Pastoral Conversation Research Articles

Secularization: A Response from Canon Law Based on the Concept of the “Church on the Move” and Cooperation with the Civil Order in Cases of Abuse of Minors by Priests

The influence of secularization and secularism in today’s society has led to a process of privatization of religion. Faced with this reality, Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, has promoted the need for a pastoral conversion, betting on a “Church going out” that, on the one hand, can cope with this process and, on the other hand, go out to meet all those people who suffer in the existential peripheries. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate, through a qualitative and quantitative methodology, how canon law is a reality that cannot stand aside from this call and how, in the specific area of child abuse within the Church, it must opt for a position that we call “expansion” or extra ecclesiam, capable of recognizing and dealing with the cases that have occurred, as well as operating a system of cooperation with the civil order, with the aim of promoting justice and the common good of society, in order to limit the growing process of secularization.

Caring for–Caring about: Negotiations of Values in Pastoral Care

The term “care” in pastoral care means caring for others. Yet those who care for others in pastoral conversations can also be defined existentially as people who care about the world, that is, people who hold values. This article explores how caring for and caring about commence in pastoral practice, with special attention paid to conflicts of values in pastoral conversations. The article proposes a typology of subjects for value conflicts in pastoral care, and it proposes a set of strategies for navigating those conflicts. We base both proposals on an analysis of German and Norwegian verbatims, i.e., protocols of pastoral caregivers’ memories of pastoral care encounters. These verbatims highlight that while pastoral caregivers and care seekers have different roles and obligations in pastoral care, an existential encounter occurs which has its own potentials and pitfalls. Thereby, we draw attention to the necessary negotiations of values that transpire in pastoral conversations in postsecular societies.

The role of storytelling as a possible trauma release for war veterans: A narrative approach

The master narrative of Apartheid South Africa created a specific identity for white boys and men and, together with this identity, a very particular role and place within the South African context. This identity was exemplified in the men who were conscripted into the military from 1967 until 1994, and who participated in operations on the border regions of Namibia and Angola as well as within local townships in the war of liberation against apartheid and minority rule. Many veterans have been left grappling not only with the traumas associated with combat but also with the loss of their identities as war heroes in a country under changed political control. As a result, many of their personal stories and experiences of combat have been silenced by society at large and also, to varying degrees, within their own families, the Church, and among the younger generation who have grown up under a different dispensation. The conflict between vacillating narratives of villains who fought on the wrong side of history and victims of a closed socialisation system has supported the identity struggle faced by many veterans today. Against this backstory, this article explores the effects of storytelling as a trauma release using a narrative approach.Contribution: This article offers a contribution to the use of storytelling in pastoral conversations as a trauma release for untold stories. This insight links to the focus and scope of the journal as a pastoral narrative approach has been used under the umbrella of Practical Theology.

The Role of the Ministry of Lector and Acolyte in the Context of the Instruction for Parishes in the Service of Evangelisation (June 29, 2020) and the Letter Spiritus Domini (January 10, 2021)

The principal weight of the Church’s responsibility for evangelization rests on the parish. However, the pastoral practice shows that there is no sufficient principle to organize the missionary life of the parish as a community of communities. This frequently leads to confusion in a multitude of activities, which contributes to the failure of the parish to fulfill its principal evangelizing mission. Firstly, the article shows how the introduction of ministries of lector and acolyte into the life of the parish may help revitalize the basic functions of the parish, which are: martyrdom, liturgy, and diakonia. Men and women who discovered their specific vocation to the ministry of lector and acolyte may become pillars of concrete parish groups and apostolic work realized in the parish. It is closely related to a proper understanding of the ecclesial dimension of each of these ministries. In view of the above, the article presents pastoral inspirations of the Instruction of the Congregation for the Clergy The Pastoral Conversion of the Parish Community in the Service of the Evangelising Mission of the Church, and the indications of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter Spiritus Domini. Secondly, the text presents the liturgical ministries in the light of the hierarchical, charismatic, and spousal dimension of the mystery of the Church. The final part of the article describes the pastoral dimension of these ministries in realizing the evangelizing mission of the Church.

Viruses and the Anthropocentric Problem of Suffering

ABSTRACT COVID-19 has increased awareness of the threat viruses can pose and drawn attention to the different areas of suffering one can be affected by. In this article, I use viruses as a case study to explore the current theological approaches to human suffering. I propose that there is a subjective and anthropocentric perspective on suffering that causes difficulties in the debate, but that awareness of this perspective can allow us to see the enigma within the theological discussion of suffering in a fresh way. This perspective will enrich academic as well as pastoral conversations on the topic.

