Repositório RCAAP

The Book of Job was widely used and commented on by the Church Fathers, in different manners and with varying aims. When the first commentators once more took up the topos Job, it had already enjoyed a long interpretative tradition which, from the version of the LXX to the Testamentum Jobi, prepared the ground for a rich and ‘free’ patristic interpretation. This tradition reconciled the two great representations of Job: on the one hand, the extra-Biblical Job and the legend, on the other, the Biblical patriarch. The symbolic and paradigmatic density of this personality has ended up by weighing heavily on the hermeneutic of the text itself. All of this, in a continuous effort to ‘update’ the figure of Job at each moment and in each circumstance. The aim is to show this in these brief notes on the reception of Job in the patristic tradition.

In Christian anthropology Christ illumines and interprets the whole mystery of Man (cf. Gn 22), including his sinful condition from the outset. From the 1990s onwards, starting from a christological (and soteriological) centrality, contemporary systematic theology has been in the process of revising the doctrine of original sin. The sense of the title, “From Christ to Adam”, seeks to mark out this hermeneutical inversion. It is in the light of Christ, “the last man”, that we are to come to an understanding of the sinful condition of Adam. This article is structured around three points: based above all on the New Testament (especially Paul) and starting from the antithetical parallel between Adam and Christ, the first places particular emphasis on the excellence of Christ; the second presents some of the significant contributions from contemporary theology on the revision of original sin, with particular reference to the latin world; the third echoes this hermeneutic inversion in the recent Magisterium of the Church (Catechism of the Catholic Church, German Episcopate and Benedict XVI).

Myth is one of the cornerstones of Raimon Panikkar’s thought. This dimension should be considered in the broader context of rehabilitation of myth and of the debate around demythologisation. Panikkar actually approaches the issue in quite an original way: (1) by proposing a sui generis notion of myth as horizon of sense and intelligibility; (2) by highlighting the difference between mythos and logos, an essential element in Panikkar’s critique of the logical monism that dominates Western culture; (3) by pointing out the deep connection between myth and symbol; and (4) by recognising the existence of a mobility and plasticity in myth, which makes him talk about “transmythisation” and “remythisation” instead of demythologisation. In this paper, I try to present these four aspects of Panikkar’s understanding of myth.

Starting from the relationship between the concept of devotion and a particular way of relating to reality, even in thought, this article explores the difference between two fundamental attitudes: the one of control and the other of attention. Biblical-Christian spirituality is located within the second, making it possible to overcome a certain controlling tendency in modernity but also new spiritualities concentrated on the affirmation and happiness of the ‘self’. The ultimate aim, in the sense of affirming a devotional attitude as a way of being, recovers the spirituality of Genesis, at humanity’s opening to the free gift on the seventh day or Sunday of Creation. This attitude – which implies acceptance of the mortal and vulnerable condition of being human – leaves behind once and for all any Promethean pretensions of the modern individual and of a Europe centred on itself.

The dissemination of Protestantism in Oporto and Vila Nova de Gaia in the second half of the nineteenth century led to a heated Catholic-Protestant debate in the context of the development of the Oporto Catholic movement. The controversy came to a head in 1878/79 following the pastoral instruction on Protestantism given by the then Bishop of Oporto, Américo Ferreira dos Santos Silva. The Protestant reply issued forth from the pens of Robert Kelly and Guilherme Dias. The Catholic counter-reply relied on the bluntness of Sena Freitas and the argumentative serenity of Manuel Filipe Coelho. The present study contextualises and presents this debate in its fundamental issues, namely with regard to the Holy Scripture, seeing that the sola scriptura and Protestant free examination were not well received in Catholic circles, where the very dissemination of the Bible in the vernacular was a matter for reserve. Rather than a point of convergence between Catholics and Protestants, the Bible was, at the time, a basis for division in public confrontation.

We return here to an old enigma – the reconciliation of faith and reason – which has tormented philosophical argument and theological conscience, from the Church Fathers to the present. Opting for a dialogical rather than conciliar model of faith and reason, this essay follows various lines of reflection: it contrasts the rationality of faith with philosophical and scientific rationality, it focuses on believing subjectivity, it questions living with dogma and accepts an experience of revelation as acceptance of the other.

