scholarly journals Confessional and ecumenical? Revisiting Edmund Schlink on the hermeneutics of doctrine

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 446-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
D J Smit

Confessional and ecumenical? Revisiting Edmund Schlink on the hermeneutics of doctrineConrad Wethmar has always been interested in questions concerning the hermeneutics of doctrine, often concentrating on methodological issues regarding the role of confessions and the challenges of ecumenical theology. For this purpose, he consistently engaged with German-speaking Lutheran theologians. In this essay, the important views and contributions of Edmund Schlink regarding confessional and ecumenical theology are called to mind, as one further potential dialogue partner for South African theologians like Wethmar. A first section reminds readers of Wethmar’s contributions. The second section recalls Schlink’s theological journey and the role of confessions – both Lutheran confessions and the Confessing Church with Barmen – as well as the ecumenical church – several real dialogues between major confessional traditions, including his role during the Second Vatican Council – before the third sections draws some of his major methodological insights and contributions together. A brief final section points to some potential similarities between Schlink’s work and Wethmar’s interests.

Author(s):  
Shaun Blanchard

This book sheds further light on the nature of church reform and the roots of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) through a study of eighteenth-century Catholic reformers who anticipated the Council. The most striking of these examples is the Synod of Pistoia (1786), the high-water mark of late Jansenism. Most of the reforms of the Synod were harshly condemned by Pope Pius VI in the bull Auctorem fidei (1794), and late Jansenism was totally discredited in the ultramontane nineteenth-century Church. Nevertheless, much of the Pistoian agenda—such as an exaltation of the role of bishops, an emphasis on infallibility as a gift to the entire Church, religious liberty, a simpler and more comprehensible liturgy that incorporates the vernacular, and the encouragement of lay Bible reading and Christocentric devotions—was officially promulgated at Vatican II. The career of Bishop Scipione de’ Ricci (1741–1810) and the famous Synod he convened are investigated in detail. The international reception (and rejection) of the Synod sheds light on why these reforms failed, and the criteria of Yves Congar are used to judge the Pistoian Synod as “true or false reform.” This book proves that the Synod was a “ghost” present at Vatican II. The council fathers struggled with, and ultimately enacted, many of the same ideas. This study complexifies the story of the roots of the Council and Pope Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of reform,” which seeks to interpret Vatican II as in “continuity and discontinuity on different levels” with past teaching and practice.


Author(s):  
Kevin L. Flannery

This chapter presents Catholic teaching on the natural law as the product of a conversation over millennia. After offering some basic conceptual distinctions, the chapter begins by considering ancient non-Christian sources for Christian reflection on the natural law, especially Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. The chapter then considers relevant biblical texts and the teachings of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Attention is particularly played to Thomas’s adaptation of Classical traditions, and his argument concerning the unchangeablness of natural law. The final section of the chapter focuses on discussion of natural law after the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) in the work of Germain Grisez and John Finnis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 19-35
Author(s):  
Bogusław Śliwerski

Pedagogy of the Primate of the Millennium, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński An analysis of source texts and selected biographical studies of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński was carried out from the perspectives of the processes of secularization taking place in Poland in the year AD 2020, the radical attacks of left-wing politicians on the Catholic Church and its relationship with the current governing coalition known as the United Right [Zjednoczona Prawica]. This strikes at the foundations of the Second Vatican Council and the role of the Polish Church in regaining the nation’s freedom from socialist domination in 1989. The author therefore recalls not only the exceptional merits of the Polish Primate during the period of totalitarianism of the „People’s Poland” [Polska Ludowa], but also his message to educator-practitioners, parents, and scientists.


