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This article seeks to investigate the reasons why, throughout the last century, in the field of pastoral theology, recourse to accounts of life in the earliest Christian communities proved to be so successful as an instrument for constructing the figure of the Church in the present and the future. An analysis of two paradigmatic cases serves as a starting point for a reading of the question that here is fundamental: how to construct the hermeneutic operation that enables Christianity to inhabit a culture and to proclaim its message. The article concludes by pointing to the purpose of all this methodological reflection: to provide Christianity with instruments to inhabit urban culture and its transformations. An example is given: the efforts of the Diocese of Milan, during the incumbency of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini.

Interest in life stories of ordinary people is becoming more and more widespread since the XIX century (in fields like literature, history, sociology, arts, and so on). Does this matter interest in any way theology? The author, after introducing briefly the methods using life stories in sociology and making reference to Paul Ricoeur, proposes three possible ways of using those stories in theology. In fact, such use can help us: firstly, to understand people that we meet at a pastoral level; secondly, to re-examine a classical theological question, taking into account the experience of Christians; thirdly, to contribute to the formation of active participants in the Church. The author insists particularly on the second aspect, by referring to his doctoral thesis. He proposes a way of proceeding that consists of going back and forth between commentaries of the Bible and commentaries of life stories, around a theological question.

What is the social doctrine of the Church in the constitution of a system of social action? Do religious beliefs structure a way of life, as suggested by an analysis of Max Weber in The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism? This article seeks to show how Max Weber thought and presented the factors that favour a rational practice whose paradigm is ‘the worldly asceticism of Protestantism’ articulating this thought with the way in which the Church’s social doctrine induces a conduct of life in society.

One of the challenges set by feminist theologies, following the path of political and liberation theologies, consists in the recognition that there can be no knowledge without examining the perspective of whence it comes. As such, human experience, in the case of feminist theologies, the experience of believing women, constitutes the place whence comes its discourse about God. The present text seeks to equate the various forms of relating these experiences with plural theological discourses, as well as the impact of these discourses for the identity of the Church itself.

Current understanding of sacramental theology comes close to the patristic mens, because it broadens the range of meaning of the term and of the notion of sacrament in relation to the sacramental septenary. In truth, sacramental theology has refound its salvation-historical dimension and contributed to overcoming an ‘individualistic’ vision of the sacrament as a ‘means of grace’, in favour of the ecclesial conception of liturgical celebration. Sacramentality is not only a sector of theology, but particularly a dimension that traverses theology in all its aspects. In tackling this theme, the present article analyses the work of four contemporary writers: Odo Casel, Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx and Louis-Marie Chauvet, considered as particularly expressive authors for an examination of the theological-liturgical-sacramental question.

Joseph Ratzinger shows that it is only through the witness of those that have known Jesus directly and have interpreted Him in the light of faith that we gain access to Him as a real figure, just as he existed in history, the true ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. In this way it is possible to overcome the rationalist separation between the ‘historical Jesus’ and the ‘Christ of faith’.

The theological debate about the Trinity presents, in the contemporary period, a remarkable vitality. Commonly perceived as a kind of «celestial theorem», the trinitarian doctrine has come, with the contribution of the theological reflection, to recover an existencial centrality correspondent to the centrality that has always enjoyed in the Symbol of the christian faith. This article intends to present an overview of the contemporary renewal of the trinitarian theology, in three moments: 1. describing the theological context in which this renewal takes place; 2. systematizing the most significant acquisitions of this theological renewal; and 3. opening possible perspectives for further reflection.

This study constitutes a record of the argumentation used by Joseph Ratzinger in his treatise on eschatology and of his contribution to the deconstruction of an assumed presupposition in eschatology, particularly in the context of Protestant theology, but which has also found considerable adherence in Catholic theology, according to which Christian eschatology owes something to schemes of Greek thinking. In his attempt do deplatonise eschatology, Ratzinger came progressively to the view that ecclesial feeling is critically separate from the Greek scheme of things and that in its anthropological conception of the soul-body relationship it is essentially Christian, thus underlining the novelty of the Christian concept of Man in his metaphysical constitution, with considerable consequences for eschatology and very particularly for intermediate eschatology. Ecclesial feeling emerges as a theological criterion and a principle of verification of the truth or untruth of theories. The present text seeks to emphasise the contribution of Ratzinger’s study to eschatology, as much from the point of view of method as from the systematic point of view.

