TRANSCENDING JUSTICE: Pope John Paul II and Just War

Pope John Paul II's opposition to the Iraq War was not that it failed to meet the conditions of Just War Theory. Indeed, we cannot tell from what he publicly said whether he thought it met those conditions or not, for he would have opposed it in any case. His thinking was rather that even just and necessary wars always come, as it were, too late, and are never able to solve the problems that made wars just and necessary. He was not trying therefore to enter into the details of Just War Theory. He wanted to subsume the principles of war into the principles of peace and to do so, not by denying justice, but by transcending it with charity. This article shows how this thinking is to be understood and the many means the Pope devised for putting this thinking into practice.     

从圣言到电视图像--电视福音派与教皇约翰-保罗二世

言、文字与图像直至 2 0世纪初 ,基督教首先以言———祈祷和布道的实际载体来宣告其启示 ;包括《圣经》和其他创教时期的经典在内的一些手稿 ,长期以来保证了信仰的基础 ,但在印刷术降生之前 ,它们的传布和接受基于识字的精英们———往往是诸如本笃会修士那样的教士传习 (我们不禁联想起了翁贝托·埃科的著名长篇小说《玫瑰的名字》 ,1980年 )。另一方面 ,天主教会始终广泛地使用图像 ,而且在中世纪特别是哥特时代 ,它在其殿堂中营造了杰出的视觉形象的辉煌氛围。以来源自《新约》和《旧约》的题材为主题的彩绘玻璃、绘画、雕塑 ,显而易见…     

The role of importance/consequentiality appraisal in flashbulb memory formation: the case of the death of Pope John Paul II

This study investigates how flashbulb memories (FBMs) relative to the death of Pope John Paul II vary according to the persons' evaluation of the event's importance and consequences. In particular, FBMs were investigated in persons who were expected to attribute different degrees of importance/consequentiality to the event as a function of two factors: (1) religious involvement, (2) nationality (Polish, Italian, Swiss). The comparison was made with respect to the following hypothesized determinants of FBMs: surprise, emotional reaction, rehearsal, event memory and especially the attitudes towards the Pope and the appraisal of the importance and the consequences of his death. Structural equation modelling indicates that importance/consequentiality is a fundamental determinant of FBM and is influenced by antecedent personal and social characteristics reflected in the person's attitudes. Moreover, memory consistency seems to be both directly influenced by emotional intensity and indirectly through rehearsal, whereas surprise seems not a critical determinant of FBM. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Making Disciples: Pope Francis’ Paradigm for Mission

This article examines Chapter Three of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, specifically his explanation of the meaning of the mission of God to proclaim the gospel throughout the world of which the church is custodian. Chapter Three addresses the issue of evangelizing in the context of the contemporary world. In a subtle but clear way, it paints a contrast between previous approaches to evangelization with their shortcomings and the call for fresh ones, or a “new evangelization.” In the physical centre of the document, Chapter Three of Evangelii Gaudium ties together the discussion on the contemporary challenges facing mission in the first two chapters, and the practical needs of the undertaking in the last two. It emphasizes the necessity of comprehensive “inculturation” with reference to everything pertaining to evangelization. Finally, it offers guidelines about preaching an effective homily, an important dimension of ongoing catechesis and church transformation.     

The Moral Theology of John Paul II: A Response to Charles E. Curran

Over a long career of teaching and writing in the area of moral theology Charles E. Curran has experienced large areas of agreement with John Paul II on issues of social justice even while in other areas of personal and sexual issues the two are in serious disagreement. This phenomenon of agreement/disagreement has suggested to Curran that the pope is guilty of using a double methodology in his moral theological writing. Curran's book, The Moral Theology of Pope John Paul II, seeks to uncover and substantiate the root of their agreements and disagreements. This article seeks to evaluate Curran's theory. This analysis is done in two parts: first, an examination of the evidence that Curran presents to support his charge against the pope, and second, an examination of the alternative possibility that it is Curran who has the double methodology rather than the pope.     

Spatiality and the Performance of Belief: The Public Square and Collective Mourning for John Paul II

Abstract

The outburst of collective mourning for the death of Pope John Paul II in April 2005 in Pi?sudski Square in Warsaw presented an exceptional case of intense religious emotions, expressed through an unprecedented variety of visual forms in a secular public space beyond the limitations of domestic and traditional worship spheres. Using displays of this emotion as a focus, this article considers how complementary theoretical frameworks can generate nuanced accounts of the dynamic intersection of such a space and the performance of belief in late modernity. Drawing on Danièle Hervieu-Léger’s concepts of strategies of religious spatialisation, Jeffrey Alexander’s theory of space as a mise-en-scene for cultural performance, and Erika Fischer-Lichte’s understanding of effects of space in shaping the nature of performance art, I argue that space must be understood as integral to such acts of believing. The meanings and uses of space should be understood as subject to the continuation or disruption of particular chains of memory, the operation of particular institutional strategies and resources, and the ways in which the material environment itself enables or precludes different forms of religious and cultural performance. Space as a condition of performance of belief thus binds together various levels of analysis: from the macro-level of institutional strategies to the micro-dynamics of individual behaviour. These levels of the theoretical framework will be followed along the analysis of stages in the material transformation of the Square. This perspective challenges privatised, propositional accounts of belief, further demonstrating that belief is inseparable from embodied emotion and action, the negotiation of various forms of institutional power, and the affordance of space and material objects.     

Love Between Embodiment and Spirituality: Jean‐Luc Marion and John Paul II on Erotic Love

While theological discourse on love traditionally bifurcates between love as a body‐bound passion and its superior and disembodied spiritual counterpart, a growing number of accounts have recently challenged the traditional division arguing for the fundamental unity of the phenomenon of love. Could such a dichotomy be overcome if one reversed the conventional hierarchy between bodily erotic and intellectual agapeic love and made erotic love between man and woman the fundamental paradigm of all kinds of loves? Could the reversal recuperate the affective aspect that has traditionally been downplayed? An answer to these questions is explored through an imaginary dialogue between Jean‐Luc Marion's phenomenology of one‐way erotic love and John Paul II's theology of embodied love.     

A Delicate Knowledge: Epistemology, Homosexuality, and St. John of the Cross

In light of the intractable disagreements, both theological and theoretical, which emerge at every turn in contemporary discussions of homosexuality and religion, this essay advances an epistemological approach to the discussion. The advantage of an epistemological approach is that it sidesteps many of the narrow denominational discussions, making almost no reference to Romans, to natural law, or to a sexual ethic based on love and mutuality. By drawing upon analytic philosophy of religion (Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne specifically), I hope to show how a failure explicitly to face epistemological challenges has undermined pro-gay claims and arguments and contributed to religious confusion. Constructively, the work of St. John the Cross helpfully offers a powerful epistemological vision that importantly supplements the analytic projects of Plantinga and Swinburne, thereby helping us comprehend more fully what is implied and required in justified pro-gay religious conviction.     

On Judaism and genes: a response to Paul Root Wolpe

The following comments on Paul Root Wolpe's article "If I Am Only My Genes, What Am I? Genetic Essentialism and a Jewish Response" address (1) his presentation of the relationship between science and culture or religion as unimodal; (2) his misconception of the Jewish view of the physical corpus; and (3) his essential question of genetic determinism by examining the traditional Jewish view of the spiritual aspects of the human.