Contemporary Conditions of Pastoral Conversation in Poland

The article presents the most important contemporary conditions of pastoral conversation which is a form of individual pastoral care in Poland. Because of the fast ongoing social, cultural and religious changes in the Polish society, more and more faithful ask priests for pastoral conversation because they cannot find satisfying answers to their existential and religious questions in universal pastoral care. The first part of the article is meant to define pastoral conversation as a form of pastoral ministry in the Catholic Church in Poland. The next part describes new religious conditions of pastoral conversation as well as the current existential conditions of this form of pastoral care. The final part indicates the weak points of the preparation for pastoral ministry and of pastoral ministry itself which significantly impede the effectiveness of pastoral conversation and limit its support to those who need it.

POPE FRANCIS AND THE CHALLENGE OF ECCLESIAL INTROVERSION: WHERE IS HE COMING FROM? WHERE IS HE GOING?

ABSTRACT: The presentation focuses on the reception of Pope Francis’s ecclesial reform and his persistent call for comprehensive pastoral conversion as outlined in Evangelii gaudium. The author discusses the reforms as rooted in the Church’s identity and mission to evangelize in the fullest sense of the word as understood in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and developed in the subsequent magisterium. The author addresses the toxic environment created by social media, a primary source of misinformation and fearmongering which leads to growing resistance and polarization among some church leaders and faithful. The resistance to accepting Pope Francis’s remarkable ecclesial vision for some sectors of the Church revolves around a harmful reaction which Pope St. John Paul II called ecclesial introversion. The unfamiliarity and even strangeness of his Latin Ameri- can and Jesuit roots and to the legacy of Medellín and the subsequent CELAM gatherings at least partially explain the challenge Francis’s bold reforms present to the global Church. KEYWORDS: Social Media. Pastoral Conversion. Ecclesial Introversion. Synodality. Ecclesial Discernment.

Náčrt teológie sviatostí podľa Ph. J. Rosata, jej aktuálnosť a inšpiratívny potenciál pre súčasný ekleziálny kontext

The year 2021 brought several reasons to remember the Rev. Philip J. Rosato, a Jesuit priest and longtime professor of sacramental theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (1979-2004). The particular occasion was the tenth anniversary of his death (July 20, 2011) and the eightieth anniversary of his birth (July 7, 1941). The biographical dates also include thirty years since the publication of his most widely read work: An Introduction to the Theology of the Sacraments (Introduzione alla teologia dei sacramenti, 1992). The pastoral visit of Pope Francis to Slovakia (12.9.-15.9.2021) offered an additional reason to remember him. His words on the vocation of Christians not to hoard bread but to share it strikingly recall the essence of Rosatos’ sacramental doctrine. It is the thesis that the foundation of Christian orthopraxis lies in the sacramental liturgy, which is a pneumatic recollection and re-presentation of Jesus‘ prophetic gestures (gestures in favor of justice and gestures of self-giving culminated on Calvary) into which the faithful are grafted. At the same time, they are encouraged by sacramental grace to live in conformity with the ethical dimension of the gesture, walking toward the full realization of the Father‘s kingdom. Rosato‘s sacramental theology, emphasizing the ethical dimension of sacramental grace, was formulated in response to the ongoing sacramental crisis of the Western Church. If the focus of Pope‘s messages are diverse variations on the theme of active protagonism of justice, hope, compassion, reconciliation, solidarity, fidelity, or service that spring from the contemplation of the cross - the founding principle of all the sacraments of the Church and their efficacy - then the theological concept of sacramentality by Ph. J. Rosato receives from his fellow Jesuit a certain implicit recognition. The study is divided into three parts (anamnestic, indicative-explanatory and prognostic); its purpose is to recall the personality of Ph. J. Rosato, his theology and the interpretation of the focal points of his sacramental theology, as well as a prognostic outline of the significance of an ethically designed sacramental theology for the Church in the time of the new evangelization and pastoral conversion.

Pastoral Conversion According to Franciszek Blachnicki in the Context of the Vatican’s Instruction on Parishes in the Service of Evangelization (29 June 2020)

Endowed with an in-depth and insightful analysis of the Church’s reality and the charism of reading the signs of the times, one of the greatest Polish pastoralists, founder of the Light-Life Movement, Fr. Franciszek Blachnicki (21 March 1921–27 February 1987) insistently postulated making the “Copernican turn” in the Church’s saving ministry. On the hundredth anniversary of his birth, it is worth looking at the guiding principles of the Congregation for Clergy Pastoral conversion of the parish community in the service of the Church’s evangelizing mission (29 June 2020) and analyze to what extent Blachnicki’s concept of pastoral conversion regarding the renewal of the parish is still valid and estimate whether it can still be an inspiration in pastoral discussions on the realization of the Church hic et nunc.

