Suchergebnisse

Together with Marsilius of Padua, William of Ockham has been of ten times considered as a thinker whose radicalism, present in its works on Logics, did not
exempt his political writings. The perspective that we have adopted in this
study does not ignore a wider interpretation of his political thinking, in the context
of the dispute related to the Franciscan poverty. Nevertheless, as we have
shown so far, the Franciscan poverty issue cannot be understood without a
brief introduction in the relationship between the canonists and the theologians
of the XIIIth and the XIVth centuries. The method that we have pursued starts with the presentation of the theological and canonical arguments on the issue
of poverty, up to a study focused on some of Ockham's texts such as An princeps,
the Compendium errorum papae Io annis XXII , the Breviloquium de principatu
tyrannico and the Octo quaestiones de potestate papae . Our approach takes into
consideration the fact that Ockham's perspective on the issue of consent must
be placed in the context of the pursuit of ecclesiological truth. As we have asserted
at the beginning of our investigation, one does not find in Ockham a precise
source for the ecclesiological truth. In his perspective, the decretals or even
the Councils of the Church, whose decisions are the expressions of general consent,
do not represent a guarantee for theological truth. The notion of consent,
fundamental for Ockham's political thinking, echoes deeply into the ecclesiological sphere, for example, with reference to the issue of the wows of the Franciscans
and specifically, to the poverty controversy. Because Ockham's texts
have mainly a theological significance, as Arthur P. Monahan justly noticed,
the theme of consent is designated most of ten by the expression of causa fidei
which involves the entire Christian community, and specifically those who
wish to imitate Christ most perfectly.

Marina Caffiero, The Religious Problem
The link between politics and religion during the revolutionary phase has played a central role in Italy but has somehow escaped much scrutiny. The article aims at analyzing this relationship following two research options : first, by examining Catholic reactionary reorganisation in the face of revolutionary rupture ; second, by reviewing the construction of a new civic religion and political theology which offers a key to better understanding the discourse and practice of republican political culture. It is here that the sacred nature and legitimacy of secular power acquire a dimension in which the echo of religious tradition still resounds. In the construction of this new civic religion the political usage of ancient Rome is also at play.

Far from being a monolithic entity, the Catholic Church, in Mexico, as elsewhere, has given rise to numerous schools of thought, often mutually contradictory, sometimes even in conflict with the institution. Among these, liberation theology and indigenous theology have participated in the formation of social movements and national tracts of civil society. The impact of indigenous theology in the diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, is but an example of this. These activisms, to which religion has contributed, are currently considered to be at the forefront of the struggle for democracy and human rights. Yet, they result from combining two political cultures a priori quite distant from the principles of representative democracy: Catholic anti-liberalism, anti-modern by nature, and Marxist-inspired revolutionary leftism. This article seeks first to reconstruct these democratic activists' paradoxical genealogy. It then analyzes their progressive turn towards democratic ideals and the ensuing socio-political consequences. The argument will thus show these movements' ambivalent commitment to democratic principles, as well as their implications for Mexico's current democratization process. Adapted from the source document.

This article aims to explore the conceptual relationship between political and religious identity in XIXth century Romania, according to the writings of Melchisedec Ştefănescu, bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Although his works have been valued mainly as a contribution to the political union of the Romanian Principalities in 1859, we believe that it is necessary to revisit the mainstream of modern Romanian historiography. This endeavor might allow us to understand both its continuities and fractures that undermine the official image of an "organic" evolution between "Romanianess" and Orthodoxy, with important consequences on the definition of Romanian Modernity. Furthermore, we investigate the hypothesis according to which the inconsistencies of Melchisedec Ştefănescu's public discourse (liberal and progressive in the 1850's and reactionary conservative in the 1880's) have a more subtle meaning, suggesting a metamorphosis of the bishop's theological perspective, which seems to evolve from a rationalist approach to a mystical and "national" orthodoxy, preparing thus the way for the emergence of a "Theology of Nation" in interwar Romania.

This paper applies the Church's understanding of the dual nature -in one person- of Christ, human and divine, to the issue of the strained between the Church and the State, within the Creation and the History. This question is approached and analysed through two theological, ecclesiological and canonical categories, alterity (otherness) and communion , which are based on the antinomical conciliar formula of a (comm)union "without confusion and without division". With the help of the systematic and canonical theology of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), it has investigated the Christological question , according to the author, of the relationships between the Church and the State on a global level, in the name of the a double and symmetrical divergence: occurs: on the one hand, the autonomisation of otherness leading to the minorisation of communion, in other words, division and separation between Church and State arising from turning otherness into absolute autonomy (without any communion and relationship); and on the other hand, the alienation of communion causing confusion, and leading to the absorption of otherness , in other words, absorption of the weak locally established Church by the powerful State leading to "confusion" (in the Chalcedonian sense) - without any alterity. In the first case, priority is given to being "without confusion" at the detriment of being "without division" (communion), whereas in the second, we observe the predominance of "without division" and the total abolition of "without confusion" (otherness-autonomy). The author enshrines in Church, Body of Christ, its very nature a combination of alterity (otherness) and communion. He argues that these characteristics are undermined by the twin distortions of State infliction and untamed separation, which are marred the relations between these two entities, the Church and the State. For fifteen centuries now, this conception of relationships between the Church and the State has placed a burden at an ecumenical level. More precisely, the ecclesiological vision of the Council of Chalcedon was the simultaneous coexistence of otherness and communion between State and Church as a clearly paradoxical or antinomial feature of the christological mode of coexistence of the two natures of Christ: the human nature and the divine one. It naturally emerges that the coexistence of Church and State in a given state territory is realised through the acceptance of their ontological and institutional otherness and the preservation of communi(cati)on and relationship among them. Special reference is made to the case of the Political Dimension of the Church Eschatology.

The Russian Church and its loyalty to the Soviet State. Some reflections on the declaration of Metropolitan Serge.
The history of relations between the Soviet State and the orthodox Church is a singular one, in the sense that never before had any political authority gone so far in its attempt at the systematic elimination of all forms of religion. How was the largest religious group in the country able to survive all those years ? This is a question which exercises not only the religious historian but the theologian as well. The purpose of this article is to try to understand, beyond the pragmatic solutions dictated by the urgent need to survive, the fundamental elements constituting the Church's attitude in this new context. Its loyalty to the Soviet State is more than mere coexistence ; the justification for it has a basis in theology. On the other hand, it is interesting to throw some light on the arguments adduced by those firm opponents of the " declaration of loyalty ". Is their " defence of the true Church " theologically justified ?
Before proceeding with this analysis, it is necessary to re-situate this declaration in its context, by going back to the establishment of Soviet power, but also to an examination, however cursory, of the position of the orthodox Church on the eve of the Revolution.