The Limits of Ecclesial Metaphors in Systematic Ecclesiology

Horizons ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-53
Author(s):  
Brian P. Flanagan

ABSTRACTThis article looks at two major metaphors used in contemporary ecclesiology, the church as “the People of God” and as “the Bride of Christ,” which have functioned in some of the polarizing debates within the Catholic Church in North America. It then suggests some methodological reasons why reliance upon metaphors in ecclesiology, either through the balancing of different metaphors or the promotion of a dominant metaphor, is inadequate to the task of understanding the church systematically. It then suggests some avenues for future ecclesiological method that may help to understand the church better and so to respond better to contemporary ecclesiological debates.

MELINTAS ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-227
Author(s):  
Agustinus Wimbodo Purnomo

The Catholic Church provides occasions for funeral rites so as to illuminate the death of the faithful within the paschal mystery of Christ. The Church administers the funeral and offers prayers for its departing members to escort them to the afterlife. Funeral ceremonies are held to comfort the bereaved family, but also to strengthen the faith of the people. Therefore, the funeral ceremony could be seen as a pastoral means to foster the faith of the believers and at the same time to evangelise the gospel. Inculturation could be seen as a process to help the faithful experience God’s saving presence in the liturgy from their respective cultures. In this article, the author views the funeral of the faithful as an entrance for inculturation, bringing Christian liturgy towards the local culture, which in this paper is the Javanese culture, and vice versa. The Javanese culture has its own philosophy in escorting the departing souls through its rituals. This article attempts to integrate what has been a ritual of death in the Javanese culture, i. e. brobosan, which shows a gesture of giving respect to the departed, in the Catholic funeral liturgy, particularly in the last part of the rite.


Author(s):  
Dominica Pradere ◽  
Theron N. Ford ◽  
Blanche J. Glimps

Since the early 1980s, allegations of the sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy and other representatives of religious organizations have been reported in the media with alarming frequency. In North America, the majority of reports highlight the Catholic Church. Many of these allegations refer to incidents, which took place many years previously. This chapter explores three specific examples of other religious groups, that are not the Catholic Church, involved with the sexual abuse of children. These include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), Moravians, and Orthodox Judaism (Haredi).


2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-552
Author(s):  
Canon John Tyers

While still a novice, the English Jesuit Charles Plater (1875–1921), through his energy, brilliance, enthusiasm and attractive personality was influential in the foundation of the Catholic Social Guild and other social projects. In particular, he motivated the establishment of retreat houses for working men within the Catholic Church in England, work which he described in his book Retreats for the People. This volume attracted the attention of many within the Church of England, encouraging a number of initiatives which, among other things, led to a significant growth in the numbers of Anglicans who made a retreat and to the establishment of diocesan retreat houses.


Author(s):  
Ormond Rush

For 400 years after the Council of Trent, a juridical model of the church dominated Roman Catholicism. Shifts towards a broader ecclesiology began to emerge in the nineteenth century. Despite the attempts to repress any deviations from the official theology after the crisis of Roman Catholic Modernism in the early twentieth century, various renewal movements, known as ressourcement, in the decades between the world wars brought forth a period of rich ecclesiological research, with emphasis given to notions such as the Mystical Body, the People of God, the church as mystery, as sacrament, and as communio. The Second Vatican Council incorporated many of these developments into its vision for renewal and reform of the Roman Catholic Church. Over half a century after Vatican II, a new phase in its reception is emerging with the pontificate of Pope Francis.


1989 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Fishman

The Catholic church during the era of the Catholic Reformation experienced great vitality and vigor. Missionary activity was one of the clearest indications of this renewed spiritual energy. Simultaneously with Catholic revitalization there occurred the expansion of European commerce and colonization. In the wake of the Age of Discovery portions of Africa, Asia, and the New World became more accessible to Europeans. The Catholic church, by means of its religious orders, carried Christianity to the inhabitants of these regions. The drive and dedication which led to reform of the church within Europe also fueled an intense missionary commitment towards the people of other continents. The dedication and zeal of the regular clergy reflected the apostolic tradition within the church, but this older ideal was enhanced by a new spirit of expansionism. The Catholic religious orders shared the urge of many of their secular contemporaries to take advantage of new opportunities for growth overseas.


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.


