Bridging the Gap between Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis: The Catholic Church’s Concern for Migrants

Author(s):  
Reginald Alva

Migration is a global phenomenon. An essential part of the mission of the Catholic Church is to love Christ particularly in the poor and the weak, which includes migrants. The Magisterium of the Church has consistently stressed reaching out to migrants. However, issuing documents would mean nothing if Christians do not implement them in letter and spirit. Christian charity would be meaningless if it remains only as a part of orthodoxy without orthopraxis. The phenomenal rise in global migration has created unfavorable conditions for many migrants. The Church being an ‘expert in humanity’ has a great task to reach out to the least in the society.1 In this article, we shall examine the role of the Catholic Church in bridging the gap between the orthodoxy and orthopraxis in their mission for migrants. We shall base our study on the documents of the Church and actual cases of migrant ministry in the Church.

Author(s):  
Mary Veeneman

This chapter investigates feminist and womanist approaches to theologies of the sacraments in which sacraments are “events in the church in which God’s grace is made present to the community.” Citing the work of Susan Ross, Elizabeth Johnson, and others, the author posits the need for theologies of the sacraments to be reworked in light of the experience of women, particularly regarding the sacraments of Ordination and Eucharist. Ordained clergy should relate the Eucharist to ministry to the poor and hungry. In addition, the patriarchal framework that undergirds male privilege in the Catholic Church has resulted in misunderstanding both the maleness of Jesus and the possible role of women to serve as ordained clergy. Ultimately reevaluating theologies of the sacraments from a feminist and womanist perspective is for the sake of empowering worship and furthering mission in the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Ryszard Polak

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND GERMAN NEOPAGANISM IN LEON HALBAN’S THOUGHTThis article presents the views of Leon Halban referring to the problems of German religiosity. In the first part of the article, the family and the character and the academic achievements of this scholar were characterized. In the next part of the article, his views on the role of the Catholic Church in European culture were analyzed and his position in which he made a critical assessment of German religiosity was presented. Halban assumed that the Christianity practiced by Germans since the Middle Ages did not result from their authentic conversion. The Germans were often religiously indifferent and tended to fall into various heresies and deviations from faith. They also sought to achieve supremacy of the state over the Church in public life and law. Halban argued that a renewal of morality can only be achieved in the Catholic Church, whose ethical principles and doctrine should be propagated and applied in everyday life.


2019 ◽  
pp. 167-186
Author(s):  
Paul Rusnock ◽  
Jan Šebestík

Bolzano’s engagement with Catholicism and the Church was both theoretical and practical. In his Lehrbuch der Religionswissenschaft, he examined Catholicism in light of the conceptual tools he had developed for the study of religions in general. Practically, his concern was to develop interpretations of Catholic teachings that would be compatible with the demands of reason but also maximally conducive to the virtue and happiness of those who accepted them. In many cases, these interpretations put him at odds with strong conservative currents of Catholic opinion. The focus in this chapter is on a relatively small number of points in Bolzano’s presentation of Catholicism which the authors think are especially interesting from a philosophical point of view. In particular, the subjects discussed are his conception of miracles and revelation, the constraints he places on the interpretation of revealed doctrines, the role of consensus in Catholicism, and the sources and kinds of authority within the Church. (150 words)


1985 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luiza Beth Fernandes

Recently, considerable attention — both within the United States and around the world — has been focused on the role and involvement of the Catholic church in worldly problems related to peace, the nuclear threat, the economy, and education. Of particular importance is the Latin American scene. In this article, Luiza Fernandes discusses the evolving role and the increasing involvement of the Catholic church on behalf of the poor and persecuted in what is considered the largest Catholic country in the world — Brazil. She focuses on what are known as Basic Ecclesiastic Communities, which were developed in Brazil within the Catholic church and now number over 80,000. Based partially on her own experience with these communities, Fernandes describes their function and the concerns of the participants. She stresses the interaction of politics, religion, and education and the role of the latter two in understanding and challenging the inhuman and unjust conditions under which the vast majority of Brazilians live today.