Saint Theresa has always remembered the singular position of the Humanity of Christ in the way of true union with God. She finds support in the security offered by the great saints of the Christian tradition; but she emphasises the force with which one approaches Saint Paul, and discovers him, not as the thinker who seeks to understand the mysteries of the Christian faith, but as an the apostle in love with Christ, who having Him ever present in his life, opens himself to his mystery derived from faith, understood above all as the key to personal fulfilment in the same way as Christ shows in giving his life for us.

We may safely say that the Spirit that illumines and guides Biblical authors is the same as leads writers to communicate to others the blessings that they have received. And the God that communicates to them guides them to express themselves biblically, with strong resonances of what they hear and read in the Bible. As this study tries to show, Teresa is a typical case of this search and syntony with the word of the Scriptures, for “she did not wish [to speak of herself] but to know if in all she did she was in accordance with the Holy Scripture” (CC 53,). Lamenting that the Church of her time forbade ordinary people to read the Bible, Teresa lamented that “women too remain so far from enjoying the riches of the Lord” (Mk 1,8). And, defying all dangers, she set herself to write her “meditations” on the Song of Songs for women. Furthermore, she founded her doctrine on friendship-prayer, her theology and anthropology, on the Lord’s Prayer, compendium of the Scriptures, “the book they cannot take away from us”, she says, criticising the masculine hierarchical Church. Now, as Teresa says, understanding Scripture is a labour of love, for in it God’s love towards humanity is revealed to us.

The aim of this study was primarily to carry out an internal reading of the presence of certain Augustinian themes in the work of Theresa of Ávila. To this end, texts were identified from among Saint Theresa’s work in which Saint Augustin and some of the most significant themes of his thinking were present, in order to justify the Augustinian influence that was a generating source of the existential and spiritual evolution of the great Spanish mystic. A reading of the Confessions shows itself to have been not only a great source of autobiographical motivation, but also a source of inspiration in the writing of her own work, with repercussions in certain of the most significant moments of the Book of Life, of The Road to Perfection and of The Interior Castle. In this sense, it has been possible to show, in parallel, how in the genesis of comparative studies begun in the 19th century, on the various analogies between Saint Augustin and Saint Theresa, Theresa of Ávila’s Augustinian filiation has come to enrich the library not only of Theresian studies but also of Augustinian studies.

Teresa de Jesus attended no university but all recognise in her a more than average culture. She was always anxious to learn and reading was her favourite pastime. To this tendency we must add the relations she maintained with the greatest theologians of her time, whom she sought out of personal necessity. Teresa was conscious of the divorce between theologians and spiritualists and wished to remedy this great evil. All were losing by maintaining the situation. From divorce it passed on to attack, and the inquisition fell into the hands of the theologians, with the latter subsequently persecuting the spiritualists. Teresa confesses to being a friend of the ‘lettered’. As well as this culture acquired through her friendly, intimate relations with certain theologians, from the school of prayer Teresa learnt a science that she did not find in books. The Living Book is her Master.

In search of an answer to the question posed in the title, this study turns to the laws of the Pentateuch, Proverbs and the books of Amos and Isaiah 1-39, and concludes that expressed within them are two ethical systems, of which Yahweh is the originator, foundation and guarantor. One is based on the creation, the work of Yahweh, and intrinsically universal. It is the only one to be found in the earliest sapiential writings and in the discourse of Amos and Isaiah. The other is based on the relations between Yahweh and his people Israel, and intrinsically particular. It is expressed above all in the laws of the Pentateuch, but also in the historical books and in some of the prophetic books. The author ends by making a plea for an ‘updating’ of the universal ethical system.

Both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have warned of the need for a ‘governance’ that a certain globalisation may call into question. Having stated the need for a governance of globalisation, what contribution can the Church’s social doctrine make? It is to this question that I seek an answer. The truth is that the Church has at its disposition both solid reflection and a doctrine that can and should help in shaping an increasingly urgent global conscience and responsibility.

Using the methodology of See-Judge-Act to understand the structure of Laudato Si’, this article argues that caring for creation and for justice for the poor are interrelated and constitute the fundamental contents of the encyclical letter, which has become a present-day point of reference for the Church’s social doctrine. In parallel with this, the author briefly presents the ecumenical social ethic and studies how these two fundamental contents have been studied in it. The author shows similarities and focuses on climatic justice, a key to the ecumenical social ethic but absent as such in Laudato Si’. The article concludes with a number of reactions from other Christian leaders to the encyclical and concrete action on this theme by Christian churches.

