Communion Ecclesiology Research Articles

Communion Ecclesiology in Theological Ecumenism

La Communion se presente elle-meme comme un constant defi dans le champ de l'oecumenisme. Elle demande a etre re-visitee et comprise dans le dessein de nous aider a repondre a l'appel de Dieu de nous trouver unis dans la diversite. Le processus lui-meme d'interpretation de «communion» par un discours, une sensibilite et une formation theologique contribue indubitablement a un dialogue oecumenique et le rehausse. Il n'y a pas une interpretation unique de la communion. Mais plutot, les differentes approches vers une communion ecclesiologique, poursuivies par des theologiens appartenant a differentes traditions chretiennes, different et se rencontrent simultanement. Ici une etude comparative entre le dominicain francais catholique Yves Congar, l'orthodoxe grec John Zizioulas et le lutherien Jurgen Moltmann a ete entreprise. Un tel exercice theologique met non seulement en evidence les richesses d'une telle ecclesiologie, mais en plus consolide le dynamisme fort necessaire pour consolider sa croissance vers une communion complete dans la foi et la charite.

Calvin and “Communion Ecclesiology”: An Ecumenical Conversation

This essay evaluates John Calvin's ecclesiology—especially his emphasis on plural ministries—as a model for articulating a contemporary ecumenical ecclesiology in conversation with post—Vatican II “communion ecclesiology.” Particular attention is given to the contributions of Latin American and U.S. Hispanic theologians whose liberating vision of church seeks to embody the very qualities Calvin affirmed in his doctrine of the church: a rejection of rigid hierarchical governance and an emphasis on God's grace as the very foundation of human community.

A Challenge to Communion Ecclesiology

A Challenge to Communion Ecclesiology

TOWARDS A FUNDAMENTAL THEOLOGICAL RE‐INTERPRETATION OF VATICAN II

This paper argues for a fundamental theological re‐interpretation of Vatican II ecclesiology that acknowledges not one but two principal ecclesiologies inspired by the Council documents. Ecclesiastical authorities and some theologians have acknowledged that communion ecclesiology is the principal ecclesiology of Vatican II. However, this conception does not sufficiently account for the full range of relations with the Other that is a distinctive development in the Church's self‐understanding inaugurated by Vatican II; such an understanding is better represented by an ecclesiology of friendship. I thus argue there are two ecclesiologies reflected in the Council documents: communion ecclesiology and another to be developed based on mutual relations and friendship with the Other. The latter is distinctively Ignatian in spirit; further, these two ecclesiologies are not fundamentally opposed to each other but are united in the missions of the Son and the Spirit.

Social Doctrine of the Trinity and Communion Ecclesiology in Leonardo Boff and Gisbert Greshake

ABSTRACTThis essay examines the methodological relationship of social doctrines of the Trinity and ecclesiologies of communion. The Theologies of Gisbert Greshake and Leonardo Boff represent theologians arguing that ecclesiology must be based on a doctrine of God which they present from a social (or psychological) perspective. The goal of the essay is to expose some of the methodological assumptions made by ecclesiologists and the value of social approach to the Trinity can have in an ecclesiology of communion.

The Mystical Body of Christ and Communion Ecclesiology: Historical Parallels

Recognizing that the Church cannot be encompassed by a single and eternal ecclesiology, and that there are stages in the development of the Church's self-understanding, the author examines the history and development of two of the dominant twentieth century models : the earlier Mystical Body ecclesiologies, and the post-conciliar Communion/ Koinonia models. They contain interesting parallels, one of which is the risk of ignoring the concrete Church — the mystery manifested in history. What ecclesiological models may next rise to dominance?

The Role of Affectivity in the Theology of Yves Congar

Yves M.-J. Congar (1904-1995) was the foremost French theologian of the twentieth century. The severe trials to which he was subjected by Roman Catholic Church authorities, notwithstanding, Congar loved the Church. As he explained to Jean Puyo in 1975: I am of the Church. I love the Church.’ This love is based on a simple yet profound truth that he recognised the Church as the Mother, the hearth and the homeland of his spiritual being. Congar’s love for the Church, motivated by his love for Christ, is situated in the wider setting of his love for humankind. It is difficult to avoid an admiration for his shrewd insistence on the need to locate the maternal and fraternal dimensions of the Church’s nature, seen as perfectly compatible, in a communion ecclesiology. A communitarian, ecclesial milieu is correctly identified as essential for the formation of Christians: Maternal, the Church is also fraternal. It is a fraternity. The two qualities are perfectly compatible, evangelically speaking, because in the spiritual plan, they are united in communion: as in a text like Matthew 12. 50 (Mark 3. 35; Luke 8. 21). Better: it is the fraternity which exercises here a maternity, as it is said so often by Saint Augustine and many others. This does not take away anything from a particular paternity of priests and pastors who can say with Saint Paul: ‘It is I who, through the gospel, begot you in Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. 4. 15). This signifies that if, taken individually, we are sons of the Church, we form collectively or rather as a community, this ecclesial milieu which we have seen is the generator and educator of Christians.

Communion Ecclesiology. Author's Response

Communion Ecclesiology. Author's Response

Book Review: Communion Ecclesiology: Vision and Versions

Book Review: Communion Ecclesiology: Vision and Versions

Communion Ecclesiology and Black Liberation Theology

The author argues that the focus of both communion ecclesiology and Black liberation theology have as their central theme the unity of the human community. This unity is also an explicit value of traditional African religions. Only recently has the silence and indifference of the U.S. Catholic Church regarding racism been more widely recognized. The Black liberation theology of James Cone has emphasized that the Church as the Body of Christ must exhibit five specific characteristics. These are central to the realization of communion.

Journet, Congar, and the Roots of Communion Ecclesiology

The A. compares the ecclesiologies of Charles Journet and Yves Congar in order to trace out two different strands of reform leading into Vatican II. Congar's emphasis on historical developments is complemented by Journet's focus on the mystical and essential. The result is a more differentiated understanding of the preconciliar strategies that came to fruition as communion ecclesiology, as well as a retrieval of Journet's contribution to conciliar theology

Communion Ecclesiology: Source of Hope, Source of Controversy

Communion Ecclesiology: Source of Hope, Source of Controversy

Communion Ecclesiology and Baptism in the Spirit: Tertullian and the Early Church

THERE ARE within Roman Catholicism at least two dominant ways of theologizing about baptism in the Holy Spirit. One view, promoted by Francis Sullivan of the Gregorian University in Rome, looks upon baptism in the Spirit as a special grace, a new imparting of the Spirit unrelated to any immediate sacramental context. This view is based on the quite valid supposition that there can be multiple impartings of the Spirit. In patristic times the question of multiple impartings of the Spirit was widely discussed. The nonsacramental view of baptism in the Spirit has many advantages, among them its ecumenical appeal to the evangelical churches, which do not have a highly sacramental polity. The other view, which was the theological stance adopted at the beginning of the charismatic renewal, relates baptism to water baptism or to the rites of initiation (water baptism, confirmation, Eucharist). Baptism in the Spirit in this view is a bringing of the graces of initiation already received to awareness and a new actuality. An actualist position in regard to infant baptism was already in place by the time of Augustine