✦ Papal Saints ✦

Author(s):  
Kathleen Sprows Cummings

This chapter examines American sanctity during the papacy of John Paul II (1978-2005). John Paul II canonized more saints then all of his predecessors combined. He canonized Neumann and Duchesne, beatified six other U.S. candidates, and introduced dozens of others. Beyond the numbers, this chapter traces a fundamental shift in U.S. saint-seeking throughout this era. As polarization within the church supplanted marginalization in America as the keynote of U.S. Catholicism, U.S. Catholics became less likely to project their American stories onto candidates for canonization. Instead, prospective saints became signifiers of where Catholic individuals and groups position themselves within the church, often on issues related to gender, sexuality, and social and racial justice.

Moreana ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 41 (Number 157- (1-2) ◽  
pp. 58-71
Author(s):  
John McConica

During the period in which these papers were given, there were great achievements on the ecumenical scene, as the quest to restore the Church’s unity was pursued enthusiastically by all the major Christiandenominations. The Papal visit of John Paul II to England in 1982 witnessed a warmth in relationships between the Church of England and the Catholic Church that had not been experienced since the early 16th century Reformation in England to which More fell victim. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission was achieving considerable doctrinal consensus and revisionist scholarship was encouraging an historical review by which the faithful Catholic and the confessing Protestant could look upon each other respectfully and appreciatively. It is to this ecumenical theme that James McConica turns in his contribution.


2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 23-49
Author(s):  
Janusz Gręźlikowski

The 4th Synod of the Warsaw Archdioceses was debating during the five-year period, between 19th March 1998 and 19th March 2003 when the Warsaw Church had been run by the primate of Poland, cardinal Joseph Glemp. He proposed, summoned and carried out the synod and promulgated its resolutions. The initiative of summoning the synod was connected with the need for overall renewal of the religious and moral life of the Warsaw archdiocese. The synod’s deliberations and its resolutions were to cause the betterment of the organization and functioning of administrative and pastoral apparatus in the archdiocese, to normalize the many issues concerning the church and religious life, as well as to improve the laity and clergy’s religious, social and moral level. To achieve, a wide representation of clergy, catholic laity and monks were engaged. The synodical resolutions with its jurisdictional and pastoral nature are signified by strong setting in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, the Canon Law, the documents of the Holy See and John Paul II, as well as by the resolutions of the Second Polish Plenary Second and the instructions of the Conference of the Polish Episcopate. At the same time they refer to the tradition of the Warsaw archdiocese and remain fully opened for the “tomorrow” of the Church, evangelizing and pastoral objective. Furthermore they undertake, organize and regulate many difficult pastoral issues. Thus the synodical legislator contributed to the renewal, revival and activation of the church and administrative structures of the archdioceses, so they could serve to various pastoral, church and administrative assignments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 75-83
Author(s):  
Zofia Kaczmarek
Keyword(s):  

Currently, 92 years have passed since the announcement of St. Teresa of the Child Jesus, patron of the mission. There are still questions about the legitimacy of this act made by Pope Pius XI. However, this article focuses primarily on the timeliness of this patronage, and not on the act itself and its legitimacy. First, it presents the missionary life of the Saint of Lisieux, which is a de facto missionary feature of her spirituality, and then the “missionary thought” of Saint. Teresa of the Infant Jesus is juxtaposed with the teaching of the Church, represented by Vatican II and Redemptoris Missio John Paul II.


2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-199
Author(s):  
Andrzej Grajewski

The assistance for the repressed Church in the Soviet Union was a very important issue in the service of Primate of Poland Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. The activity of priest Primate’s in this field was conducted within several areas: covert holy orders and bishop consecrations, collecting and transferring information to the Holy See about the situation of the Church in the Soviet Union and permanent attempts with subsequent popes and their closest associates to request them so that this area would not stop functioning in the awareness of the Church and its highest shepherds. The confidential consecration of bishop Jan Cieński with the entitlements of an auxiliary bishop for archdiocese of Lviv, which took place in June 1967 was particularly significant. He was the only bishop of Latin rite in the Ukraine until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Priest Primate conducted his mission with the use of extraordinary entitlements granted to him in 1957 by the Pope Pius XII, and subsequently prolonged by next popes, until John Paul II. These entitlements mainly concerned the Ukraine and Belarus, and Lithuania, in special cases. Cardinal Wyszyński was actively participating in the debate on the issue of the eastern policy of the Holy See. He critically evaluated some advances in diplomacy of the Holy See, accusing them of insufficient demand for religious freedom for Christians in the East.