1977 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel H. Levine ◽  
Alexander W. Wilde

The issue of politics and the Catholic Church in Latin America, relegated until recently to nineteenth-century historians, is very much alive today. On the one hand, the church as an institution is enmeshed in public controversy over human rights with repressive regimes from Paraguay to Panama, from Brazil to Chile. When it serves as a shelter for political and social dissent, it is accused by secular authorities of engaging in a “new clericalism.” On the other hand, it has been assailed by critics within for being wed to existing political powers. These radical clergy and lay people believe that the church's social presence is inevitably political, but want to change its alliances to benefit the poor and dispossessed. Furthermore, they believe that the existing order in given situations is aform of “institutionalized violence” against which the Christian response must be “counterviolence.” Such attacks from right and left occur, paradoxically, just at a time when the Latin American church has turned with unprecedented resolve to fundamental pastoral tasks. Politics has thus become a problem just as the hierarchy can claim, with considerable justification, to have eschewedthe practice of partisanship and the pursuit of power.


2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 250-277
Author(s):  
Mirosław Bogdan

The article defines the role of the altar and tabernacle in the contemporary architectural sacred interior treated as domus ecclesiae, designed to fulfill liturgical functions in accordance with the post-conciliar renewal of Vatican II. The article takes into account the problem of celebrating Holy Mass. by the celebrant with his back to the tabernacle located centrally behind the post-conciliar altar. With reference to the irreversibility of the liturgical renewal, apart from the ordinary form of the Roman rite, the existence of the extraordinary (Tridentine) form of this rite, also accepted by Vatican II, is taken into account.  By presenting the presence of the post-conciliar altar brought closer to the zone of the faithful, the meaning of the Code of Canon Law is defined. The article, defining the irreversibility of the liturgical renewal, presents the location of the tabernacle separated from the altar, built architecturally in the nave or chapel of the church. At the same time, the aesthetic beauty of the liturgical interior furnishings is determined, when all this exists in accordance with the post-conciliar ordinances and serves to build a community of faith.


2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-94
Author(s):  
Piotr Zwierzchowski

Clergy (Kler, 2018) by Wojciech Smarzowski has aroused great controversy and many discussions about the position and role of the Catholic Church in contemporary Poland. I would like to look at the portraits of priests in the film in relation to the images previously created in Polish cinema. I am not going to analyze particular examples, but point to selected motifs and characters in order to interpret the images of clergymen and the church in their context. I will consider both the construction of individual characters and the image of the Catholic Church as an institution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-201
Author(s):  
Beatriz Valverde

When Graham Greene wrote Monsignor Quixote (published in 1982), one of his aims was to reflect critically on the role of the Catholic Church in the Spain of the late 1970s, as well as on the support this institution offered to the former dictatorship of Franco within the so called ‘National Catholicism.’ In this novel, the reader witnesses the evolution of the protagonist, Father Quixote, from a religious living a complacent life in a small village in La Mancha to a priest in rebellion against the conservative hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Spain. Drawing upon Gerard Genette’s theory of transtextuality, I will examine Greene’s use of different religious texts to fight a model of conservative Catholic Church that he rejects. I will focus my analysis especially on the intertextual and metatextual references to the Gospels that the Bishop of La Mancha/Father Herrera and Father Quixote make in their dialogic interactions, references that portray their different vision of the role that the Church should have in society.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roslyn M Frank

<p>In the churches of Euskal Herria there exists today a religious institution of great antiquity and one that clearly demonstrates the high status traditionally afforded to the female in Basque culture. The serora, also referred to as sorora, freila, benoîte, benedicta and beata, is a woman who acts as an adjunct to the priest in the ritual activities of the Catholic Church. In the 20th century her continuing presence represents an anachronism and anomaly when viewed in light of repeated decisions by the Catholic hierarchy concerning the officially approved role of women in the Church. The morphology of this institution will be viewed from two perspectives. First, it will be analyzed synchronically as a set of functions or structures constituting the field of activity of the serora. Then, in order to understand the significance of the survival of these functions, a diachronic approach will be utilized to trace their evolution back into the indigenous religious structures and associated patterns of belief. Having established a hypothetical model for the pre-existing morphology of the institution, it will be possible to describe the way in which the earlier set of structures was modified by increasing contact with the forms and contents of Christianity. With the passage of time the formative elements of the indigenous substratum become overlaid and modified by their fusion with Christianity. Nonetheless, as will be demonstrated, the syncretistic processes at work allowed the earlier structures to survive under the guise of what are understood to be Christian rituals and symbols. Thus, the original indigenous patterns continued to function as generative infrastructures latent even in their modern counterparts. In the latter sections of the paper the duties and responsibilities of the serora are compared with those associated with the Beguines and a new etymology of the term “Beguine” is put forward.</p>


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