The Pastoral Conversion of the Parish Community for the Asian Church

Discussions about parish institution today often end in its crisis. It seems that this institution is unable to carry out its functions in the modern world. On the other hand, so far, despite the emergence of new movements in the Church that are becoming the reference point in the life of some Christians, there is no institution that has replaced the parish yet. The parish remains a reference institution that shows the real face of the Church in society. On 20 July 2020, the Congregation for the Clergy published an instruction entitled “The pastoral conversion of the Parish community in the service of the evangelising mission of the Church”. This paper is an invitation to read and reflect on the pastoral conversion in parish life that focuses on the context of Asian Church priority to be a participatory Church and communion of communities. By applying the analytical method, we will examine the content of the instruction in confront with the context. In this way, finally we can find out the main points of how this instruction encourages pastoral conversion which should become the concern for the Asian Church. Therefore, this work helps us to understand better the importance of community conversion which means becoming a missionary community with the following two levels: all different parish communities that build up the entire parish and the parish community itself.

Parish Renewal in Light of the Congregation for the Clergy’s Instruction The Pastoral Conversion of the Parish Community in the Service of the Evangelizing Mission of the Church

This article presents the Congregation for the Clergy’s reflection on the state of the parish and conditions for pastoral care. The congregation’s most recent instruction entitled The Pastoral Conversion of the Parish Community in the Service of the Evangelizing Mission of the Church presents the authors’ vision for renewal of the parish community and pastoral care within the parish setting. This article is the first of its kind to present the bases for, the conditions of, and the direction that such renewal should take. The need for renewal stems primarily from ongoing cultural changes that are taking place in the modern world. The renewal should transform the parish into a sanctuary where the Word of God is proclaimed in a way that the faithful understand. The parish should become a place of deep devotion to the Eucharist and a shelter for every person in need. In order to renew the parish, it is necessary to change parish structures. It is also fitting to introduce changes concerning the agents of pastoral care and to engage the laity in pastoral care of the parish. Through textual and comparative analysis as well as textual criticism, the author presents the model of parish pastoral care according to the Instruction The Pastoral Conversion of the Parish Community in the Service of the Evangelizing Mission of the Church.

Conversation Under the Sign of the Resurrection: Developing a Resurrection Lens for Pastoral Praxis

The purpose of this article is to present Eduard Thurneysen’s practical-theological reading of the Nicodemus narrative as a way to demonstrate the importance of developing a resurrection hermeneutic for the praxis of pastoral care. I will argue that Thurneysen’s kerygmatic approach to pastoral care is of enduring value for pastoral theology and practice today. Though aspects of his pastoral theology are a clear product of his own time and place, Thurneysen’s pastoral theological approach is urgently needed in the teaching of pastoral care today, which often neglects the character of pastoral conversation as an opportunity to encounter the living Lord. If pastoral conversation is eschatologically oriented, it will challenge many of the assumptions of how it is actually practiced today.

Misja Kościoła — niezwykła zwykłość nauczania papieża Franciszka


 
 
 With Pope Francis a new chapter has begun in the history of the Church. This newness refers to the new internal situation of the Church, new “signs of time”, and new challenges which the Church has to face. Through the symbolic gestures of his pastoral practice and the directions indicated in his homilies and encyclical letters Francis responds to these challenges in the spirit of the Gospel.
 His whole pontificate is characterized by the profound desire to impart the newness and fresh- ness of the Gospel as well as what constitutes the core of its teaching. In this endeavor of returning to the sources, he sees the possibility of renewal of the Church. This entails a discernment of what constitutes the center and core of the Christian proclamation versus what is secondary, as well as how Jesus’ teaching has been distorted and deformed over the centuries. Francis speaks about the necessity of the apostolic and pastoral conversion of the Church. The Church has to undertake the “option for mission” and “apostolic dynamism”. She must go to the peripheries.
 In his teaching Pope Francis imparts the traditional doctrine of the Church. But he does it in a new way, using new language, new gestures and a new way of life. Like his predecessors, he wants to serve the faith. He does not wish to change what constitutes the core of the Christian faith. But he wants the Church to grow in the understanding of the Gospel as well as in the discernment of the ways of the Spirit. Therefore, he emphasizes the constant need for the attitude of discernment. This is what he has learned above all from Ignatian spirituality and his pastoral experience: “the discernment of the spirits”.
 