Author(s):  
Mirjam Künkler

This article provides an overview of Böckenförde’s writings on issues of religion, ethos, and the Catholic Church in relation to law, democracy, and the state. It presents Böckenförde as an inner-Catholic critic, who attempted to persuade Catholicism that one’s own freedom can be defended only as part of the general freedom. This was finally achieved, at least dogmatically according to Böckenförde, with the Declaration of Religious Freedom at the end of the Second Vatican Council. The article lays out how Böckenförde sees the role of religion and natural law in secular democracy, namely as one informing the citizens’ ethos. Democracy cannot survive in the long term unless it is carried out by people who consider themselves part of the same demos and work towards a shared democratic culture. The article includes information on his intellectual biography, a periodization of his academic writings in seven phases from 1957 to 2012, a discussion of some of his core arguments as an inner-Catholic critic, a reflection on the cover images he chose for the two volumes, and closes with concluding remarks on Böckenförde’s view of religion in democracy compared to other theorists of democracy and secularism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Barnebeck Andersen ◽  
Peter Sandholt Jensen

1999 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 478-497
Author(s):  
Edward Yarnold

At the end of the third session of the Second Vatican Council in 1963, the bishops were able to make a beginning to their legislative work by promulgating two documents which they fondly hoped would be uncontroversial: the unremarkable Decree on Mass Media, and the much more consequential Constitution on the Liturgy. Among the principles for the revision of the Roman Catholic Church’s sacraments contained in the second of these documents, instructions are given for the revision of the rites of initiation, including the following: The catechumenate for adults is to be restored [instauretur] and broken up into several steps [gradibus], and put into practice at the discretion of the local ordinary. In this way the time of the catechumenate, which is intended for appropriate formation, can be sanctified through liturgical rites to be celebrated successively at different times. In mission territories, in addition to what is available in the Christian tradition, it should also be permitted to incorporate ceremonies [elementa] of initiation which are found to be customary in each society, provided they can be adapted to the Christian rite.


This book provides a one-volume introduction to Catholic theology. Part I includes chapters on the major themes of Catholic theology. Topics covered include the nature of theological thinking, the Triune God, the Creation, and the mission of the Incarnate Word. Part I also covers the character of the Christian sacramental life and the major themes of Catholic moral teaching. The treatments in this first part of the book offer personal syntheses and perspectives, but each chapter is intended to be in accord with Catholic theology as it is expressed in the Second Vatican Council and the magisterial tradition. Part II focuses on the historical development of modern Catholic theology. An initial section offers chapters on some of Catholic theology’s most important sources between AD200 and 1870, and the final section of the book considers all the main movements and developments in Catholic theology since 1870.The writers include some of the best-known names in current Catholic theology from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and all of the most vibrant schools in current Catholic theology are represented. The book should be of help to students of Catholic theology at all levels.


2016 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 905-921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins

This article summarizes the teaching on marriage and the family offered by the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) and by the 1981 post-synodal, apostolic exhortation of Pope John Paul II, The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World ( Familiaris Consortio). Against this background, the content and language of The Final Report issued at the end of the second session of the synod on the family (October 4–25) are examined. These considerations lead to an evaluation of the continuity and change in teaching found in Pope Francis’s post-synodal, apostolic exhortation, The Joy of Love ( Amoris Laetitia).


Author(s):  
Francis Appiah-Kubi ◽  
Robert Bonsu

The nature and the missionary role of the laity in the church is one of the issues currently vital to the church and theologians. From the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) perspective, the word laity is technically understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life specially approved by the Catholic Church (LG31). These faithful are by baptism made one with Christ and constitute the People of God; they are sharers in the priestly, prophetic and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the church and in the world. However, the distinction between the ordained and the lay is a real one. A great deal of attention has been paid to the ordained ministry of the Church, its nature, its authority and its functions. The laity tends, by way of contrast, to be taken very much for granted, as though in their case no special problems arise. This study discusses the nature, role, and participation of lay people in the mission of the Church as proposed by the Second Vatican Council. It treats succinctly the historical development of the Laity and the challenges and opportunities inherent in their mission.


Author(s):  
Danielle Nussberger

This chapter charts the history of Catholicism’s feminist theology. It begins with an overview of contexts that contributed to the development of Catholic feminist theology, with particular emphasis on the role of the Second Vatican Council (1963–1965) in the surge of feminist theological dialogue that began in the Catholic Church in the 1960s and 1970s. It then considers various feminist theories that differed in their strategies for overcoming injustice against women, especially the first-, second-, and third-wave feminisms. It also examines Catholic feminist theology’s viewpoints on the methodological concerns of hermeneutics, language, and praxis, along with its interpretation of Scripture and Christian history, what language we should be using to name and call upon the God in whom we believe, Jesus’ redemption of humanity from sin; Mary and the saints; Trinity; and creation.


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