scholarly journals The Bergoglian Principles: Pope Francis’ Dialectical Approach to Political Theology

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 670
Author(s):  
Ethna Regan
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Dirty War ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Dialectical Approach ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Pastoral Practice

Pope Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) is a complex thinker whose political and theological views range from the illiberal to the radical, defying easy categorization within the binaries of contemporary politics. In this article, I examine the influence of theological debates in the post-Vatican II Latin American church on his development, especially la teología del pueblo, which was, ‘to some extent’, an Argentine variant of liberation theology. This article presents a critical analysis of four ‘Bergoglian principles’—which Francis says are derived from the pillars of Catholic social teaching—first developed when he was the leader of the Jesuits in Argentina during the period of the ‘Dirty War’: time is greater than space; unity prevails over conflict; realities are more important than ideas; and the whole is greater than the part. While Francis’ work draws from a variety of theological roots and employs a range of ethical theories and methods of moral reasoning, it is these principles, with their dialectical and constructive approach to political theology, that remain constant in his work and find expression in his papal writings, including Evangelii Gaudium and Laudato Si’. They clarify his operative priorities in political conflict, pluralistic dialogue, pastoral practice, and theological analysis.

scholarly journals POPE FRANCIS: IT IS THE POLITICS!

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-121
Author(s):  
Emilce Cuda
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Working People ◽  
Structural Poverty

This article will try to establish a relationship between economy and religion based on the speech of the new Latin American Pontiff, Pope Francis, for whom the problem of global crisis should not be sought in the economy but in politics. The pontiff believes that the economy should be subordinated to the politics and not the other way around. Trying to find a solution to the global political and economic crisis involves investigating the theological causes that sustain structural poverty. Francisco, as a new prophet in times of capitalism, relying on the documents of the Latin American archbishops, denounces that the lack of work that originates this system originates a culture of death. Political theology can unmask false gods that support this system, and proclaim the importance of a poor working people who must be treated with dignity.

scholarly journals Francis and the Pastoral Geopolitics of Peoples and Their Cultures: A Structural Option for the Poor

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Luciani
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
Latin American Theology ◽  
Structural Option ◽  
The Church

In response to the phenomenon of globalization, which has resulted in the exclusion of entire peoples and their cultures, Pope Francis has proposed a pastoral geopolitics that is in keeping with the spirit of Vatican II and Latin American theology. Today’s poor are not only the individually poor, but also “poor-peoples” ( pueblos-pobres). Francis’s pastoral geopolitics seeks to identify the new historical processes being formed on the peripheries, such as social movements for democratic and inclusive societies, processes that the Church should encourage by valuing and incarnating itself in poor-peoples’ “cultures.” His structural option for the poor brings together ecclesiology, geopolitics, and evangelization.

Clericalization of the Laity: A Prescient Warning of Pope Francis for the Catholic Church in Ireland

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-34
Author(s):  
Éamonn Fitzgibbon
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Lay People ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Pastoral Practice ◽  
As If ◽  
The Catholic Church

Pope Francis has consistently alerted the Catholic Church to the dangers of clericalism. One way in which clericalism finds expression is by clericalizing the laity and Francis’s warning in this has particular relevance for Ireland as we attempt to address the consequences at pastoral level of a collapse in vocations to priesthood and religious life. The temptation is to try to carry on as if nothing has changed and often to ask lay people to fill roles previously carried out by clergy in a way that suggests they are the ones who are truly living out their baptismal calling as opposed to those who live out their Christianity in the course of their ordinary daily lives. This raises important questions around the roles of laity and ordained, the evolution of ministry, and current pastoral practice. This article examines theological responses to these questions during and since Vatican II. I propose we are best served at this time by focusing on the relationship between the priesthood of the faithful and ordained priesthood. I also argue that we need an inductive methodology which enables our theology to be guided by praxis.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The World ◽  
Entire Cosmos ◽  
Natural Ecology ◽  
Theological Vision ◽  
New Framework

The conclusion looks at the teaching of Pope Francis, considering the possibility that it represents the emergence of a new framework for Catholic social teaching. Pope Francis has emphasized that the encounter with Jesus Christ brings about an experience of newness and openness. He has also proposed a cosmic theological vision. His concept of “integral ecology,” introduced in his encyclical Laudato Si’, illustrates how human society is interconnected with the natural ecology of the planet earth and the entire cosmos. He proposes that the economy, society, culture, and daily life are all interconnected “ecologies.” In a speech to the World Meeting of Popular Movements in 2015, Pope Francis also explains how social movements devoted to local issues can nevertheless have a profound effect on the structures of the global economy. In his teachings, Pope Francis presents an organicist and communitarian vision of economic life.

