isabel Stewart Gardner Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Albert Barnes's collection and foundation/museum, and finally the J. Paul Getty Museum, Carrier looks at specific examples to support claims he makes in his intriguing opening and concluding chapters. While there are too many worthwhile observations to explore in great detail here, I will address some of the issues that piqued my interest, coming at the question from a different point of view, that of a working museum professional.Let me begin by stating that I am no theorist. Instead, I am an unapologetic pragmatist.1 My entire career has been shaped by actual work within a museum, seeing the institution—or "organism" as I usually refer to it—from a number of different vantage points.2 These varied experiences have given me the opportunity to see the museum—at least a Kunsthalle, two university museums, and a public museum—from several different vantage points. [End Page 4]In his introductory chapter, Carrier asks his primary question: "What is it like to lead the life of a work of art?"3 This is a very interesting question, and one with which many of us rarely consider in our day-to-day work within the museum's walls. In order to answer the question fully, Carrier suggests that "we need to understand museums."4 Indeed. In actuality, museums (and there are many different types) are just one component that must be considered. For a full consideration of the life of the work of art, one must start with the artist. What were his or her motivations? What was he or she trying to accomplish with the work? How was it first shown? In a gallery? In a museum show? How did the artist intend the work to be shown? What was the role of the patron or commissioner, if there was one? We know that the Catholic Church was an important originator of a number of great works of art and many were destined for church interiors, and some still are in situ. One cannot deny, however, that many of the world's great works of art ("great" simply deemed so by consensus) have found their way into museums. Museums are much more complex beasts than Carrier—or anyone for that matter—can cover within the confines of a single, publishable book. So many factors must be considered, especially when considering today's museums, as they continue to evolve and grow: the role of the collector, the patron, the board, the director, the curator, the education staff, the guards, and the public, to name just a few individuals who require consideration when analyzing museums. Such an interesting mixture of different individuals, each with a unique perspective (and agenda), coming together in one place makes for this complexity. And while the author uses this question of the life of a work of art as a starting point, he finds in the progress of the text a number of other stimulating and thoughtful observations. There is much more contained within... (shrink)

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

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 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)

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)

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)

Starting mostly with the second half of the 20th century, the churches and the religious communities are facing the challenges raised by the process of secularization, which is considered by some sociologists of religion as irreversible. The most affected ones were / are the traditional churches and the most obvious area where this phenomenon has become very visible is the Western Europe. This study aims to analyze the situation of the traditional churches in Romania, with a special focus on the (...) Greek-Catholic Church, from the same perspective: the impact of post-modernity over a church which is very much orientated towards the West, which is becoming more and more urban and is still passing through a complicated process of structuring and transition. The study underlines the fact that one of the answers to the problems raised by the process of secularization is based on the way in which the ecclesiastical community is built and on how deep is the consciousness of the confessional identity rooted in the mind and the soul of the believers. (shrink)

This research examines the most important historical, political, economic, social, cultural, and religious factors before, during, and after the reign of Communism in Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 2021 and their effect on the extreme increase in atheism and decrease in Christianity, particularly Roman Catholicism, in the present-day Czech Republic. It devotes special attention to the role of the Clandestine Catholic Church (Ecclesia Silentii) and the changing policies of the Holy See vis-à-vis this Church, examining these policies' impact (...) on the continuing decline of Roman Catholicism in the Czech Republic after the collapse of Communism. The article also deals with Pope Pius XII's Secret Mandates of 1948-1950, the Second Vatican Council, and the Holy See's Ostpolitik. Scholars, who previously relied only on the views of the Czechs, blame the unprecedented drop in Christianity, the near-total destruction of the Catholic Church, and the rise in atheism on the Czechoslovak communist government's four decades of totalitarianism. Although the increase in atheism and decrease in Christianity were substantial during the era of Communism from 1948 to 1989, our data indicate that the decline in Christianity, particularly the historically predominating Roman Catholicism, did not commence with the 1948 communist coup d’état but traces its origins to the breakdown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the conclusion of WWI and the establishment of Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918. What's more, this research shows that the most significant and unprecedented steep deterioration of the Christian Faith, namely Roman Catholicism, did not occur during the era of Communism but only after the Czechoslovak communist government collapsed in 1989. This massive decay did not happen even during the most extraordinary communist persecution of the Catholic Church during the era of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia. This research further finds that the Holy See's ill-advised policies and systematic, sustained, and prevalent failures in leadership, guidance, and teachings are responsible for the near destruction of the Roman Catholic Church and especially the end destruction of the Clandestine Catholic Church (Ecclesia Silentii), in the Czech and Slovak Republics after the fall of Communism. These failures furthermore contributed to the Czech Republic, the historical lands of Bohemia and Moravia that once were in the center of Christendom, degenerating into the most atheist country in Europe and the world today. (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)

