Sekret Credo (The Secret of Creed)

Roczniki Teologiczne, 2018

University of Malta. Faculty of Theology, 2019

This article examines two fundamental ecclesiological questions in light of the confession “credo in unam ecclesiam,” which is one of the marks of the Church —indeed, it has first place in the list of marks: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic—in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (A.D. 381). This confession can mean two things. First, it can mean that there is only one Church, not many churches, and this oneness then refers to the unicity of the one and only Church in which many individual churches are united in Trinitarian communion, the unity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Second, it can mean that the Church possesses inner unity, meaning thereby as Walter Cardinal Kasper explains, “being undivided, and thus the identity of the Church with itself and the unanimity in the Church.” Now, I shall examine the unicity of the Church and her inner unity by addressing two questions: “What is the Church? But also: Where is the Church and where is she realized in her fullness?” These questions will be considered in light of the ecclesiology of the Dutch master of dogmatic and ecumenical theology, G.C. Berkouwer (1903-1996), and Walter Kasper (1933-), the Roman Catholic theologian, cardinal, and the former President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (2001-2010). The article proceeds in the following manner. First, I consider the views of Berkouwer and Kasper on the unicity and hence unity of the Church as well as the concrete place where the Church is realized in all her fullness. Especially important in making their views clear is understanding the distinctions they make between unity and uniformity, division and diversity, and complementary and contradictory differences in ecclesiological epistemology. Second, Catholic teaching holds that “[j]ust as in Jesus Christ, God has taken form not in any general humanity, but by becoming concretely ‘this’ man Jesus of Nazareth, it is analogously true that the fullness of salvation revealed in Jesus Christ is also present in a concrete visible form” in the Catholic Church. This scandal of ecclesiological particularity in this concrete Church “provokes opposition in other churches and church communities.” Third, I will respond to this opposition that is expressed in the charge, for example, that the Catholic Church’s ecclesiology has the tendency to “assimilate Christology into ecclesiology,” or make “the church . . . constitutive of the Son’s identity’s as are the Father and the Spirit.” In sum, the main aim of this paper is to provide an answer to the question regarding ecclesial unity and diversity within the one Church of Jesus Christ.

Bogoslovni vestnik, 2020

The lives of the saints are a true "hagiophany". Through them "God vividly manifests His presence and His face to men" (LG 50). This paper deals with the relation between God and the human being as it is manifested in the notion of sanctity. It first stresses divine filiation as the right frame (by contrast with anthropocentric perspectives) to understand this relation and then reflects on the Christological character of holiness and martyrdom. From this perspective, the relation of the human being with God comes out with interesting nuances and reveals the close unity of ethos, worship and history that it involves. The saint bears in his ontological constitution the forma Christi.

