Online Live-Stream Broadcasting of the Holy Mass during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland as an Example of the Mediatisation of Religion: Empirical Studies in the Field of Mass Media Studies and Pastoral Theology

This paper concerns a problem, the global pandemic COVID-19, which has influenced religious practices with respect to health protection across the Muslim world. Rapid transmission of the virus between people has become a serious challenge and a threat to the health protection of many countries. The increase in the incidence of COVID-19 in the Muslim community took place during and after the pilgrimages to Iran's Qom and as a result of the Jamaat Tabligh movement meetings. However, restrictions on religious practices have become a platform for political discussions, especially among Muslim clergy. This paper is an analysis of the religious and political situation in Muslim countries, showing the use of Islam to achieve specific goals by the authorities, even at the price of the health and life of citizens.

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Islam and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Between Religious Practice and Health Protection.

Th e article discusses how the notion of the Church was understood and explained by authors of sixteenth-century Polish Catholic and Evangelical catechisms. Teaching of the constitution of a church was a basic pastoral duty and part of the rudimentary knowledge provided to the faithful. Six Catholic catechisms of the years 1553 to 1600 and thirteen Evangelical ones, which were published between 1543 and 1609, constitute the main source base, the latter manuals being penned under the infl uence of Luther, Melanchthon as well as South-German and Swiss theologians. Following the Tridentine programme, the Catholic authors present their Church as unifi ed under the Pope’s authority and the only inheritor of the works of the Apostles. IDEA OF “TRUE” CHURCH IN POLISH CATECHISMS 47 Th e veracity of its teaching is testifi ed to with God’s unnatural interventions.  Th e Protestant authors explain the basically coherent, relevant ideas of the Reformation’s protagonists. Th ey teach about “the visible and outward Church”, which is manifested by all those congregations that are fed by God’s pure Word, and where the sacraments are duly administered. Th ere is also “the inward and invisible Church”, which the faithful confess in the Credo. It comprises all disciples of Christ, who is the only head of His Church. Th us, the teaching on the Church presented in the Evangelical sources that are employed belongs to the mainstream of sixteenth-century Protestantism and aptly illustrates the reception of Evangelical theologies in the Kingdom of Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the analysed sources, arguments for the veracity of the Church are always supplemented with the refutation of contradictory standpoints through reference to the Bible and the Church Fathers, mostly to Augustine. Despite strong polemical tone, the Biblical grounds of the Church could contribute to communication and understanding between Christians of antagonistic denominations, and this could sometimes result in conversion. Th e explanation of ecclesiological rudiments was easier for the Catholic clergy, who referred to tradition and emotions, while Evangelical pastors could not ignore the abstract concepts of the “veracity” and “spiritual connectedness” of Christians, which were more diffi cult to render to the laity. Waldemar Kowalski, professor in history at the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce. His scholarly interest encompasses interconfessional and ethnic relations, history of the Catholic Church in Poland from the fi fteenth to the eighteenth century, emigration from the British Isles to Central Europe from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, auxiliary sciences of history, and – in particular – the history of archives and epigraphy. E-mail: kowalski@ujk.edu.pl Trans. by Bartosz Wójcik First published as: “‘To jest owczarnia onego Dobrego Pasterza’. Pojęcie ‘prawdziwego’ Kościoła w polskich szesnastowiecznych katechizmach,” Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 60 (2016), pp. 29–71 Th e publication of this English translation has received additional funding from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland

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“Verily, This Is the Sheepfold of that Good Shepherd”: The Idea of the “True” Church in Sixteenth-Century Polish Catechisms

This article is a methodological continuation of the content presented in the first part of the author's research (“Media Education and the New Evangelization. Part One: Media Components and Challenges”, Verbum Vitae 37 [2020] 407-425) and represents an implementation of the concepts outlined there. In that previous text, the author demonstrated that pursuing a new evangelization in the Church demands the media education of evangelizers and their cooperation with the leaders of media education. This present article is aimed at formulating pastoral postulates and educational proposals based on the issues and connections that emerged. The first section outlines the postulates and educational proposals relating to those in charge of ongoing formation and who serve in the Church on the basis of the canonical authorization to teach (missio canonica). The second section contains postulates that apply to the formation of lay people and future clergy in preparing for evangelization in the Church. The third section focuses on a group of postulates concerning school religious education in light of the current Core Curriculum of the Catechesis of the Catholic Church in Poland (2018). This paper concludes with four research issues in the area of media education in the Church in the context of the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The methods of the third research stage borrow from the methodological paradigm of pastoral theology, mainly in its methods of analysis and synthesis, and have been applied in the article.