With his different statements to the question of a new evangelisation in the profoundly pluralistic European context, to the question of the Church-State relationship between separation and cooperation and to the question of the contribution of the Church to European political ethics Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI has designed a very comprehensive and consistent theological and pastoral concept that deserves full attention inside and outside the Church.

What is the specifically political meaning of Benedict XVI’s pontificate? Throughout his life, this Pope has offered a number of deep reflections on political issues broadly understood. His originality seems to reside in his concern with the role of Catholics as Catholics in Western countries where religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, is in retreat. In the second part of this short essay I explore the work of John of Salisbury, which was recommended by the Pope himself, and try to make certain parallels between the political thought of both.

O artigo apresenta os antecedentes do actual recurso às ciências sociais pela exegese bíblica, que alcança o seu apogeu a partir de 1970. O pressuposto básico deste horizonte metodológico é a necessidade de explicitar os modelos teóricos com que nos avizinhamos dos textos e assinalar os que se ajustam melhor à sua natureza. Descrevem-se com numerosos exemplos as ferramentas da antropologia cultural, da sociologia e da psicologia social. Por fim alinham-se algumas pistas hermenêuticas sobre as repercussões para uma consideração crente e teológica dos textos.

The present article begins by listing the most important Bible editions currently circulating among Christians in Brazil. Although some editions are more present in some churches than others, there are certain editions that circulate among Christians of various churches, and hence they have not been presented as being Catholic, or Protestant or Evangelical. Among the editions mentioned, eight have been selected either because they have greater circulation or because of some other factor that makes them important. The text of Jn 1,1-5 of the chosen editions is presented for comparison among them. These comparisons lead not so much to conclusions as to a series of observations in respect of these editions. In any case, it emerges clearly that we are dealing here with an important area of research with regard to the history of reception of the Biblical text in Brazil.

A meditation on the nature of the image and on the room for liberty and for interpretation that it establishes, the nature of which is precarious and controversial. It is a matter of some urgency to reflect on the conditions in which visibilities are currently created and sustained by the industries of production of the visible and to raise questions regarding the original political condition of ‘sharing the visible’. In the midst of so many images, will there not be ever fewer images (worthy of the name)?

It is the question of the experience and visibility of the Christian faith, in a cultural context that makes the exercise and transmission of it particularly difficult, that has led to this study of the constellation formed by the theologians Sequeri, Rizzi and Theobald. In their work it is underlined how affective resonance, ethical appeal and relational style are, in fact, significant, operative features of faith in Jesus of Nazareth.On the practical attention that we now give them, both on a theological and anthropological level, may depend the necessary reparation of the affinity between the Christian event and the basic places and rhythms of human existence.

The present study, which is based on the principle of unity that is formed between the two components of the Eucharistic celebration – Word and Eucology –, develops a methodological proposition implicitly contained in Sacrosanctum Concilium, 56. Examining the texts individually, research leads to a unitary vision of the celebration. The Mass is presented not as the sum of the individual parts that constitute it, but as the fruit of an ecclesial reflection that unites the liturgical theology of the celebration in the bringing together of texts inspired by the Holy Spirit. The components thus come together in a new context, within which they retain their original value, but acquire a new, unique significance: that of celebration. Through a bibliographical search among post-Conciliar texts we may conclude that an analysis of the Mass as a unit is only marginally touched upon. Scholars limit themselves to going into two aspects: the scriptural and the eucological. The present contribution thus puts forward a novelty: it establishes the methodological coordinates for an analysis of that which is a single act of worship (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 56).