II. Modernization of the Papacy and Catholicism in the Postmodern: Legacy and Challenges to Vatican I

Horizons ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-119
Author(s):  
Massimo Faggioli
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Vatican I ◽  
The One ◽  
Pius Ix ◽  
The Way

In the ongoing aggiornamento of the aggiornamento of Vatican II by Pope Francis, it would be easy to forget or dismiss the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Vatican I (1869–1870). The council planned (since at least the Syllabus of Errors of 1864), shaped, and influenced by Pius IX was the most important ecclesial event in the lives of those who made Vatican II: almost a thousand of the council fathers of Vatican II were born between 1871 and 1900. Vatican I was in itself also a kind of ultramontanist “modernization” of the Roman Catholic Church, which paved the way for the aggiornamento of Vatican II and still shapes the post–Vatican II church especially for what concerns the Petrine ministry.

scholarly journals The Solved Conflict: Pope Francis and Liberation Theology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ole Jakob Løland
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Gustavo Gutierrez ◽  
Global Church

AbstractThe battle for meaning and influence between Latin American liberations theologians and the Vatican was one of the most significant conflicts in the global Catholic church of the twentieth century. With the election of the Argentinean Jorge Mario Bergoglio as head of the global church in 2013, the question about the legacy of liberation theology was actualized. The canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the pope’s approximation to the public figure of Gustavo Gutiérrez signaled a new approach to the liberation theology movement in the Vatican. This article argues that Pope Francis shares some of the main theological concerns as pontiff with liberation theology. Although the pope remains an outsider to liberation theology, he has in a sense solved the conflict between the Vatican and the Latin American social movement. Through an analysis of ecclesial documents and theological literature, his can be discerned on three levels. First, Pope Francis’ use of certain theological ideas from liberation theology has been made possible and less controversial by post-cold war contexts. Second, Pope Francis has contributed to the solution of this conflict through significant symbolic gestures rather than through a shift of official positions. Third, as Pope Francis, the Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio has appropriated certain elements that are specific to liberation theology without acknowledging his intellectual debt to it.

True Crimes: Rodolfo Walsh and the Role of the Intellectual in Latin American Politics

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McCaughan
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Open Letter ◽  
Latin American Politics ◽  
Dirty War ◽  
Death Squad ◽  
The Us ◽  
Own Name ◽  
The Military

Rodolfo Walsh was a writer of crime novels, a tireless investigative journalist who uncovered real political crimes, an instant historian of a turbulent and violent era in Argentinian and Latin American politics. He was in Cuba in 1960, participating in setting up the first revolutionary press service in Latin America, "Prensa Latina", when a coded telex arrived in their offices by mistake. After sleepless nights and with one cryptography manual, Walsh deciphered the plans for the US invasion of Cuba being planned in Guatemala by the CIA. Walsh was active in the Montonero guerrilla in Argentina, co-ordinating information and intelligence work. In that capacity he made public the existence of ESMA, the Naval Mechanics School which was the main military torture centre. In his own name he wrote an Open Letter to the Military Junta, a year from the coup and a day before his death, denouncing the dirty war. He was gunned down in the streets of Buenos Aires by a military death squad. This is an account of Rudolfo Walsh's life. It includes extended excerpts from his varied writings.

Contributions of the Social Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on Migration

Exchange ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge E. Castillo Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The Social

This article searches for contributions provided by the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church to avoid suffering and death under migrants, that, following Pope Francis, are provoked from a ‘culture of rejection’. From an interdisciplinary approach this article facilitates the assessment of mechanisms that generate these situations. It also focuses on the ethical and theological criteria of the Catholic social teaching to achieve a culture of encounter and acceptance of migrants and refugees.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document