Slovene ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 368-391
Author(s):  
Ilya V. Semenenko-Basin ◽  
Stefano Caprio

The article is devoted to the menologion (calendar of saints) compiled in the 20th century for Russian Byzantine Catholics. The latter are a church community with its own Byzantine-Slavic worship and piety, which follow both the Catholic and the Eastern spiritual traditions. Like the entire liturgical literature of the Russian Eastern Catholics, the menologion was created in Rome under the auspices of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, as part of the activities of the Russian Catholic Apostolate, i.e., of the mission of the Catholic Church addressed to Russia and the Russian diaspora in the world. The corpus of service books for Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian Eastern Catholics was called Recensio Vulgata. The menologion under study is contained in the books of Recensio Vulgata and was compiled on the basis of the Orthodox menologia of pre-revolutionary Russia. The compilers of the Byzantine-Catholic menologion did not just select Russian liturgical memories in a certain way, they also included the names of several martyrs of the Eastern Catholic Churches and some additional commemorations of Western saints. According to the compilers of the menologion, the history of Catholic (orthodox) holiness in North-Eastern Russia ended at the turn of the 1440s, when the Principality of Moscow and the Novgorod Republic abandoned the Union of Florence. The menologion reflects the era after the Union of Florence in the events that show the invariable patronage of the Mother of God over the people and the Russian land. The Recensio Vulgata menologion (RVM) contains twelve Russia-specific holidays that honor icons of the Mother of God, nine of which celebrate the events of the period from the late 15th to the 17th centuries. The compilers of the menologion created a well-devised system in which the East Slavic saints, the ancient saints of the Byzantine menologion, the Latin teachers of the Church, the saints of the Byzantine Catholic churches of different eras all are subject to harmonious logic, and harmony serves to organize the whole.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
George Ludwig Kirchberger

To recall the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, in the first place the author describes the basic texture of the council, namely its spirit of renewal and dialogue and its emphasis upon the church as the people of God. Then follows a brief response to the event itself leading to questions that remain open, mentioning some four groups of issues that were not settled by the council. The next section looks at some limitations in councilar teaching which made implementation difficult in the post-counciliar period. These include the non-awareness of the council participants of the need for legally binding decree, and the way in which, time and again, mutually contradictory statements are placed side by side in the documents without any attempt to relate the two contrary directions implied. By making use of these two weaknesses, the Roman Curia in particular has tried to neutralise a number of reforms, among others, by recentralising the decision making processes of the Catholic Church. One challenge we face 50 years after the council was openned, is to implement the principle of subsidiarity as well and as intensive as possible, and to recall the most fundamental principle in the Catholic Church, namely that each one must follow their conscience. Therefore, in openness to the gospel and conscious of the signs of the times, the struggle for renewal should take place in constructive non-obedience to efforts for restoration being undertaken in a number of quarters. <b>Kata-kata kunci:</b> awam, dialog, Gereja, Injil, pembaruan, persekutuan, restorasi, umat Allah


Author(s):  
Norman Tanner

This chapter covers ecclesiology in the Western (or Catholic) church from the beginning of the schism between the churches of East and West—between Rome and Constantinople—in 1054 until the eve of the Reformation in 1517. Ecclesiology is taken to mean the nature or constitution of the church. The topic is considered from various standpoints: how it was viewed or taught by church officials, including the popes of the period, by councils, by theologians and other writers, and by the laity. Thereby the subject is treated from the standpoints of both the institutional church and the people of God, both ‘from above’ and ‘from below’. The chapter is divided chronologically into three periods: the Gregorian reform and its aftermath, from the mid-eleventh to the late twelfth century; the ‘long’ thirteenth century; the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries including the Avignon papacy, the conciliar movement, and the early Renaissance.


LOGOS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-65
Author(s):  
Higianes Indro Pandego

Mixed marriage on the canon 1124, the 1983 Code refers to the marriage between Catholic and non-Catholic persons, which means that both of the persons are baptized. So, it must be the Sacrament (see can. 1055 §2). The Second Vatican Council picked the view of the people of God up based on the dignity of baptism. Then the Council expressed the idea of (full) communion in which the Catholic Church and the other Churches and communities have a relationship. To it Thus, The Council fosters the ecumenical movement that develops the union between the Christians, more especially concerning mixed marriage.


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