The Holy Vine of David in its theological exploration, requires greater nurture of its soil, so that the fruits of reflection, harvested from selected vines, might be savoured in a multiple reading of spiritual aromas. The present work by Joaquim O. Bragança does not seek to make known a vine belonging to a demarcated region, somewhere among the sunny slopes of Israel, but to deepen the sense of a theological-liturgical expression, formulated in Chapter IX (n.º 2) of the Didache: “We thank You, our Father, for the holy vine of Your servant David… which was revealed through Jesus”. Following preliminary observations, concerned with the philological significance of certain terms and on the nature of the Eucharistic prayers of Chapters 9 and 10 of the Didache, the subject is treated in a more detailed fashion in the patristic literature of the 2nd and 3rd centuries: in the writings of Hermas, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyon, Hypollitus of Rome and, though briefly, in the celebrated apocryphal book of the Dormition of Mary (ms. Vatican Greek 1982). The hermeneutics of the texts permit the author to capture the significance of various determinations and relations concerning the Holy Vine of David, and to conclude that many of the messages of a theological and spiritual nature continue to this day to be of considerable importance.

The discovery, cataloguing, publishing and study of fragments of mediaeval codices is a vital area for a greater knowledge of liturgical traditions. For the Use of Braga it is essential, since most of the codices that led to its origin and even of the period in which it was constituted, have sadly been lost. Bearing in mind a recognised and renewed interest, the present article provides an overview, in chronological order, short but up-to-date, with regard to the liturgical fragments of Braga. It takes into account the work of António de Vasconcelos, Justo Pérez de Urbel, Germán Prado, Avelino de Jesus, Pierre David, Solange Corbin, Jorge Barbosa, Jordan, Romano Rocha, Joaquim Bragança, Joaquim Félix and, lastly, Manuel Pedro Ferreira, who is currently coordinating a project involving inventorying and making digital photographs of the manuscripts with musical notation.

The discursive genre is the depositary of the memory of a community brought together in the output of pronouncements and texts. What is at issue in this text is not the homily as a literary genre as such, but its operativity, its instances of pronouncement. The homily is not just a genre, given the multiple forms of discourse with which it has manifested itself in the course of history. To preach is to translate, to illuminate, more than to explain or to communicate. It is the idea of locutio that is missing, the work of the mystagogy, in the absence of interlocution. Where is the new word at which Dante hinted and about which Master Eckhart preached?

The present article follows a diachronic and typological framework, on which to base the notion of ministeriality, showing a hermeneutic of the continuity of ordained ministry well defined in the local church with the figure of the bishop, surrounded by the priests and aided by the deacons, simultaneously emphasising the sacramental nature of ministry in union with Christ and the Church. This theological-liturgical study demonstrates that the differences in the laying on of hands are, in themselves, revealing of the different relationships between ministries. Thus the bishop is a member of the episcopal college, the priests the bishop’s council and members of the priesthood, and the deacon is at the service of the bishop. In truth, the sacrament of Order establishes an intimate relationship between liturgical celebration and the theology of the sacrament itself. From celebration is born ministry and, in its turn, ministry determines celebration. An understanding of the liturgy, as a celebration of the mysteries of faith ‘per ritus et preces’, makes it possible to attain the profound truth of the ordained ministries.

‘Liturgical Theology’ was born at the beginning of the 20th century, with the Liturgical Movement. How did this new area come about in the framework of the history of reflection on the faith? A brief historical outline on the genesis of the Liturgical Movement and a presentation of two of its protagonists (Columba Marmion and Lambert Beauduin) lead us to the figure of António Coelho, principal promoter of the ideals of the Liturgical Movement in Portugal and to his Liturgical Theology. Reflecting on the ‘why?’ of the existence of worship and ‘what’ is its efficacy in the complex issues surrounding faith, A. Coelho gives two responses to the liturgical question: the first is found in his Curso de Liturgia Romana; the second in his sermons, for which reason he may be considered a ‘mystagogue’ of liturgy.