Autor: McCarthy, Michael

Buch: Workshop Rome 2001

Titel: Theological Reflection and Christian Renewal

Stichwort: Geschichtlicher Kontext für das Vatikanum II, Gaudium et Spes, Lumen Gentium; Merkmale dieser Zeit

Kurzinhalt: The Historical Context, Aggiornamento, Hauptinhalt von Gaudium et Spes, Aufzählung von Merkmalen unserer Zeit;

Textausschnitt: () The end of their colonial empires meant the decline of European political and cultural hegemony and the gradual emergence of the Third World.
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By any standard of measurement, the post-war world was the scene of extraordinary change, international, political, socio-economic and cultural. Most importantly, the pace of change itself accelerated under the pressure of scientific research, technological innovation and mass communications.
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The world as a whole was undergoing profound transformation; the Roman Church appeared content with a public posture that was essentially defensive and immobile.
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Humani Generis of 1950, Pope Pius XII deliberately chose to emphasize the immutability of Catholic dogma, the authority of the papal magisterium, the inerrancy of scripture, the timeless validity of traditional scholasticism, and the constant need to protect Catholic orthodoxy.
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The post-Tridentine separation between Catholicism and modern intellectual and political culture had unfortunate and unintended consequences. It led the Roman Church into a one-sided opposition to the modern age, and it led to an equally onesided secularism within important sectors of modern culture.
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The modern age is marked by economic abundance and scandalous deprivation, by material progress and spiritual decline, by increasingly rapid communication and diminished public understanding, by deep religious aspirations and unprecedented atheism and secularism. Particularly disturbing are the terrible inequalities, economic, political and cultural, that divide the human race.
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The first part of Gaudium et Spes articulates the biblical anthropology that underlies the Church's ethical and political vision. The Council affirms the dignity and worth of every human being created in the image and likeness of God. ... The true condition of the human race is that our personal and public lives reflect the created image of God in a sinful and distorted manner.
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In the second part of Gaudium et Spes, the Council applies these anthropological and ethical principles to five critical areas of contemporary life: marriage and the family; the Church and culture; socio-economic activity; the political community; international order and peace. The troubling contradictions of modernity are present in these interrelated domains where genuine achievement and serious disorder are inextricably knotted together.
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Reliance on these principles enabled the Council to make critical evaluative judgments about the state of the modern world, to distinguish repeatedly between evidence of genuine progress and signs of unwelcome decline. By themselves, these normative principles were insufficient to generate practical and effective remedies for the institutional and cultural disorders they clearly identified.
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