Catholic Feminist Theology

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.

Author(s):  
Mary J. Henold

In this chapter, the history of the National Council of Catholic Women in the 1960s and 1970s – the years during and following Vatican II – is reassessed. The NCCW has been commonly perceived as a powerful anti-feminist organization for Catholic laywomen that was controlled by the Catholic hierarchy, but its archives reveal a sustained effort to engage with feminist ideas after the Second Vatican Council. Although most of the NCCW’s leadership did not self-identify as feminist, the group espoused many feminist beliefs, particularly about women’s leadership, opportunity, challenging ideas about women’s vocation, and women’s right to participate fully in the life of the Catholic church. The NCCW, under the leadership of Margaret Mealey, developed new organizational structures, educational programs, and publications to educate their membership about changing gender roles and the need to press the church for greater inclusion. Comparison to the international organization the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations (WUCWO), reveals the limitations of their feminism, however. Whereas WUCWO was willing to openly embrace feminism and feminist activism, NCCW was divided and preferred not to self-identify as feminist.


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 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-155
Author(s):  
SIMON FRITH

AbstractThis article considers the role of Marxism in the history of popular music studies. Its approach combines the sociology of knowledge with a personal memoir and its argument is that in becoming a field of scholarly interest popular music studies drew from both Marxist theoretical arguments about cultural ideology in the 1950s and 1960s and from rock writers’ arguments about the role of music in shaping socialist bohemianism in the 1960s and 1970s. To take popular music seriously academically meant taking it seriously politically. Once established as an academic subject, however, popular music studies were absorbed into both established music departments and vocational, commercial music courses. Marxist ideas and ideologues were largely irrelevant to the subsequent development of popular music studies as a scholarly field.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian M. Rutishauser

From a historical point of view, the new understanding of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people was the catalyst for the Second Vatican Council to elaborate a declaration on the non-Christian religions. This is not a mere accident. The Jewish-Christian relationship does, even from a systematic point of view, play a paradigmatic, critical and corrective function for a Christian theology of religions. It has a character sui generis, for Judaism constitutes the Other within Christian self-identity. The Jewish-Christian relationship helps to formulate the meaning of the particular in the discussion of the universal Christian claim of truth and salvation when facing other religions. Furthermore, it prevents a theology of religion from sliding into abstract, non-historical and purely speculative definitions. Normally, Christology and especially the theology of Incarnation guarantees it, but they have to be linked themselves back to the messianic idea of Judaism and the history of salvation where the Church itself recognizes the unrevoked covenant between God and Israel. Only a theology of religions that recognizes the lasting challenge of the Jewish faith for Christian identity will have overcome anti-Judaism at its roots.


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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-130
Author(s):  
Sebastian Zygmunt

Over the centuries, exercising authority in the Catholic Church had been generating many doubts and problems. The extreme understanding the Pope’s role as an absolute monarch who independently decides about all dimensions of the Church has supplanted with time the known from the Apostle’s time communal management of the Mystical body of Christ. Just the Second Vatican Council and the last few popes noticed this particular problem. And one of the given solutions was the necessity of the return to the former way of exercising power by the college of bishops united around the Saint Peter’s Successor. Synods whose provisions would be presented to the Bishop of Rome for possible corrections and acceptance could again become a tool of power. By the analysis of the patrology research results, the history of the Catholic Church and dogmatic theology as well as sources and the subject literature it was possible to answer the question what synodality is in general, where does it draw its foundations and what is its role in building of the Kingdom of God. It was also possible to outline the perspective of the further Church development in an increasingly globalised world. The reflection on the historical formation of a proper understanding of collegiality and primacy proved helpful in understanding the goals behind the ”decentralization” of power in the Church postulated today by Pope Francis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Ahmed Abd Al Awaisheh ◽  
Hala Ghassan Al Hussein

This study examines the history of the development of the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope (Bishop of Rome) in the Catholic Church, from the Middle Ages to its adoption as a dogmatic constitution, to shed light on the impact of the course of historical events on the crystallization of this doctrine and the conceptual structure upon which it was based. The study concluded that the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope was based on the concept of the Peter theory, and it went through several stages, the most prominent of which was the period of turbulence in the Middle Ages, and criticism in the modern era, and a series of historical events in the nineteenth century contributed to the siege of the papal seat, which prompted Pius The ninth to endorsing the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope to confront these criticisms in the first Vatican Council in 1870 AD, by defining the concept of infallibility in the context of faith education and ethics, and this decision was emphasized in the Second Vatican Council in 1964 AD, but in more detail.


Author(s):  
Jurjen A. Zeilstra

Chapter 8 deals with Visser ’t Hooft’s lengthy campaign to have the Roman Catholic Church join the World Council of Churches. It traces developments from the beginning when Protestant ecumenicity was firmly rejected, to the later history from the 1960s onwards. It explores Visser ’t Hooft’s contacts with the Dutch Roman Catholics Jo Willibrands and Frans Thijssen and early attempts at rapprochement, including the creation of the Joint Working Group. The chapter discusses the difference in agendas, and developments during and arising from the Second Vatican Council. It then relates the history of ecumenical relations with the Roman Catholic Church in connection with the Roman Catholic movement under successive popes away from membership of the World Council.


Author(s):  
Mary J. Henold

This chapter introduces the argument that Catholic laywomen expanded on the changes of Vatican II by exploring shifting understandings of gender on a large scale in the ten years following the Second Vatican Council. The historical record reveals a significant output of written material in these years, written by laywomen, and intended to probe unsettled questions about gender rising in those uncertain times. Despite the official church’s reluctance to reassess its teaching on gender roles, moderate and often non-feminist laywomen used ideas from the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s to challenge accepted definitions of Catholic womanhood. In particular, Catholic women questioned the immutability of gender roles, and the accepted and wide-spread teaching of complementarity. They also challenged narrow conceptions of laywomen’s vocation, both spiritual and professional.


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