Catholic Research Articles

Formation Fit for Purpose: Empowering Religious Educators Working in Catholic Schools

The purpose of this paper is to provide curriculum support to religious educators working in Catholic schools. The paper provides a practical response to research advocating serious attention be given to religious educators because they are at the “coalface” of Catholic education, increasingly confronted by content and policy decisions, the diverse values and needs of their students, and other competing cultural and social challenges. Religious educators play a significant role in the evangelising mission of the Catholic Church as interpreters of Scripture and Tradition and can positively or negatively influence the quality of their students’ learning and its application. Entitled RECALL, the support offered to religious educators in this paper is research-led and utilises educational, standards-based principles. It is a community-minded approach that aims to build religious literacy and deepen the religious educators’ awareness and connections to the legacy of the Catholic Faith Tradition. The desired outcome is to inspire evidence-based conversations encompassing faith and reason, the perceived value and reality of the identity and mission of the Catholic Church, and its impact on Catholic culture and education. Intended to enhance rather than replace existing professional formation, the approach has structures, pedagogical processes, and practices that draw from a set of overarching theoretical considerations. Furthermore, the approach employs three guiding questions for categorising and analysing Catholic content. The questions are: (i) “Who are we as Catholics and what is our mission?” (ii) “What do we believe?” and (iii) “How do we practice?” The proposed curriculum support to religious educators may foster a culture of learning in Religious Education that is focused on improving and progressing the quality of educational outcomes for students. The premise is that if religious educators are supported to engage with the great Gospel narrative, their students may do the same.

Political responsiveness and centralized religious leaders: lessons from the Catholic Church

Political responsiveness and centralized religious leaders: lessons from the Catholic Church

The World Is the Road to God: The Encyclical Laudato Si’ and the “Ecological” Vision of Pope Francis

Today, the response to the consequences of present and future environmental catastrophes tends to take three forms: one purely technological-productive coming from the alliance between States and the Market; another one, which is essentially movementist, is confusedly fragmented into initiatives, often contradictory to each other, without having a strong ideological–political vision at its base; and the third one refers to apocalyptic or posthuman messianisms of a philosophical–religious nature. None of the three forms envisions a radical transformation of the current political–economic system. In this context, the voice of the Catholic Church emerges strongly to denounce the systemic reasons for the environmental disaster and at the same time to oppose the current system another system, centered on alternative assumptions. This article will analyze the encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015), which, sometimes mistaken for a simple text on Christian ecology, should actually be interpreted as a manifesto for a new world, based on the idea of a total anthropological and socio-political revolution. The analysis of the Encyclical is intended to highlight the historical–theological foundations and the ability to adapt some of the cornerstones of Catholicism (in particular of the Franciscan and Jesuit matrix) to the resolution of the current ecological emergency.

Reimagining Ethical Leverage in Technology for Peaceful Synodality: A Bioethics of Synodality with Technology

This paper seeks to reimagine ethical leverage in technology for peaceful synodality (the term peaceful synodality is coined to mean a synodality that welcomes participation and inclusion of people from different backgrounds and views without compromising the truth and respecting their dignity and journeying together) through the lens of the bioethics of synodality with technology. The concept of this paper is that technology can be leveraged ethically to promote peaceful synodality in the Catholic Church and that such an approach to technology is rooted in reimagining a bioethics of synodality that emphasize the need for journeying hand in hand with the speed at which technological advancement moves in order to enhance ethical decision-making processes. Ethics has moved at a different pace than technology, especially in matters involving human life. Ethics has been viewed as problematic in technology, especially where science wants to be neutral, but rethinking ethics as a companion of emerging technologies will be helpful in directing the ethical uptake of technology. To argue this thesis, the paper will employ a review of relevant literature while presenting the theological and ethical perspectives of synodality. By and large, an interdisciplinary approach will be employed where various disciplines play a key role. Such methodology advances the theme of reimagining Catholic ethics by offering a fresh perspective on the ethical implications of technology in the context of synodality. By emphasizing the importance of journeying together through enhanced ethical guidelines for proper decision-making and by exploring how technology can respect human rights and dignity among other values, this paper contributes to a broader conversation about how Catholic ethics can be reimagined in light of technological developments. Ultimately, this paper argues that a bioethics of synodality with technology can offer a vision for technology that is grounded in Catholic social teaching that promotes universally accepted human dignity and the common good. A cross-cutting method will also be used, given that ethics has basically constant principles, yet technology keeps on changing. Reimagining ethics means studying the advancement brought about by biotechnology and seeing to what degree human beings are affected in their basic rights and the risks versus the benefits brought about by the same. The assumption is that decisions made regarding the ethics of various technologies will be at par with the rate at which new technologies emerge and are employed. What is of vital importance is that ethics can have the power to journey together with technology, not as an adversary but in synodality. Reimagining ethics means being ever alert in the developing technologies that serve humanity so that in consultation with various experts, the best practices can be embraced within the ethical guidelines for the common good. The outcome of this research is that reimagining Catholic ethics involves listening to the needs of humanity and how technology is bringing solutions to them. Participating in bioethical debates, training on bioethics and listening to experts in various fields will enable a critical, analytical and pneumatological discernment of how ethical decisions on frontier technologies can benefit non-humans and humans.

