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On the 60th anniversary of the publication of Paul VI's encyclical Ecclesiam suam, dedicated to the issue of dialogue, we propose an analysis of this document focused on interreligious dialogue. We will identify the relationship between the encyclical, the theology of religions and the documents of the Second Vatican Council, focusing especially on the declaration Nostra aetate. In addition, we will point out how this encyclical has indirectly influenced the evolution of interreligious dialogue in the post-council period until today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a period of mass media emergence and renewal of Catholicism after Vatican II, the church initiated into a profound approach to its Social Doctrine on the media. With a theology of communication as a cornerstone, numerous ecclesial documents published during the Papacy of Paul VI explored the implications of the media for society and the internal life of the church. This study aims to analyse the contents on the media addressed in official documents of the Catholic Church during the Pontificate of Paul VI. The conclusions of the research show to what extent communication is a significant issue for public theology and delve into the meaning of the right to information and public opinion, the place of the media in education, the training of communicators and recipients, the importance of the media for the church, and the involvement of Catholics in the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author, starting from the statements contained in the two conciliar decrees Unitatis redintegratio and Christus Dominus on the desired reform of the Roman curia, in the broader context of the reform of the Church, examines the constitutions approved by st. Paul VI and st. John Paul II, Regimini Ecclesiae Universae and Pastor Bonus. It highlights the novelties that are contained and the theological-juridical principles that inspired them. More widely, the article presents the path taken by pope Francis, a few months after his election as roman pontiff, for the reform of Pastor Bonus. The article examines some of the holy father's discourses, the legislative provisions issued by him on the matter and the press releases issued at the conclusion of the periodic meetings of the Council of cardinals, the guiding criteria of the reform under way and above all the steps already taken and the changes now underway are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the development of Catholic treatments of integral human development from Paul VI's Populorum Progressio to the writings of Pope Francis on accompaniment. The author argues that community organizing is an important avenue for promoting the political dimension of accompaniment as understood in the teaching of Pope Francis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This composition, starting from the reading of Domenico Paoletti's book, Paul VI, Witness of Love... Reality and Prophecy, contains some considerations on Christian witness in the contemporary world. The category of witness is an important key to interpreting the path of renewal and conversion of churches. Through the magisterium of Paul VI and Pope Francis a new lexicon of ecclesial witness can be conceived. Fundamental in this regard are the categories of the body, people and laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study highlights the historical relationship between Paul VI and the «Auxilium», Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences based in Rome during the process of transformation from an International Higher Institute of Education and Religious Sciences (created in 1954) to a Pontifical Ecclesiastical Faculty, run by women. The figure of Paul VI emerges as a significant supporter of this transformation. Finally, the article recalls the Identity and Mission of the «Auxilium » Faculty: To be and work for the integral education of the person, in perfect harmony with Paul VI and with the Magisterium of the Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the contribution of Giovanni Battista Montini, during the years of fascism, to the training of those destined to take a leading political role after World War II. In light of recent historiography some prejudices toward his figure and his intellectual bent are refuted. The years from his youth in Brescia to his commitment as Substitute of the Secretariat of State are summarized, including the objectives and principles that inspired his pedagogy for the future Catholic ruling class, and the role that he played in guiding the choices of committed Catholics in politics during the phase of democratic rebirth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers what has transpired in the Catholic Church on the issue of contraception in the fifty years since the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. The author argues that today there are sufficient reasons to support a consideration of change in the teaching. Without such a consideration that works toward development or change in this teaching, the church risks continuing loss of credibility and will not be able to address honestly other important contemporary issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the dialogical directedness of the Church that has been especially set at the Second Vatican Council. Within the wide spectrum of living and promoting dialogue in the Church after the Second Vatican Council, a special place belongs to the popes. From Paul VI to John Paul II, they have, each in his own way, led the Church in its openness towards all people. For Paul VI dialogue is one of the important factors of renewal of the Church, set at the Second Vatican Council. This makes dialogue a reality that concerns the very nature of the Church. John Paul II continues and, with his personality, deepens the dialogical turn set by the Council. He did this through various pastoral initiatives, many concrete gestures, through documents and messages. For him dialogue and faith are mutually directed to each other. The issue of dialogue concerns the very structure of the human being: the response to the Revelation is not given only through the relation to God, but also through the relation to other people. For Pope Benedict dialogue is also a reality that is immanent to Christian faith. His understanding of dialogue needs to be investigated starting from the concept of the person, which is different than the concept of the individual, and which always implies the relation, dialogue. The ability of Christian faith to communicate itself to others is manifested through dialogue. Pope Benedict's special contribution consists in the fact that he situated the issue of dialogue within the issue of discovery of Christian identity and the principle of truth as a presupposition of dialogue. Since he was convinced of the»religious dimension of culture«, dialogue between cultures was an important theme for him. The short pontificate of Pope Francis