/pdf/democracy-and-tradition-2c86zh61b8.pdf

Democracy and Tradition

In July 2016, during a closed session with Polish bishops, Pope Francis stated, “In Europe, America, Latin America, Africa, and in some countries of Asia, there are genuine forms of ideolog...

Unpacking “Gender Ideology” and the Global Right’s Antigender Countermovement

Human Rights and the United Nations: A Great Adventure

hovering above lived realities, passive, waiting for God to accomplish things, or repressive, denying the realities of present suffering, but calls Christians to practice ‘pathic’ hope-in-action imbued with the Source of all Life. It is in this third movement forwards that the ‘church’ practices public, participatory witness-in-action. 5.3.1 Created for freedom reforming our understanding. Moltmann demonstrates a consistent concern with freedom. He points specifically to the need for “freedom from: systems of oppression but he is also concerned about “freedoms for” as 463 He suggests that oppressors are also trapped in these deformed relations as inhumane oppressors, exploiters, alienators, apathetic and godless alongside the oppressed, exploited, alienated, godforsaken and dehumanised.(1974/2001:343-344, 1979b:24). 464 Moltmann has engaged with Pentecostal movements, seeing their openness to the Spirit as a place for church renewal as well as being critical of the ways in which many strands promote individualised understandings of the person and distorted utopias of affluence. 465 Moltmann contrasts the ‘utopias of the status quo’ of success, power and happiness that can lead to forms of apathy in relation to change, with ‘utopias of justice’ with its ‘Sitz im Leben’ in the suffering of the present and which hopes instead for change. (1976c:24).

Reimagining the human : the role of the churches in building a liberatory human rights culture in South Africa today.

There have been many new developments in the area of Catholic theology in recent decades. Perhaps one of the most notable has been an increasing interest in adopting a “green agenda” and attending to pressing issues such as climate change, sustainable development, water shortages, or the spread of disease and its connection with care for the environment. The ways in which scholars have approached these issues are varied and oftentimes complex. Despite competing claims about which method to use when discussing environmental ethics (such as virtue theory or utilitarianism, for example), one can say with some degree of certainty that significant strides have been made in Catholic environmental thought. For instance, scholars are now using terms such as “sacramental universe” to indicate a new or renewed relationship between the human community and the earth.1 Such developments in language are important because theologically salient concepts make the call for care and cooperation with the earth’s natural rhythms more urgent and personal for Catholics. The concept of stewardship has been criticized and refined. Increasingly, it is interpreted to express how being a Christian entails a responsibility to care for God’s creation.2 In this and related endeavors, scholars have reread key texts from the biblical tradition and tried to balance the seemingly anthropocentric thrust with ecologically attentive exegesis. Others have looked to the texts of Vatican II and sought to draw attention to the need for an ecological consciousness when interpreting concepts such as the common good. Still others qualify historical church texts that express, in no uncertain terms, that “humankind can and should increasingly consolidate its control over creation,” since statements of this sort often allude to biblical texts that stipulate the need for humans to have dominion over the earth (Gaudium et Spes, no. 12). The incorporation of scientific and especially ecological paradigms has, in turn, caused another shift in method, toward a more relational model of understanding the interconnectivity of humans and the entire ecosystem.3 In addition to these developments, work is also being carried out on the links between environmental degradation and poverty. People are increasingly aware that, for instance, an environmental policy that might be viable in the First World might not be so in the Third World. Many scholars are keen to communicate how environmental concerns are linked with structures of injustice that force many people to eke out a living in ways that destroy natural habitats and their own immediate environment.

Feminism and Ecology

From women's experience to feminist theology

Confronting the Truth: Conscience in the Catholic Tradition

I: RELIGION & PUBLIC REASON: PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS II: RELIGION & PUBLIC REASON: THEOLOGICAL VIEWS III: RELIGION & PUBLIC REASON: PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES IV: RELIGION & PUBLIC REASON: NATIONAL CONTEXTS

Religious voices in public places

Keeping Faith with Human Rights

The note considers recent theological commentary on the clerical sexual abuse crisis in Ireland and beyond. It examines the nature and extent of the crisis within the Catholic Church through the le...

Linda Hogan

Papers

From women's experience to feminist theology

Confronting the Truth: Conscience in the Catholic Tradition

Religious voices in public places

Keeping Faith with Human Rights

Clerical and Religious Child Abuse: Ireland and Beyond