The Enlightenment prophet: Muhammad in early modern Europe

This article examines the place of Islam in the intellectual history of the European Enlightenment. In 1649, the English civil war resulted in the establishment of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell and the execution of King Charles I; in the same year, the first English translation of the Quran was published in London. For some royalists, the two events were linked: they both signalled the moral demise of the kingdom, and indeed some polemicists depicted Cromwell as a ‘new Mahomet’ seeking to gain power by attacking the moral and religious foundations of the nation. Authors writing in English, such as Henry Stubbe, John Toland and George Sale, embraced the comparison, presenting the Muslim prophet as a reformer who preached pure monotheism and who abolished the powers of a corrupt clergy. They used the prophet and Islam to argue for the curtailing of the power of the Anglican Church; 18th-century French authors similarly lionised him as a polemical tool against the Catholic church. Muhammad, seen as an imposter or a reformer, was at the centre of European debates on the proper relations between Church, Crown and people. The article arises from a British Academy Lecture delivered on 18 May 2023.

Проблема социальной справедливости в социально-политических воззрениях Фомы Аквинского

The exploration of social justice within philosophical discourse has long been a subject of interest. Thе article delves into the question of social justice within the socio-political perspectives of one of the prominent philosophers of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas. According to the author, Aquinas stands as one of the foremost ideologists of the Catholic Church, exploring issues of justice with the aim of theoretically substantiating certain tenets of divine revelation. At all times, Western European philosophers, when examining issues of justice, have primarily been concerned with its political and legal aspects, interpreting justice primarily as a socio-political category. In this regard, Aquinas is no exception. Of particular interest in his views is the concept of the order of justice necessary for the harmony of history. Additionally, Aquinas’ merits also include his stance on the hierarchy of law and, in the context of modern society in recent decades, his emphasis on the importance of adhering to legal norms. Through his studies in social and political philosophy, he succeeded in enriching the understanding of the problem of justice. Overall, Aquinas adapts his teachings to the ideological needs of the Catholic Church.

Kryzys wiary, czy religii? Przesłanie nadziei i zangażowania duszpasterskiego w świetle adhortacji evangelii gaudium

The public debate increasingly talks about the crisis of the Church, which is manifested by a decline in the most important statistical indicators of faith. However, if we look at the development of Christianity, we will easily see that in its history it has very often experienced problems with the hallmarks of a crisis. Perhaps the basis for perceiving the current situation as a crisis is a distorted image of God and the expectation that Catholicism would dominate in quantitative terms over other worldview proposals that can be found today. This text reflects on the phenomenon of the crisis of the Catholic Church in Poland and discusses whether the observable changes in the Church concern faith itself, or rather religion, which is a broader concept. Finally, based on Francis’ exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, the article shows inspiration for awakening hope and pastoral activity, which are a guarantee of saving the faith of those seeking God and being close to Him.

Artificial Intelligence and an Anthropological Ethics of Work: Implications on the Social Teaching of the Church

It is the contention of this paper that ethics of work ought to be anthropological, and artificial intelligence (AI) research and development, which is the focus of work today, should be anthropological, that is, human-centered. This paper discusses the philosophical and theological implications of the development of AI research on the intrinsic nature of work and the nature of the human person. AI research and the implications of its development and advancement, being a relatively new phenomenon, have not been comprehensively interrogated in the social and ethical teachings of the Catholic Church. This paper, therefore, proposes a path for this interrogation by expounding a discourse which is believed to be epistemically helpful in the developing discourse of AI in the ethical and social teachings of the Church. The advancement in the research on AI is not only redefining the meaning of work, but, even more so, it is questioning the metaphysical notion of the human person and the theological notion of work as an intrinsic part in the selfhood and dignity of the human person.

