AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.

In Dialogue : Avery Dulles and Ladislas Orsy continue their conversation about the papacy.

America

| November 25, 2000 | Dulles, Avery; Orsy, Ladislas | COPYRIGHT 2000 All rights reserved. americamagazine.org. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)Copyright

When I discovered that Ladislas Orsy, S.J., had written such a lengthy response (10/21) to my article on the papacy for a global church (7/15), I wondered how I could reply with reasonable brevity. But when I read his piece, I came to realize that I had in effect answered him already, in the very article to which he was responding. Let me explain.

Pope John Paul II in his encyclical on ecumenism (Ut Unum Sint, 1995) invited the leaders and theologians of other churches to make suggestions as to how he might use the resources of his office more effectively for the benefit of all Christians. A host of Catholic reformist theologians seized upon this request as though the pope were inviting them to air their grievances against Rome. Father Orsy in his America article offers a polite version of this genre.

In my article last July I did not presume to speak for representatives of other churches, to whom the pope's request was addressed. I chose rather to respond to some Catholic reform proposals that did not take sufficient account of the new situation of the church in a global age dominated by electronic communications. This situation, I argued, puts new demands on the papal office as well as on regional and diocesan churches within the Catholic communion. The papacy, while it always retains its essential features as the primatial office, has developed dramatically in the past two centuries, especially since the Second Vatican Council.

The council, without in any way cutting back on the power of the papacy, did give new importance to the diocesan and regional churches. I see this move toward a polycentric inculturated church as requiring a stronger office of unity to prevent mutual alienation among Catholics of different regions.

Father Orsy fails to deal with my central thesis. Instead he makes it appear that I am proposing to "freeze" the development and that I am not "open to the new situation." I do indeed call for a strong and energetic papacy, but I also call for lively churches on the local and regional level and for collegial involvement of all the bishops in the concerns of the universal church.

Related articles from newspapers, magazines, journals, and more
The Ratzinger/Kasper debate: the universal church and local churches.
Magazine article from: Theological Studies McDonnell, Kilian June 1, 2002 700+ words
...Kasper on the relation between the universal Church and the local churches is of utmost...complete in itself, and that the universal Church is the result of a reciprocal recognition...with the whole, that is, with the universal Church (no. 9). In every particular church...
Brazilian church builds an international empire.(Universal Church of the...
Magazine article from: The Christian Century Serbin, Ken April 10, 1996 700+ words
...than two decades. In late 1995 the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God gained center...Founded in Brazil in 1977, the Universal Church has hundreds of temples in some 40...the octogenarian Marinho views the Universal Church's rise as a threat to his own multimedia...
Charity Commission publishes report on the Universal Church of the Kingdom of...
Press release article from: M2 Presswire May 12, 2003 700+ words
...Commission publishes report on the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God(C)1994...results of its investigation into the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a North London...3. The formal inquiry into The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (registered...
Universal Church saga: What really happened
Newspaper article from: New York Amsterdam News J. Zamgba Browne August 26, 1995 700+ words
...Zamgba Browne New York Amsterdam News 08-26-1995 Universal Church saga: What really happened. When pastors preach about...churchgoers in everyday life. However, the congregation at the Universal Church in Jamaica has had more than its share of excitement...
Religion booknotes.(Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and Its Reformation...
Magazine article from: Commonweal Cunningham, Lawrence S. September 26, 2008 700+ words
...most vigorous opponent." Four Ways of Holiness for the Universal Church Drawn from the Monastic Tradition Francis, Kline, OCSO...a year after graduation. Four Ways of Holiness for the Universal Church, posthumously published with a loving preface by his friend...
Ecumenism today; the universal church in the 21st century.(Brief article)(Book...
Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News August 1, 2008 700+ words
9780754659617 Ecumenism today; the universal church in the 21st century. Ed. by Francesca Aran Murphy and Christopher Asprey. Ashgate Publishing Co. 2008 222 pages $99.95 Hardcover...
Francesca Aran Murphy and Christopher Asprey, editors, Ecumenism Today: the...
Magazine article from: The Ecumenical Review Fisher, Peter July 1, 2009 700+ words
Francesca Aran Murphy and Christopher Asprey, editors, Ecumenism Today: the Universal Church in the 21st Century, Aldershot, UK & Burlington, USA, Ashgate, 2008, 222 pp, GB 55 [pounds sterling] The essays...
It is just another three o'clock exorcism in the Universal Church of the...
Newspaper article from: Irish Independent (Dublin, Republic of Ireland) May 23, 2009 700+ words
...back . . . but not as we know him, writes Kim Bielenberg It is just another three o'clock exorcism in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A crowd of middle-class Christians, many of them mothers and...
For more facts and information, see all results
©2009 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
About us | FAQs | Contact us | Privacy policy | Terms and conditions
Other Gale sites: Encyclopedia.com | HighBeam Research | Acquire Content | Books & Authors | Goliath | MovieRetriever | Smart QandA