In the light of both the Jubilee of Mercy (2016) and the Encyclical Laudato Si’, this article analyses some global ethical challenges which reflect an unmerciful world and makes some suggestions for a new lifestyle based on mercy, gratuitousness, fraternity, and the common good. It is emphasized that the human family “is the first and most important school of mercy”. We need to put into practice that kind of merciful relationships which we usually experience at home during childhood and that help us to discover the real face of our heavenly Father. The future of our common home depends on it.

We know that the present Pope, in adopting the name of Francis, wished not only to commemorate the patron saint of Italy, but above all to put forward a programme of renewal for the Church and for the world. The encyclical Laudato Si’ confirms this for any that were still in doubt. Drawing inspiration from the saint whom Pope John Paul II proclaimed as patron of ecology, the Holy Father takes up the tradition of the Franciscan school to propose once more to all a new relation with the creatures of our ‘common home’. The present article seeks to revisit the essential elements of Franciscan ecology that prove to be of such present relevance.

Globalization, whose processes are complex and spill over into many socio- cultural environments, imposes itself as the backdrop of contemporary life. It has shown one possibility in the dream of the human family, but, at the same time, has given life to fundamentalist ideologies that seem to vindicate those that sustain the impossibility of realizing a mode of living together with difference. And yet, there is no alternative to a meeting of cultures. In this sense, the responsibility of theology is more than evident: the Christian message about freedom and justice for all, in the development of a culture of recognising others in their being other. In line with this, the process of communication of the Gospel moves in the terrain of an intercultural existence that, while it affirms the potential universality of cultures and religions, invites them to a reciprocal openness, in a fertile tension that values truth, solidarity and love.

The publication of the encyclical Laudato Si’ is opportune in reminding us of the urgency of the ecological crisis that has becom of the theology of the creation that Pope Francis proposes, it is important to analyse the conditions for a fertile reception of the magisterial text. For Africa two important points help: the religious heritage of the various traditions and the current economic- -political context. Without bringing about a complete fusion of cosmologies, the idea of a harmonious reconciliation of God, of humanity and of the world brings together the theoanthropocosmic conception so current in African religious traditions. For Christian theology, it is in Jesus Christ that this reconciliation is realized since the salvation that is accomplished in him is the reality of creation renewed. It is in this link between creation and salvation that African theology should find the bases of its approach to the ecological crisis.e a global concern. In the light

This article aims to show how Christianity and the Churches of Africa continue to be victims of forms of colonialism that have prevented them from affirming themselves as the true incarnation of the Gospel. Continuing to bear the heavy burden of their history, the African churches face the always difficult challenge of fidelity to the Gospel and to the peoples and cultures of Africa. Only stemming from this will it be possible to speak of a true African Christian ethic, in the same way as we have spoken for centuries of a Christian ethic stemming from Mediterranean Europe.

The public space of democratic societies is a ‘place’ of action and of discourse. What a social actor does or says there depends, to a large extent, on his own representation of the relationship that exists between the group to which he belongs and the body politic of which he is part. Is this relationship one of conflict? Or is it rather based on mutual esteem? Does it go as far as collaboration? We can see, the representation of the relationship between the institution of belonging and the body politic is at the heart of what in rhetoric is termed as the discourse situation. It is through the ‘discourse situation’, in other words through the circumstances and context that in their way shape any form of discourse, that I will approach the issue of ecclesial discourse in the public space. In this text, I have two objectives: 1) to show an awareness of the changes that have marked ecclesial representations of the relationship Church/ body politic with and after Vatican Council II; 2) to demonstrate how public ecclesial discourse has adjusted to these changes. To do so, I will proceed in three steps: firstly, I will summarily define what I understand by ‘public space’; secondly, I will cast an eye on the Catholic theories of the relationships Church/body politic following Vatican II; lastly, I will show how these theoretical shifts have effectively led, in their turn, to shifts in ecclesial discourse.

This essay provides an analysis of the concept and phenomena of secularization, arguing that Christianity in its radical message and experience is not, in any sense, secularizable. After a conceptual survey and the consequent first definition of secularization as desacralization, we focus on Hegel’s Verweltlichung and its consequences in Hegelians and later Hegelianism, as well as confronting them with the Catholic Christian view. Finally we evaluate the concept of secularization from an etymological point of view, while examining the concept thus redefined (as linear time and as related to the temporal order) in the Gospels. The present essay offers a reconsidered discussion on philosophy and Christianity at a historical moment so removed from any spiritual path.