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Media Education and the New Evangelization. Part Two: Pastoral Postulates and Educational Proposals

The aim of this article is to analyze the empirical evidence collected in the form of in-depth interviews, observations, statistics and accounts concerning the assistance provided by female and male religious congregations in the fight against the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland during the first year after the outbreak (March 2020 to February 2021). The paper describes the nature of the assistance rendered by religious congregations to the sick, to those affected by the pandemic and to healthcare facilities during the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in Poland. Our findings reveal that the activities undertaken and the support provided by religious congregations in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland have spanned many areas: medical assistance and nursing within the healthcare system, charitable work (including material, financial and welfare/housing aid), and pastoral, religious, educational, psychological, ecumenical, evangelization and missionary activities. The support provided by religious congregations as part of the coronavirus response efforts proved crucial and invaluable during the first weeks of the pandemic, that is in March and April 2020, when the healthcare system was faced with severe staff shortages. 

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10943-022-01570-0.pdf

The Ministry of Religious Congregations to People Affected by the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus in Poland: Geographies of Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/2/127/pdf

Dispensation and Liturgy Mediated as an Answer to COVID-19 Restrictions: Empirical Study Based on Polish Online Press Narration

Kierunki rozwoju Katechizmów Katolickich

Katecheza osób z niepełnosprawnością intelektualną w stopniu lekkim. Z uwzględnieniem charakterystyki psychopedagogicznej

Papież Franciszek zatwierdził 23 marca 2020 r. nowe Dyrektorium o Katechizacji, które opracowała Papieska Rada ds. Krzewienia Nowej Ewangelizacji. Pierwsze Directorium Catechisticum Generale z 1971 r. było odpowiedzią na wielkie wydarzenie eklezjalne, jakim był Sobór Watykański II i jego generalną reformę oraz odnowę. Również następne dokumenty katechetyczne – kontynuując główne przesłanie – odpowiadają na znaki czasu w szybko zmieniającym się świecie. Dla drugiego Dyrektorium Ogólnego o Katechizacji z 1997 r. odniesieniem były synody, które znaczeniu katechezy poświęcały dużo miejsca, a zwłaszcza adhortacja Jana Pawła II Catechesi tradendae (1979) i ukazanie się Katechizmu Kościoła Katolickiego (1992) miały decydującą rolę w nowym opracowaniu celów, treści i zagadnień metodologicznych. Trzecie Dyrektorium Katechetyczne z 2020 r. to dynamiczne rozwinięcie dwóch wcześniejszych tekstów, z którymi zachowuje ciągłość. Jest to również odczytanie współczesnych znaków czasu. 
Dyrektorium katechetyczne to normatywny dokument eklezjalny, który zawiera fundamentalne zasady teologiczno-pastoralne zaczerpnięte głównie z dokumentów Soboru Watykańskiego II, Katechizmu Kościoła Katolickiego i innych dokumentów Nauczycielskiego Urzędu Kościoła z zakresu katechezy oraz ogólne wytyczne dla Episkopatów w celu opracowania dyrektoriów katechetycznych krajowych, które uwzględniając konkretne warunki wskażą drogi posługi katechetycznej w Kościołach partykularnych. Ich rozwój po Soborze Watykańskim II oznacza przechodzenie do kolejnego etapu głoszenia Ewangelii we współczesnym świecie.

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Andrzej Kiciński

Papers

Online Live-Stream Broadcasting of the Holy Mass during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland as an Example of the Mediatisation of Religion: Empirical Studies in the Field of Mass Media Studies and Pastoral Theology

Dispensation and Liturgy Mediated as an Answer to COVID-19 Restrictions: Empirical Study Based on Polish Online Press Narration

Kierunki rozwoju Katechizmów Katolickich

Katecheza osób z niepełnosprawnością intelektualną w stopniu lekkim. Z uwzględnieniem charakterystyki psychopedagogicznej

Rozwój dyrektoriów katechetycznych po Soborze Watykańskim II (1971-1997-2020)