Understanding and Responding to Non-Affiliation

2021 ◽  
pp. 320-340
Author(s):  
James L. Heft

This chapter returns to the contents of the other chapters of the book and draws some tentative conclusions. At the outset, it presents some of the assumptions of the author as he approaches this topic, reviews briefly the literature on the now-outdated classic secularization thesis, and examines several historical factors that contribute to increasing non-affiliation for Catholics, including the impact and evaluations of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) and the possibility that we are entering a second axial age. After describing several current ways in which church people are reaching out to the non-affiliated, the chapter concludes on a hopeful note.

2003 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Fredericks

[Catholic thinking about other religious traditions has continued to develop rapidly since the Second Vatican Council. The author discusses the impact of conciliar texts, the thought of John Paul II, the “pluralist” and “regnocentric” theologies of religion, and the practice of interreligious dialogue on Catholic views of other religious paths. The multiple issues selected for discussion reflect the controversy surrounding the declaration Dominus Iesus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.]


Author(s):  
Lorelei Fuchs

The chapter considers key ecumenical developments in the period 1948–65, between the founding of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the closing of the Second Vatican Council, at which the Catholic Church finally embraced the ecumenical movement. Explaining how that period can be seen as pivotal in the history of the movement, it tracks the developing understanding of the ecumenical challenge reflected in successive assemblies of the WCC and conferences on Faith and Order, both at world level and in North America, and the growing desire for Catholic engagement in the ecumenical movement manifested particularly in the activities of the Catholic Conference for Ecumenical Questions. It then considers the teaching of Vatican II on ecumenism, for example, regarding degrees of communion, and the impact of Catholic participation on the ecumenical movement, notably in the practice of bilateral dialogues.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Dadosky

This essay proposes a development in Roman Catholic ecclesiology following the paradigmatic shift in its self-understanding that occurred at the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). The Council represented a major shift in the Roman Catholic Church's attitudes towards other religions, Christian traditions, and cultures (including secular culture) from a previous defensive stance to a more positive one. In an unprecedented manner, the Council officials acknowledged that its Church's own self-understanding is enriched by its interactions with these various faith traditions and cultures. Forty years after the Council, however, there remains a need to account for this shift theologically in terms of what was going forward in the Roman Catholic Church's self-understanding.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Emanuel Gerrit Singgih

Experience of encountering and being together with friends of a number of other religious traditions has contributed to changing the way one thinks, speaks and acts. This occurs only when there is a sincere readiness to open oneself to the other while at the same time acknowledging and appreciating plurality in the human family. In the Christian Church, both Catholic and Protestant, this can be understood as a result of the Second Vatican Council. In the context of Indonesia, and more specifically in Jogyakarta and in NTT Province, ecumenical relations between Catholics and Protestants indicate a desire for renewal (aggiornamento) in our common life. This is clear in collaboration between institutes of higher education, such as studying theology together, the use of a common Bible, acceptance of the deuterokanonika, meditation in common, and so forth. In such togetherness the ecclesial unity that Jesus prayed for derives its meaning. <b>Kata-kata kunci:</b> Perjumpaan, pembaruan, kesatuan, oikumene, tantangan, misi, kontekstualisasi, persaudaraan sejati


1983 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L. Klaiber

The dramatic changes in the Latin American church since the Second Vatican Council have taken many observers by surprise. In search of an explanation for these changes, much recent scholarship has devoted itself to analyzing the changing political climate, the influx of foreign religious personnel, the creation of radical priests' groups, the impact of Vatican II itself and the episcopal assemblies of Medellín and Puebla and, of course, the varying currents of liberation theology. In contrast, the tendency has been to overlook pre-Vatican II history. The pre-conciliar Peruvian church in particular has been characterized as tradition-bound, obscurantist or subservient to the upper classes. One author writing in the early seventies stated:“The intimacy between the church and the Peruvian upper class has been an unvarying characteristic of colonial, post-independence and modern eras in Peru.”


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.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 545
Author(s):  
Gary Carville

The Second Vatican Council and, in particular, its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, changed much in the daily life of the Church. In Ireland, a country steeped in the Catholic tradition but largely peripheral to the theological debates that shaped Vatican II, the changes to liturgy and devotional practice were implemented dutifully over a relatively short time span and without significant upset. But did the hierarchical manner of their reception, like that of the Council itself, mean that Irish Catholics did not receive the changes in a way that deepened their spirituality? And was the popular religious memory of the people lost through a neglect of liturgical piety and its place in the interior life, alongside what the Council sought to achieve? In this essay, Dr Gary Carville will examine the background to the liturgical changes at Vatican II, the contribution to their formulation and implementation by leaders of the Church in Ireland, the experiences of Irish Catholic communities in the reception process, and the ongoing need for a liturgical formation that brings theology, memory, and practice into greater dialogue.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Robert E. Alvis

Despite is global popularity in recent decades, the Divine Mercy devotion has received scant scrutiny from scholars. This article examines its historical development and evolving appeal, with an eye toward how this nuances our understanding of Catholic devotions in the “age of Vatican II.” The Divine Mercy first gained popularity during World War II and the early Cold War, an anxious era in which many Catholic devotions flourished. The Holy Office prohibited the active promotion of the Divine Mercy devotion in 1958, owing to a number of theological concerns. While often linked with the decline of Catholic devotional life generally, the Second Vatican Council helped set the stage for the eventual rehabilitation of the Divine Mercy devotion. The 1958 prohibition was finally lifted in 1978, and the Divine Mercy devotion has since gained a massive following around the world, benefiting in particular from the enthusiastic endorsement of Pope John Paul II. The testimonies of devotees reveal how the devotion’s appeal has changed over time. Originally understood as a method for escaping the torments of hell or purgatory, the devotion developed into a miraculous means to preserve life and, more recently, a therapeutic tool for various forms of malaise.


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.


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