1970 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-80
Author(s):  
Tadeusz Ślipko

The encychcal Fides et ratio proclaimed by John Paul II on 14 September 1998 is a continuation of doctrinal statements by the Magisterium of the Church on a matter that has been an object of its concern from its very beginnings. This is the problem posed by the relationship between philosophy and faith. The solutions put forward by Vatican Council I (1869-1870) in connection with this problem provoked a response in Catholic philosophical and theological circles. One of the most important events in this field in Polish terms was the publication of Father Marian Ignacy Morawski's S J considerable work Filozofia i jej zadanie (1876). This work is the subject of discussion in the article below.


Author(s):  
Joseph Arthur Mann

The passage of the Toleration Act meant religious freedom for non-Anglican Protestants but signaled a fundamental shift in the position of the Church of England in English society. Prior, the Church of England benefited from a government-backed monopoly on legal religious practice in England. The loss of these legal inducements meant that the Church of England had to compete equally, for the first time, in a marketplace of religious ideas. Chapter four exposes how the Church of England responded to this change with pro-music pamphlets advertising the joyful nature of the Anglican service in contrast to the austere practices of other Protestant denominations. It argues that while nonconformists wrote massive treatises arguing fine theological points about music in divine worship, Anglicans produced pamphlets that were addressed to the average reader in terms they could understand. It also connects these pro-music pamphlets to other accessible works written by Anglican propagandists that promote the Church of England in this new marketplace of ideas. Overall, the chapter reveals the previously-unknown propaganda functions of these Anglican music pamphlets and reveals that they were part of a larger, equally unknown, pro-Anglican propaganda campaign that directly responded to the results of the Toleration Act.


2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Laffitte

A partire dalla seconda metà del secolo scorso, la Chiesa si è trovata a dover ripensare i rapporti tra fede, teologia e antropologia in problematiche nuove come, ad esempio, la sessualità umana. Interprete privilegiato di questa rielaborazione è stato, senza dubbio, Giovanni Paolo II che in più occasioni ha avuto modo di riflettere e illustrare la teologia, la antropologia e l’etica che sostengono la visione cristiana della sessualità umana. Di questa vasta produzione, l’articolo prende in esame soprattutto le Catechesi di Giovanni Paolo II con frequenti richiami e illustrazioni del pensiero del filosofo Karol Wojty´la. L’analisi dell’autore prende le mosse dall’esposizione di Giovanni Paolo II dei dati creaturali dei tre primi capitoli del libro della Genesi, esaminando, in particolar modo, i significati fondamentali della solitudine originaria dell’uomo verso la creazione e poi il rapporto maschio-femmina. Vengono illustrati quindi l’esperienza dell’amore e l’ethos del dono: l’esperienza cristiana è presentata dal Pontefice come evento e saggezza e legata all’esperienza di amore che l’uomo sperimenta nel rapporto di filiazione che lo unisce a Dio; l’esperienza dell’amore coniugale ruota attorno alla corporeità umana e ai suoi valori/significati. Il corpo assume dunque un significato sponsale che conserva anche dopo la caduta, testimonianza dell’innocenza originaria e della libertà del dono. In tale contesto l’esperienza dell’amore è vissuta come mediazione di una conoscenza che va al di là della persona dell’amato aprendo l’orizzonte al dono divino anteriore. Nella seconda parte del contributo si prendono in esame i significati dell’amore e l’esperienza etica della sessualità così come sviluppati da Giovanni Paolo II: nella corporeità umana, in cui è impressa la complementarietà biologica, vi è una chiamata alla comunione che non è solo comunione tra i due sessi, ma che rimanda a una divina comunione di Persone. L’autore esamina anche l’esercizio della sessualità in rapporto alla legge naturale intesa come conformità alla ragione umana protesa verso la verità. Tale conformità conduce alla retta comprensione dell’intima struttura dell’atto coniugale, la cui “verità ontologica” si manifesta nell'inscindibilità delle due dimensioni unitiva e procreativa. In questa ampia visione della sessualità è compreso anche il mistero dell’amore nuziale tra Cristo e la Chiesa: la comunione di vita e d’amore tra l’uomo e la donna ha come missione propria di significare e rendere attuale l’unione tra Cristo e la sua Chiesa. L’articolo termina con l’analisi del legame tra corpo e sacramento e della dimensione sacrificale e nuziale del dono eucaristico. ---------- Since the second half of the last century, the Church has found herself having to rethink the relationship between faith, theology, and anthropology within new problems concerning, for example, human sexuality. Without any doubt, a privileged interpreter of this reprocessing was John Paul II, who on more occasions had a way of reflecting upon and illustrating the theology, anthropology, and ethics that support the Christian vision of human sexuality. Out of the vast work produced, the article examines especially the Catecheses of John Paul II with frequent appeals to and illustrations of the thought of Karol Wojty´la. The author’s analysis begins its quest with John Paul II’s exposition of creatural data in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, examining in particular the fundamental meanings of the original solitude of man toward creation and then the relationship between male and female. The experience of love and the ethos of gift thus come to be illustrated: Christian experience is presented by the Pontiff as event and wisdom and is connected to the experience of love that man experiences in the relationship of filiation that unites Him to God. The experience of conjugal love revolves around human corporeity and its values/meanings. The body thus assumes a spousal meaning that remains even after the Fall, serving as testimony of original innocence and the freedom of gift. Within such a context, the experience of love is lived out as the mediation of knowledge that goes beyond the person of the loved, opening up the horizon to the earlier divine gift. In the second part of this contribution, the meanings of love and the ethical experience of sexuality as such are examined as developments by John Paul II: In human corporeity, upon which biological complementarity is impressed, there is a call to communion that is not only communion between the two sexes, but which refers back to a divine communion of Persons. The author also examines the exercise of sexuality in relation to a natural law intended as conformity to a human reason reaching toward truth. Such conformity leads to the proper understanding of the intimate structure of the conjugal act, whose “ontological truth” manifests itself through the inseparability of the two dimensions: unitive and the procreative. Within this comprehensive vision of sexuality also resonates the mystery of nuptial love between Christ and the Church: The communion of life and love between man and woman that has as its own mission to signify and render present the union between Christ and His Church. The article ends with an analysis of the connection between body and sacrament and of the sacrificial and nuptial dimension of the Eucharistic gift.