This essay is a critical theological and pastoral study of the Working Document of the Second African Synod. The article engages the articles in the document which deal with the theme of reconciliation. This essay begins by exploring the Christological and ecclesiological foundations for an African theology of reconciliation as found in the working document. While engaging the significant aspects of the working document which relate to articulating an African theology of reconciliation, this essay shows the limitations of the document (...) in its historical and cultural analysis of the situation in Africa. Drawing from a phenomenological hermeneutical engagement with African history, cultural grammar, and Christ-centered African Christian imagination, the essay widens the scope of theological engagement with the task of reconciliation in Africa. It does a theological aesthetics of reconciliation in Africa, by integrating diverse cultural, ontological, and Christological symbols within the African world on vital participation and vital union. Through the inculturation of vital participation as analogous to Trinitarian Communion, the essay shows how the Church in Africa can deal with the ever-revolving cycle of violence, conflicts, and divisions in the churches and political institutions which have all hampered the mission of building relationship and God's kingdom in Africa. The essay concludes by recommending four pastoral approaches through which the Catholic Church in Africa can be both a reconciled community and an instrument for reconciliation in Africa. (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.

This paper examines language practices in two services offered in the main Catholic Church in the town of Sangmelima in the South region of Cameroon. The research is motivated by the need to find out what languages are used in this church and what the terms “French service” and “Bulu service” imply in the multilingual city of Sangmelima. The informants were the priests, catechists, choir leaders, and some parishioners of this church. Three main instruments were used (...) to collect data in these two church services, i.e., interview, questionnaire and participant observation. The frame adopted for the analysis was Kouega’s structural-functional approach (2008). The findings revealed that the services in this church include 28 parts. In the French service, the languages used to realise these parts were found to be French, Bulu (Sangmelima), Ewondo (Yaounde), Fang (south of Cameroon and north of Equatorial Guinea), Fe’efe’e (Bafang), Ghomala’ (Bafoussam), and Medumba (Bangangte). In the Bulu service, on the other hand, the languages used were: Bulu (Sangmelima), Ewondo (Yaounde), and French. These languages were chosen for a variety of reasons. First, a language like Bulu was chosen because it is understood by the parishioners as it is the main language of the locality. Second, French is the official language of the territory; third, some languages like Fe’efe’e, Ghomala, and Medumba were chosen on the basis of the involvement of the speakers of these ethnic languages in the activities of the church. Fourth, the availability of printed religious materials in a language was an important factor. (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 Catholic Church – though in popular opinion it is sometimes treated as a stronghold of conservatism, traditionalism, suspicion of progress and novelty, it changed significantly in the second half of the 20th century and continues to change its attitudes, especially in terms of the use of social communication and attitude to the media mass. The Church’s growing openness to media relations and the use of a rich instrumentation of social communication has become one of the reasons (...) for the growing popularity of market orientation among the clergy and active believers, which opens opportunities for the development of the concept of a specific sectoral marketing formula of church marketing. In this article the authors search for the causes of the progressive phenomenon of the marketization of religion, present examples of the activities of the Polish Catholic church, inscribed in the church marketing trend, as well as define the negative consequences resulting from its dissemination. The applied research method is based on the literature analysis and case studies analysis. (shrink)

This paper explores the reasons that led many Catholics to support the candidacy of Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in the United States and the role played by the leadership of the U.S. Catholic bishops in the electoral process. Also explored are the outlines of an alternative approach, shaped by the more holistic “consistent ethic of life” contained in the teachings of Pope Francis. Attention is given to how this Francis-inspired alternative could provide a model (...) for more constructive and prophetic engagement of the U.S. Catholic Church in the political arena. Brief profiles are presented of several U.S. Catholic bishops modeling this more holistic approach. (shrink)

Somewhat traumatized by the Galileo Affair the Church until recently showed low profile in the conflicts with science, evolutionary theory included. The talk presents a categorization of possible relationships between science and religion by distinguishing between "Galilean conflicts", which are about mutually exclusive statements about matters of fact, and Freudian conflicts where an empirical science tries to explain away religion as a phenomenon in its own right. In the light of this distinction I deal with the reactions of the (...) Church since 1859, particularly with the ambiguous position of the present Pope. (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)