Quo vadis the Catholic Church and the Zimbabwe Council of Churches? Exploring the ‘Mine Is Right’ Dilemmas in the Path to Christian Unity in Zimbabwe

Author(s):  
Canisius Mwandayi ◽  
Theresa Mugwidi
Author(s):  
John A. Radano

This chapter discusses the origin and work of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) as the major instrument of the Holy See for ecumenical matters. Established in 1960, it was first an instrument of the Second Vatican Council, assisting the Council especially, but not exclusively, in decisions relating to ecumenism and inter-religious matters. Constituted part of the Roman Curia after Vatican II, it has continued in light of the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism to promote the goal of Christian unity by engaging in ecumenical dialogue and collaboration with other Christians and ecumenical organizations, by advancing ecumenical formation and education within the Catholic Church, and by cultivating, with ecumenical partners, the reception of achievements resulting from dialogue. Related to the PCPCU, though with different goals, is the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, tasked with implementing Vatican II’s decree, Nostra Aetate, n. 4.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-17
Author(s):  
Steven R. Harmon

This article explores the life and ministerial career of Claude U. Broach (1913–1997), who served as the pastor of St. John’s Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, from 1944 through 1974 and in retirement served as the first full-time director of the Wake Forest University-Belmont Abbey College Ecumenical Institute. After detailing various aspects of Broach’s ministry as a pastoral ecumenical activist, the article identifies six features of Broach’s ecumenical activism that others can emulate today: (1) an emphasis on developing ecumenical relationships with the tradition with the greatest degree of difference from the Baptist tradition, the Catholic Church; (2) dialogue with Judaism as an aspect of ecumenical relations rather than inter-religious relations; (3) the development of personal relationships with Christians from other traditions; (4) the quest for Christian unity as the obligation of every believer; (5) receptive ecumenism, rather than the merger of denominations, as the path to the ecumenical future; and (6) the skillful use of media connections to serve as a public ecumenical theologian.


2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-281
Author(s):  
Geneviève Zubrzycki

Poland’s public sphere, in the three decades following the fall of communism, has been shaped by tensions between secular and religious visions of the polity. This article analyzes significant trends in the politico-religious landscape of contemporary Poland and discusses the growing polarization of Polish society around religion and politics. While the Catholic Church openly supports the country’s populist and right-wing government and remains strong from the loyalty of a significant portion on the Polish population, resistance to that political alliance and to the traditional association between Polishness and Catholicism is observable in various corners of Polish society. These include factions within the Catholic Church arguing for the depoliticization of Polish Catholicism; apostate and secularist movements; and the support for, and participation in, a notable Jewish revival. The article shows that while very different in both content and form, these movements converge in their effort to secularize Polish national identity and build a public sphere where various religious and non-religious value systems co-exist.


2001 ◽  
pp. 91-100
Author(s):  
Yu. Ye. Reshetnikov

Last year, the anniversary of all Christianity, witnessed a number of significant events caused by a new interest in understanding the problem of the unity of the Christian Church on the turn of the millennium. Due to the confidentiality of Ukraine, some of these events have or will have an immediate impact on Christianity in Ukraine and on the whole Ukrainian society as a whole. Undoubtedly, the main event, or more enlightened in the press, is a new impetus to the unification of the UOC-KP and the UAOC. But we would like to focus on two documents relating to the problem of Christian unity, the emergence of which was almost unnoticed by the wider public. But at the same time, these documents are too important as they outline the future policy of other Christian denominations by two influential Ukrainian christian churches - the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. These are the "Basic Principles of the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to the" I ", adopted by the Anniversary Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Concept of the Ecumenical Position of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, adopted by the Synod of the Bishops of the UGCC. It is clear that the theme of the second document is wider, but at the same time, ecumenism, unification is impossible without solving the problem of relations with others, which makes it possible to compare the approaches laid down in the mentioned documents to the building of relations with other Christian confessions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
Eduardo Acuña Aguirre

This article refers to the political risks that a group of five parishioners, members of an aristocratic Catholic parish located in Santiago, Chile, had to face when they recovered and discovered unconscious meanings about the hard and persistent psychological and sexual abuse they suffered in that religious organisation. Recovering and discovering meanings, from the collective memory of that parish, was a sort of conversion event in the five parishioners that determined their decision to bring to the surface of Chilean society the knowledge that the parish, led by the priest Fernando Karadima, functioned as a perverse organisation. That determination implied that the five individuals had to struggle against powerful forces in society, including the dominant Catholic Church in Chile and the political influences from the conservative Catholic elite that attempted to ignore the existence of the abuses that were denounced. The result of this article explains how the five parishioners, through their concerted political actions and courage, forced the Catholic Church to recognise, in an ambivalent way, the abuses committed by Karadima. The theoretical basis of this presentation is based on a socioanalytical approach that mainly considers the understanding of perversion in organisations and their consequences in the control of anxieties.


2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Potocki

The activities of John Wheatley's Catholic Socialist Society have been analysed in terms of liberating Catholics from clerical dictation in political matters. Yet, beyond the much-discussed clerical backlash against Wheatley, there has been little scholarly attention paid to a more constructive response offered by progressive elements within the Catholic Church. The discussion that follows explores the development of the Catholic social movement from 1906, when the Catholic Socialist Society was formed, up until 1918 when the Catholic Social Guild, an organisation founded by the English Jesuit Charles Plater, had firmly established its local presence in the west of Scotland. This organisation played an important role in the realignment of Catholic politics in this period, and its main activity was the dissemination of the Church's social message among the working-class laity. The Scottish Catholic Church, meanwhile, thanks in large part to Archbishop John Aloysius Maguire of Glasgow, became more amenable to social reform and democracy.


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