On the need of social dialogue. Reflections in the perspective of the pastoral letter of the Episcopal Conference of Poland

The Church as an institution, but also a community of believers, is a part of a society. Thus, She is present in the space of processes and changes taking place in a society. A society is extended in tension between conflict and harmony. In that context, the Episcopal Conference of Poland reflected on the current social issues in the Polish society in a form of a letter. It is focused on the necessity of common effort in favour of dialogue and order and in the face of existing destructive phenomena. The letter has become a perspective for considerations on elements of social life like social mission of the Church, conflict, solidarity, the truth, dialogue. Discussing particular questions draws from the Tradition and the teaching of the Church Magisterium. The undertaken reflection is an attempt to argue for social dialogue which is necessary, especially in more and more pluralistic and at the same time full of tensions society. Genuine dialogue includes being directed to an opponent, respect, and striving for solutions in the perspective of searching the truth and taking into account human dignity.

The religious genres of collective memory – an attempt at typology

The memory genre as a model of text serves to memorize (shape) and remember (pass on) images of the past, which reproduces the picture of the past. The article is an attempt at providing typology of religious memory genres. In the first part of the article, the concept of the memory genre is presented and an attempt is made at typology of religious memory genres, making use of the conceptions of Jan Assmann who distinguished communicative and cultural kinds within collective memory. According to the author, the religious genres of cultural memory include the liturgical prayer and the fixed prayer. On the other hand, instances of the religious genres of communicative memory are the universal prayer and parish announcements. Beside these two types, the author indicates also religious genres of inter-cultural memory, which constitute a connection of different types of memory: communicative and cultural or cultural and individual. Examples of this genre are the examination of conscience and a pastoral letter. Certain genres (e.g. the liturgical prayer) are stored in collective memory in full and should be tied to, primarily, remembering – one of the four phases of memory. Then they make genres of cultural memory. Others are connected with recalling (examination of conscience, a pastoral letter, parish announcement) and are genres of communicative or inter-cultural memory.

Gender in educational and public discourse of the Church. Analysis of the Pastoral Letter on the Feast of the Holy Family

Kasiak Mateusz, Gender in educational and public discourse of the Church. Analysis of the Pastoral Letter on the Sunday of the Holy Family. Culture – Society – Education no 2(16) 2019, Poznań 2019, pp. 289–312, Adam Mickiewicz University Press. ISSN 2300-0422. DOI 10.14746/kse.2019.16.19. Gender as a category of cultural gender and gender identity appears not only in scientific discourse as a topic of research, but also in public discourse, as a subject of various debates and disputes. This concept was also included into the discourse of the Catholic Church. Its creators – church leaders – embarked upon a public reinterpretation of the concept of gender, thus inserting their point of view into the broader political and ideological dispute. The aim of this paper is to review the postulates of the church concerning gender in the Pastoral Letter on the Feast of the Holy Family, which seems to be a leading programme paper concerning this issue. In this paper, gender as a research and scientific category is isolated from the scientific discourse and appropriatedby the educational discourse of the church, where it functions as a scare tactic. Structural modifications in the text and style of the letter, stylistic and rhetorical tricks, as well as pragmatic mechanisms, make the text of the pastoral letter a persuasive political argument.

Kirche im Kontext. Mystische Motive im Werk des Reformators Johannes Bugenhagen und ihre Impulse für eine Kirchentheorie der Gegenwart

At present, the historiographic classification of the Protestant reformation is changing from the concept of an epochal turning point towards the notion of a systemic, complex process. The reformer Johannes Bugenhagen, who was a central character in shaping the Protestant church, was also inspired by traditions deeply rooted in the Catholic church. His programmatic 1525 Pastoral Letter to the Hamburgers (Sendbrief an die Hamburger) features mystic images and motifs that can be traced back to Bernard of Clairvaux, the leading figure of Western mysti­cism. This theological setting helps Bugenhagen to develop a succinct alternative vis-à-vis the Erasmian humanism that has not lost its credibility until today. Modern church theories that are no longer characterized by hermetic isolation but oriented towards a systemic integration into the larger social context, are free from any zeitgeist - instead they are based on the core of reformatory ecclesiology.

Conclusion

The devastation inflicted by Allied bombing, and the experiences of wartime bereavement and enemy occupation, delivered powerful emotional as well as physical blows to the Catholic communities of the Rhineland and Westphalia in the years 1944–5. Conferring meaning to these traumatic events in the aftermath of German defeat, together with the preceding years of war and National Socialist dictatorship, presented a significant theological and political challenge to clergymen. Writing in a pastoral letter of 18 April 1945, shortly after Münster’s fall to Allied forces, Bishop Galen lamented that ‘I am not even going to attempt to count and write down all of the various forms of suffering, which press upon each and every one of us.’ In seeking to provide meaning to the war and its victims, Galen could only state that: ‘God allowed it to happen’ as a ‘consequence and punishment for sin’....

I. The Nonviolence–Just War Nexus

Gerald Schlabach wrote that a key test of progress for Catholicism in its dialogue with the historic peace churches on nonviolence and the use of force would be that the church's teaching on nonviolence would become “church wide and parish deep.” While modern Catholic social teaching has recognized nonviolence since the time of the Second Vatican Council, and Pope Saint John Paul II gave nonviolence strong, formal endorsement in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, the church's teaching on nonviolence is hardly known in the pews. If they are familiar at all with Catholic teaching on peace and war, most Catholics would know the just-war tradition, especially through the US bishops’ 1983 pastoral letter, The Challenge of Peace. But the newer and still relatively slight teaching on nonviolence is hardly known at all. Only by rare exception do Catholic preachers address issues of peace and war.