Search Results (8)

The Catholic Church in the United States is no longer a Euro-American church receiving immigrants. Rather, it is an immigrant church, the cross-cultural Body of Christ. Serving such a diverse church is difficult and complex, providing both prophetic and pragmatic challenges for pastoral leaders seeking to build the parish as a dynamic, relational, multicultural community, living out the Gospel of Christ. The challenges of creating vibrant parishes in the light of growing diversity was the subject of a qualitative research study that interviewed more than 500 Catholic pastors, staff, and parishioners, from 40 parishes across the US. This study discovered that, while parishioners from different cultures want the same things—good liturgy, leadership, community, and faith formation—they want it in culturally distinct ways. This has created challenges not previously encountered by parish leaders. Effective leaders in these communities exhibited the skills of adaptive leadership, learning to put aside biases and assumptions, in a synodal style of ministry in which they listen deeply, and respond to, the needs of their faith community while using intercultural competencies. Together, pastoral leaders are becoming bridges, bringing together the faithful across cultures, enriching the life of the community. Full article

Jacques Maritain’s understanding of integral humanism influenced the relationship between Christianity and culture at the Second Vatican Council, yet soon afterward, Maritain recognised that in many instances it was misinterpreted, leading Catholics and Catholic theology to a radical accommodation to secular culture. Yet Maritain continued to believe in his approach as a middle way for Christianity between integralism and liberalism. He responded to these misinterpretations by recalling the pre-political foundations of his new type of humanism and the unquestioning need for holiness to transform the culture. This article revisits Maritain’s integral humanism and restates the importance of the metaphysical foundations he articulates for dialogue with culture and politics but also argues that perhaps Maritain put too much trust in the liberal state to protect Christianity and recognise its usefulness to society. This article enquires furthermore how, in an increasingly secular culture, a more specifically public and ecclesial form of integral humanism may be needed and asks whether this means a new form of integralism. It argues to the contrary but also that to maintain her identity and transformative potential in the culture for all humanity, the Church needs to actively consider how best to connect with both her metaphysical and revelatory sources in Christian faith and manifest these publicly in the culture. It concludes by offering examples of how the Church as a sacrament of salvation in the secular world can witness to Christ at various levels of association and also accept the inevitability of providing a counter-cultural witness. Full article

It is often said that Jacques Maritain, having disavowed his earlier right-wing political views, became a foremost enthusiast for liberalism among the Catholic cognoscenti of the mid-20th century. In this paper, I suggest that there is another reading of Maritain, one found in the thought of T.S. Eliot, whose political thought was, by his own insistence, inspired by his study of Maritain. In Eliot’s reception and use of Maritain, the modern age has not put an end to the traditional Christian teaching that Jesus Christ’s authority must be acknowledged not only by private individuals but by all temporal, political powers. Rather, the complexities of the modern age have brought to the fore the priority of personal holiness—and by extension, the holiness of the Christian community—in establishing a Christian social order over any causal power of legislative or executive acts by political leaders. In developing my case, I indicate that Eliot emphasises the categorically embodied character of the Christian life, and I highlight that the corollary of this observation is that Christian integralists and secular liberals may be falling into precisely the same error, namely the privileging of abstract schemas over existential spiritual and moral transformation. Full article

What is truth? We have entered another period fraught with Gospel confusion—beyond postmodernism to what can be called “post-Christianity”. This is not unusual—so we should not be overwhelmed. This happens periodically, as early as Gal 1:9: “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned”. It is all a question of the Gospel, or put another way, evangelism (the communication or announcing “the good news of God”). Evangelism is proclaiming and living a distinct message of Jesus Christ. Jesus is Himself the embodiment of the “good news”. The Gospel has been challenged, eroded and corrupted over the centuries—yet rediscovered by those who practice exegesis of the Biblical record of the New Testament. This article moves on to look at how secular philosophy—rather than Christian philosophy—and other “forms of the truth” have influenced the current situation we find ourselves in. Full article

Paul’s expression “in the heavenlies” provides an intriguing showcase of the power dynamics of the divine–human relationship (e.g., 1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12). While scholars have identified the theme of union with Christ as an interpretive key for understanding believers’ position in the heavenlies, few have provided adequate attention to “in the heavenlies” according to the significance of theosis. I argue that a patristic idea of theosis offers an interpretive lens in understanding believers’ lives in the heavenlies. Thus, this study aims to situate the discussion on the heavenlies vis-à-vis the conversation around theosis in the New Testament. Full article

This essay proposes a new interpretation of the Pauline expression to “clothe” (ἐνδύω) oneself in Christ (Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10). The phrase has been understood in terms of putting on virtues and godly characteristics. Other understandings of this phrase appear in terms of a new identity (Gal 3:27). There has been relatively limited study, however, on the significance of clothing and how different racial groups were known and characterized by their dress. Clothing was not just something that one “puts on” to protect the body from the elements or analogously understood in terms of adopting virtues. Clothing was a racial signifier, and the putting on or taking off of clothing signaled a racial transformation. The ability to “put on clothes” would have been understood in terms of the malleable nature of racial identity. By drawing on the insights of Herodotus, Aeschylus, Plutarch, and other Greek and Roman writers, this reading proposes a racial interpretation of Paul’s “clothing” phrases in Romans 13:14, Galatians 3:27, Ephesians 4:24, and Colossians 3:10. This essay explores the interpretation of these Pauline passages in contemporary scholarship, describes how the changing of clothing also signified a change of racial identity, and lastly, demonstrates how these insights can impact our understanding of the Pauline expression to “clothe oneself in Christ”. Full article

The Catholic Church has a long history of conducting schools as part of its mission to evangelize. This paper will contend that in order for teachers to implement the evangelistic mission of Catholic schools, they themselves need an integral formation that puts every dimension of their human nature—body, emotions, will, and intellect—in ongoing communion with Christ and His Church. A brief examination of the impact of secularization in the United States on the Catholic school mission indicates that teachers are inadequately formed to fulfill that mission. Contemplative practice, a common faith formation practice used for Catholic school teachers, will be evaluated as insufficient for achieving its goal because it does not fully account for the way God created human beings. Contemplative practice relies heavily on the work of John Dewey, who applied inadequate anthropological principles to the task of human learning and teacher education. By contrast, faith formation efforts that account for human nature engage both the intellectus and the ratio, and in so doing engage the teacher’s whole integrated person. Teacher faith formation can facilitate the teacher’s encounter with God, allowing Him to form her, by providing analogical encounters with Him through the transcendentals and sacramental encounters with Him in the liturgy. Full article

Genealogical research is full of opportunities for connecting generations. Millions of people pursue that purpose as they put together family trees that span hundreds of years. These data are valuable in linking people to the people of their past and in developing personal identities, and they can also be used in other ways. The purposes of this paper are to first give a short history of the development and practice of family history and genealogical research in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has developed the FamilySearch website, and second, to show how genealogical data can illustrate forward generation migration flows across the United States by analyzing resulting patterns and statistics. For example, descendants of people born in several large cities exhibited distinct geographies of migration away from the cities of their forebears. Full article