Jacek Woroniecki, 2019

Jacek Adam Woroniecki – a Polish priest, a Dominican, theologian, pedagogue, philosopher, Scholastic, ethicist and moralist. He was born on 21 December 1878 in Lublin and died on 18 May 1949 in Krakow. In 1892 he started attending the 4th Junior High School and Secondary School for Boys in Warsaw. Then he studied natural science, as well as theology and philosophy in the Swiss Fribourg. After obtaining the bachelor’s degree in theology, he joined the Theological Seminary in Lublin. In 1909 he defended his doctoral thesis on theology at the University of Fribourg, and then he joined the Dominican order, fulfilling the novitiate in San Domenico di Fiesole near Florence. In 1911, in Dusseldorf, he took perpetual vows. In 1914 he started giving lectures on ethics at the Dominican monastery in Krakow. In 1919 he was given the post of the professor of moral theology and ethics at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). In 1922-1924 he performed the function of the rector of KUL, and in 1928 he became a vice-rector of that university. In 1929 he became the head of the chair of moral theology of Angelicum in Rome, and a year later he obtained the highest scientific degree in the Dominican order – the Master of Saint Theology. In 1932 he founded the Congregation of the Dominican Missionary Sisters of Jesus and Mary. From 1933 he was the rector of the Dominican Philosophical and Theological Study in Lviv, where he taught moral theology, patrology and the history of the Church. In 1937–1939 he taught at the General Study in Warsaw, where he also worked as the editor of the magazine entitled “Szkoła Chrystusowa” [Christ’s School]. When the Second World War broke out, he was in Krakow and he remained there until his death. Due to his worsening health, he focused on writing books on philosophy, paying special attention to ethics, pedagogy and the history of the Church. Rev. Jacek Adam Woroniecki OP was buried in Krakow, at the Rakowicki cemetery, and in 1960 his remains were moved to St. Hyacinth’s Church in Warsaw. The most important books of Rev. Jacek Woroniecki include: “Katolicka etyka wychowawcza” [The Catholic Educational Ethics] (vol. I–III); “Katolickość tomizmu” [The Catholicity of Thomism]; “Św. Jacek Odrowąż i wprowadzenie zakonu kaznodziejskiego do Polski” [St. Hyacinth Odrowaz and Bringing the Order of Preachers to Poland]; “Pełnia modlitwy” [The Fullness of Prayer]; “Tajemnica Miłosierdzia Bożego” [The Mystery of the Divine Mercy]; “Królewskie kapłaństwo” [The Royal Priesthood]; “Około kultu mowy ojczystej” [On the Cult of Homeland Language]; “U podstaw kultury katolickiej” [The Basics of the Catholic Culture]; “Umiejętność rządzenia i rozkazywania” [The Ability to Rule and Command]. The thought of Woroniecki was strongly influenced by the person and texts of St. Thomas Aquinas whose ideas are reflected in almost all of his writings. Because of the universal nature and the social (team) way of practising Thomism, Woroniecki treated it as a complete system which is a synthesis of the whole heritage of human thought. At the same time, he emphasized that this system is cognitively open to what is true in any other manner of philosophising. In ethics he emphasized the role of the aim of human action, i.e. God, which is transcendent as compared to social conditions. He also believed that morality is an area related to education. In his opinion, the key to moral shaping of the man, i.e. encouraging him to acquire constant abilities (virtues) to do good, is the process of self-education focused on the integration of various levels of the man’s personal life: the intellectual, volitive and emotional level. Also, Woroniecki’s philosophical interests concentrated around social philosophy, especially the issues of justice, ruling, state and nation.

Science of Salvation and Everlasting Life. The Ecclesial Vocation of Theology, 2022

Fr Sorin Şelaru (Bucharest, Romania) takes up an expression often used by HB Patriarch Daniel of Romania in his writings which deepens the ecclesial vocation of theology as “the science of salvation and everlasting life.” For this purpose, the author underlines the theological mission of episcopal ministry as presented in the Church canons, confessions, and the Liturgy of the Church. He emphasizes the relationship between dogma and experience, the apophatic dimension, and the spiritual character of the theology lived as a humble exercise in expressing the inexpressible and directly linked to the experience of prayer, ascetic and sacramental life in the Church.

Roczniki Teologiczne

The article presents the history of theological and religious research conducted by the Institute of Fundamental Theology, Faculty of Theology at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. In particular, it highlights the contribution of the Institute’s employees to contemporary theological and religious research questions as well as presents their publication output. Their main research achievements include: the innovative association of the concept of religion and its theologically understood truthfulness with its genesis (the theory of the revelatory origin of religion); the original concept of theology of religion as an interdiscipline; the possibility to justify the plurality of religion de iure while maintaining the unique status of Christianity among the world religions; the close relationship between the theology of religion and fundamental theology in justifying this uniqueness, especially in discussions with representatives of the pluralist-relativistic theology of re...

The Spirit that Guides: Discernment in the Bible and Spirituality, Acta Theologica Supplementum vol. 17, 2013

This article explores Pavel Florenskij's dialectical method as the preferred way to discern spiritual truth. It presents the Russian polymath's method within his sociopolitical and ecclesiastical contexts and two of his works, namely his magnum opus entitled The pillar and ground of truth, and his lecture Reason and dialectics, both of which are significant for interpreting Florenskij's thought. The article also provides an intertextual reading of Florenskij's Pillar to argue that its context is 1 Timothy 3:14-16. It then analyses the similarities between the context of 1 Timothy and that of The Pillar. As they fall within a period during which particular churches faced certain challenges, both texts call for discernment of the true identity of the church.

Exchange, 2015

Pentecostalism has taken its own diverse paths, also with regard to its relation with the ecumenical movement. However, most of the Pentecostal movement has developed with an aversion to ecumenism. This reflection considers its limitations, because of the diversity of Pentecostalism and because of the fact that the written theological reflection is very much dissociated from the everyday practices of communities. One must consider the fragility of the ecumenical movement against the Pentecostal versatility. In Pentecostalism, the church as the body of Christ in unity and communion is understood as centred in the gospel, guided at all times by Christ himself as path, truth and life. This is where we can find points of convergence with the ctcv document. This contribution comes from an optimistic conviction about ecumenism, in resonance with this process of dialogue and other reflections for strengthening the church and its witness.