 

Tajemnica duszpasterska. Analiza na przykładzie rozwiązań odnoszących się do Kościoła Ewangelicko-Reformowanego w RP

The study presents and analyses solutions in common law relating to the protection of pastoral secrecy, and more precisely the secrecy of pastoral conversation in the Evangelical Reformed Church in the Republic of Poland, which stems from the Swiss branch of Reformation and which has a tradition of 450 years in Poland. The analysis covers the institution of pastoral secrecy as compared to the institution of the seal of confession which is clearly protected under the provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Code of Civil Procedure, the Code of Administrative Procedure, the Tax Ordinance Act and the Supreme Audit Office Act. Furthermore, the study features a presentation of internal regulations of the Evangelical Reformed Church concerning pastoral secrecy and an analysis of the case law of Polish and German courts applicable to the protection of that type of secrecy.

RUMO À PLENITUDE

Este artigo faz uma análise e reflexões sobre conversão pastoral a partir dos documentos de Santo Domingo, Aparecida e da Exortação apostólica Evangelii Gaudium. Analisa a partir dos três documentos da Igreja o paradigma da conversão pastoral que possui maior relevância e credibilidade para sua atuação no mundo contemporâneo, especificamente na região amazônica. Primeiramente o artigo busca definir o conceito de conversão pastoral; em seguida aponta a conversão como transformação missionária da Igreja segundo a Evangelii Gaudium e, por último fundamenta a conversão pastoral como uma necessidade para o contexto atual do mundo.

Nawrócenie pastoralne i duszpasterstwo misyjne parafii w Polsce

In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium Pope Francis has stated realistically that the call to review and renew our parishes has not yet sufficed to bring them nearer to people, to make them environments of living communion and participation, and to make them completely mission-oriented (EG 28). Answering this papal call directed to the whole Church and concerning the pastoral conversion and missionary ministry, the author of this article attempts to take a look at the renewal of the Catholic parishes in Poland in the context of the direction indicated by Pope Francis, which involves abandonment of the complacent attitude that says: “We have always done it this way” (EG 33). The considerations carried out here consist of four parts. After presenting the theological vision of a Catholic parish (1), the authors moves on to emphasising the essence of the pastoral conversion (2), the culmination of which should be the missionary ministry (3). Visualising the teaching of Pope Francis became the point of giving consideration to the subject matter of setting the trends of working in the Polish parishes (4).

„Duszpasterskie nawrócenie” prezbiterów drogą do odnowy duszpasterstwa parafialnego

The parish is the basic community of the Church. The life of the local Church depends to a large extent on it. The contemporary teaching of the Church attributes great importance to the parish and states that it is not an outdated structure. At the same time, he points to the constant need to renew the parish. This is done to a large extent by the renewal of the parish care. Since the main responsibility for this care rests with the priests and especially at the parish priest, the effectiveness of this renewal depends largely on them. This article shows the need for the pastoral conversion of presbyters as a necessary condition for the effective renewal of the parish work.

Iglesia pobre para los pobres

La conversión pastoral de la Iglesia no es una expresión de moda; es una exigencia que remite a la persona de Jesucristo, a la manera de cómo vivió y presentó el mensaje del Reino. Jesús no "balconea" la vida de su pueblo. Él es ante todo el pobre entre los pobres y para los pobres. Sobre esta base, el autor del provocador artículo propone una revisión de vida que mire al corazón de la Iglesia y sus opciones pastorales, que la mueva a la conversión y que la lleve a releer con cuidado el pacto de las catacumbas para interrogar desde allí su naturaleza pobre, con los pobres y para los pobres.

Die Hilfe für kranke und alte Menschen in der postmodernen Gesellschaft nach Papst Franziskus

The situation of the elderly and ill in the contemporary postmodern society constitutes a serious challenge for contemporary societies as well as for pastoral work of the Church. Reflections of Pope Francis describing the fate of the elderly and ill in the contemporary reality are to be found in the above article. The issue has been discussed in the following subsections: “Competences of the postmodern society towards the elderly and ill” (chapter I); “The significance of the Christian community for the life of the elderly and ill” (chapter II); “The objectives of the pastoral conversation” (chapter III).

‘Pastoral Conversion’: The Reform Programme of Pope Francis

‘Pastoral Conversion’: The Reform Programme of Pope Francis