ВЛАСТИВОСТІ АРХІТЕКТУРНО-МІСТОБУДІВНОГО ТВОРЕННЯ СЕРЕДМІСТЬ У ОДНОЙМЕННИХ МІСТАХ ДЕРАЖНЕ І ДЕРАЖНЯ

The properties of the downtown architectural and town-planning creation in the historical cities of Derazhne and Derazhnya are considered. It has been found that in Derazhne the castle was located in the southern part of today's village, on a wedge ledge formed at the place where the stream flows into the Horyn River. The downtown stood northeast of the castle. Its territory had features of a regular rectangle, and the gates were located on the western and northern sides. Unfortunately, today it is difficult to determine the location of the wooden Roman Catholic church in the downtown, instead, the brick church of the beginning of the 19th century was built on the territory of the castle. It was established that the castle in Deraznya was rectangular in plan with two corner roundels located in the southern and northern corners of the western side. The indistinct fragments of the downtown ramparts preserved to this day, the configuration of the streets and the graphic image of the urban defense complex of Deraznya on the map of the mid-17th century by the military engineer Guiyaume Levasseur de Beauplan indicate that the northern and eastern parts of the fortifications of the city center had bastion-like protrusions, and the northeastern corner had a special fortification purpose . Rynok Square was located in the center of the downtown. A wooden church stood in its northeastern corner, and a brick Roman Catholic church in the southeastern corner. Relying on the determined properties of architectural and town-planning creation in the downtown of Derazhnye and Derazhnya settlements, we can record their equivalent historical and cultural value. The development vector of their cities was identical, but the architectural image was individual. The spatial composition of the connection between the castle and the city center, the abundance of temples and the fortification system differed. Instead, the street network in Derazne and Derazne was ordered, calculated and synchronized with two entrance gates. The current state of the downtown is unsatisfactory. In Derazhnya, Khmelnytskyi region, the street network, quarters with several houses of the 19th century, and castle ramparts have been partially preserved. The downtown of Derazne, Rivne Oblast, has preserved parts of historic streets, completely lost quarters, and faint traces of the castle. In both settlements, uncontrolled green spaces hinder the spatial perception of the historical center. Therefore, recommendations have been formulated for the return of service functions to the downtowns, their unification with the rest of the settlement territories, saturating them with new functions, and the reproduction of the traditional historical and urban landscape.

Religion Lived In-Between. Time, Space, and Religious Practices of Roman Catholic Women in Poland

Abstract The article focuses on the role of time and space in the religious practices of Roman Catholic women. It aims to demonstrate not only how the spatial-temporal conditions of everyday life shape religious practices, but also how the space and time for practicing religion are produced as a result of practices. The article also shows how religious and other practices compete for limited spatial-temporal resources, contributing to the transformation of religious practices by incorporating new materials, technologies, and meanings. Based on the results of qualitative research among Roman Catholic women in Poland and using the praxeological lived religion approach, the analysis shows that religion is lived by women in-between—interwoven in temporal and spatial terms between other practices, either dominated by them or sometimes gaining a monopoly. The shape of religion in everyday life, therefore, does not only depend solely on the dynamics of religious practices, but also results from tensions between various social practices.

Another Look: American Catholics and the Quest for Equality in the Civil War Era

Robert Emmett Curran’s masterful treatment of American Catholicism in the Civil War era is the first comprehensive history of Roman Catholics in the North and South before, during, and after the war. Curran provides an in-depth look at how the momentous developments of these decades affected the entire Catholic community, including Black and indigenous Americans. He also explores the ways that Catholics contributed to the reshaping of a nation that was testing the fundamental proposition of equality set down by its founders. Ultimately, Curran concludes, the revolution that the war touched off remained unfinished, indeed was turned backward, in no small part by Catholics who marred their pursuit of equality with a truncated vision of who deserved to share in its realization.

Boundaries Beyond the Bathing Suit

A literature review and analysis evaluating how the practices of Intimacy Choreography support the aims of one of the Catholic Church's sexual abuse prevention programs collectively called VIRTUS. This article defines scenarios of legally unacceptable risk (high stakes) as well as legally acceptance risk (low stakes) and how the tools of Intimacy Choreography (Theatrical Intimacy Education, in particular) and VIRTUS both aim to establish and uphold boundaries, but in different capacities. This article compares the tools of each area, and makes an argument for how Intimacy Choreography's consent-based practices are a good for Catholic diocesan schools' theatre programs that utilize VIRTUS training.

Application of ISAK 35 to the Presentation of Financial Reports of the Manado Diocese of the Catholic Church

Application of ISAK 35 to the Presentation of Financial Reports of the Manado Diocese of the Catholic Church

Karl Rahner’s Theology of the Diaconate: A Reappraisal

Abstract Both before and after the Second Vatican Council, Karl Rahner promoted the restoration of the diaconate as a permanent order in the Catholic church. His theology of the diaconate has eluded sustained attention. After providing the historical context for his contribution, this reappraisal, in a close reading of Rahner, elaborates on three essential ecclesiological themes: the church’s exercise of its divine right to establish a discrete diaconate by dividing office, the graced nature of diaconal office, and the specialized function of deacons in the formation of ecclesial community.