Worldview ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 21-23
Author(s):  
James F. Conway

Pope John Paul II explored the African continent this May with all the stamina, exuberance, and gusto of the nineteenth-century missionary-explorers Stanley and Livingston. He had to call on his talents as linguist, diplomat, humanist, and intellectual to deal with the complex problems he faced —and continues to face. For examples: How should Rome react to the continuing Africanization of the evangelization of the Church? What is the position of Christianity vis-à-vis the proliferation of Marxist/socialist experiments in Africa? Can Christianity coexist peacefully with Islam in a continent where the latter is growing at a rate of 3 1/2 million adherents per year?


Author(s):  
Kerry Pimblott

Using the borderland community of Cairo, Illinois as a case study, this book chronicles the Black church’s overlooked contributions to the Black Power Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. While Black Power’s reverberations in the church – from radicalized clergy to new institutions and theologies – have received due attention, their impact on grassroots struggles has not. Shifting focus from the seminary to the streets, this project traces the dynamic interaction between the Black church and Black Power at a critical flashpoint. Identified by contemporaries as the site of the country’s longest protracted struggle for racial justice, Cairo captured national attention and became a potent symbol of Black working-class insurgency and a beacon of radical Black Christianity. In a period plagued by sectarianism, the Cairo United Front assembled a surprisingly broad-based coalition under the banner of a new spiritual philosophy and a set of shared cultural practices rooted in the Black church. However, in an era of conservative ascendancy Black Power’s reliance upon such funds proved to be a double-edged sword. By the mid-1970s, white denominational organizations retreated under mounting opposition from state agencies and their own congregants. This project situates grassroots activists, rather than trained religious theorists, as key agents in the production, consumption, and transmission of Black Theology.


2013 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Peter John McGregor

Pope John Paul II understood the mission of the Church to be a participation in the priestly, prophetic, and royal mission of Christ. This essay follows the development of this understanding from his time as Archbishop of Cracow though to Evangelium vitae. It examines, in particular, evangelization and its relationship to the threefold mission. It traces its development through his integration of the teaching of Lumen gentium on the threefold office of Christians and the teaching on evangelization in Evangelii nuntiandi. Noting that the Lineamenta of the Synod on New Evangelization makes little reference to the threefold office, it, finally, offers some ideas as to how we might develop our understanding of the threefold mission and apply it to ‘new evangelization.’


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