The Sinful Church and Its Need for Constant Conversion

AbstractThis article justifies and demonstrates that the church, and not only its members, is capable of sinning. It can thereby become a structure of sin and be called a sinful church. This is exemplified through the cases of the Roman Catholic Church's handling of sexual abuse and the Residential School System in Canada. This highlights that the churches, along with calling the world, societies, and all people to change where it is needed, should also be constantly self‐examining and self‐correcting.

Catholic family towards holy perfection: pastoral challenges and management

This research examines Catholic families towards the perfection of holiness: challenges, management, and pastoral care. A Catholic family is a family based on Catholic marriage. The Catholic family itself is referred to as the ecclesia domestica or household church which has a special place in the Catholic Church. This research uses the literature study method. Literature study is research that focuses on searching and deepening supporting literature. Library sources are taken from Church documents that talk about the family and also other sources that support this research. The research results show that Catholic families face external and internal challenges. Therefore, the need to strengthen the foundation of the family in the environment and within the family itself is important in order to realize environment-based pastoral services, as is the pastoral focus of the Diocese of Surabaya. Researchers propose a family catechesis program which aims to build understanding, awareness and concrete action for families towards perfect holiness. This catechesis takes the form of a life catechesis that prioritizes everyday experiences interpreted in the light of the Gospel. This form or method of catechesis is carried out through family recollection in the environment.

Siedem dokumentów i listów Mikołaja Krzysztofa „Sierotki” i Albrychta Władysława Radziwiłłów z końca XVI i początku XVII wieku dotyczących dziesięcin i innych świadczeń dla kościoła w Czernawczycach i prepozytury Św. Barbary w Brześciu

The present paper contains an editing of seven documents and letters concerning the tithes from Radziwiłł’s estates near Brest for the Catholic parish church in Čarnaŭčycy and St. Barbara provostry in Brest. Senders were two members of the Radziwiłł family: Mikołaj Krzysztof “The Orphan” and Albrycht Władysław and addresses parish priests and land-stewards. This documents are interesting sources of knowledge about relations between them and landlord’s activity in the field of solutions to the disputes about tithes.

Conservation of Catholic churches after the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council

Since the use of built heritage is a requisite for its conservation, this article discusses the adaptation of Catholic churches, conceived for the liturgy supported by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), to that of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which presuppose a symbolically and functionally different spatial layout. Issues concerning this process are presented which sometimes led to the loss of cultural assets, frequently in favor of less pertinent interventions. It presents the architectural program for celebrating the reformed liturgy in Tridentine churches, as expressed by official documents in articulation with the principles of intervention in cultural assets and illustrative examples.

Child Sexual Abuse within the Catholic Church in Spain: A Descriptive Analysis of its Characteristics and Long-Term Impact

ABSTRACT Sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is a serious social issue and a significant public health problem that has caused extensive harm worldwide. In 2022, an independent commission was established in Spain to investigate sexual abuse within the Church. The commission gathered data from 334 victims (82.3% men, 17.7% women), who were predominantly aged between 55 and 74 years old (62.5%). A majority of victims (71.0%) endured sexual abuse involving physical contact, while 21% reported instances of oral, anal, or vaginal penetration. Over half of the victims (57.5%) reported emotional and behavioral issues, as well as functional problems, problems in relationships, sexuality, and cognition, and attributed these difficulties to the abuse. The majority of participants (79.0%) had disclosed the abuse before the study, with the Church taking action in 45.8% of cases. Approximately 8.4% of victims reported the perpetrator was relocated, while 16.2% described institutional efforts to conceal the abuse. In conclusion, victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Spain faced consequences that had a significant impact on their lives, exacerbated by lack of societal recognition and a prevalent dynamic of cover-up and concealment by the Church.

Historia kościoła grekokatolickiego na Słowacji

The Catholic Church of the Byzantine-Slavonic rite, that is the Greek-Catholic Church (but also Roman-Catholic Church), derives its presence in the territory of Slovakia from the activities of the Holy Brothers. Their arrival in the Great Moravian Empire in 863 strengthened the empire’s special position , which came from its geopolitical position on the frontier of two cultural and political worlds, western and eastern. Methodius, the archbishop, simply reflected and strengthened the special position of the empire where East met West. He did not become an exponent of Byzantine imperial policy. Although he was on the territory of Byzantine ideology he was also at the service of Rome.