has showed until now liveliness of thoughts and gestures. Christianity is joy and joy is always»renewed and shared with others«, as the title of Evangelii gaudium suggests. Francis is looking for dialogue as a revelation of mercy and as a way of serving the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vatican II's documents Gaudium et Spes and Ad gentes reveal two interrelated dialogues: a dialogue between Church and other religious traditions, and a more general dialogue between faith and particular societies. The theme takes its cue form Paul VI's first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam (1964) and, in the last fifty years, has flowered into a rich body of teaching expressed in various documents. It became central to the teaching of John Paul II with his passionate concern for the dignity of the human person. Benedict XVI in a series of speeches delivered both before and after becoming Pope introduced a note of caution to such cultural dialogue. While accepting that he offered an impressive case against the positivism, which he considered to be undermining contemporary culture, we should be hesitant in following his more cautious approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blessed Paul VI’s great encyclical Sacerdotalis caelibatus (24-VI-1967) celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. This article attempts to analyze the text. It considers, first of all, the doctrinal foundations of the ministerial celibacy (its profound theological roots) as they are proposed by the encyclical. Subsequently, the article covers two pastoral aspects, namely, a) the need to impart an adequate formation, in which both the gift of ministerial celibacy and the permanent commitment assumed upon its reception could have an assured place, to candidates for the priesthood; and b) the inseparability between the priest’s chaste life, willingly and wholly offered at the service of God and of the salvation of the mankind, and works of charity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Last year marked the 750th anniversary of the birth of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), the Florentine poet. As our culture becomes more distant from the coherent, religiously informed world view that produced it, interest in Dante's Divine Comedy continues to grow, especially in the English-speaking world. This essay argues that the source of this interest is not just awe at Dante's remarkable summa of medieval culture, but the fact that his Comedy touches something peculiar to the modern condition. The adjective "Divina", added after Dante's death, might suggest an unearthly meditation on the other world. In fact, Dante is most interested in the human condition. The essay explores the notion of "religious sense", coined by Pope Paul VI, developed by Luigi Giussani and a leitmotiv in papal writing up to the present, as the key to the relevance of this medieval masterpiece to our modern search for meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Th e study deals with a resumption of diplomatic relations of the Holy See and Czechoslovakia at the turn of the 1950s and 60s. At the same time, it follows a development and transformation of Czechoslovak-Vatican negotiations in the fi rst half of the sixties. It reveals how much the Communist regime left its anti-ecclesiastical attitude from the fi ft ies and focuses on obligingness, formally manifested by the regime, which was naturally in harmony with ideas of the Soviet Union that connected improvement of diplomatic relations with a propaganda of the Communist ideology in the international forum and intellectual circles in Europe. It shows that those expectations were connected with the personality of Pope John XXIII because the pontificate of new Pope Paul VI gave the church self-confidence, which was noticeable also in new "courage" of the Holy See during Czechoslovak- -Vatican negotiations. Th e worries of the Soviet Union and also of the Czechoslovak party soon prevailed so that Prague advanced more one-sided advantages and systematically broke off negotiations. Nevertheless, though Czechoslovak-Vatican negotiations from years 1963-1965 did not contribute to better diplomatic relations of both countries, the Holy See managed to better penetrate the religious situation in Czechoslovakia and to achieve many tiny concessions concerning the Communist regime. Despite the fact that the actual negotiations terminated unsuccessfully, they provided a platform for a discussion of both sides which resulted in the acceptance of the agreement of the Holy See and the Czechoslovak government in December 1972. Nevertheless, Czechoslovak-Vatican negotiations from years 1963-1965 represent a worthful view on the important turning point in diplomatic relations as well as church history during the second half of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the Apostolic Letter of Pope Paul VI, Lumen Ecclesiae, and underscores its importance notwithstanding the limited impact that it had in renewing Thomism in the direction of a "living Thomism" through the overcoming of a "fundamentalist" Thomism. Specifically, the Letter promotes the emergence of a wider consideration of the historical-doctrinal context of the works of St. Thomas, and it invites an interpretation of the texts rather than the commentaries written about them, while it also stresses the importance of philosophical realism and of the Thomistic conception of the relationship between nature and grace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ecclesial situation today reveals an institution full of surprises in its relationship with itself and with the society. The Article presents the historical process-theological training of popes John XXIII and Paul VI, both in dynamic of Vatican II and of modernity. The purpose of this study is to seek the roots of the formation of both, his activity and consequences for the historical process later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies the actions which, after the Conciliar Assembly, brought about the reunification in one place only of the archives of each of the Commissions and Secretariats (1966-1967), as well as the institution of the Archives of Vatican ii, and their reordering and final transference to the Vatican Secret Archives (2000), where the long task of inventory work, still in progress, has been performed on the enormous volume of documentation. At the present time 17 volumes of inventory are available to scholars, including the documents of the General Secretariat and all the commission and secretariates with the exception of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having illustrated the various responses among Anglicans to Benedict XVI's offer to allow Anglicans who enter into full communion with Rome to retain aspects of their Anglican heritage, the article analyses and evaluates the detail of what is actually proposed. The article argues that for all its generosity and creativity in seeking a pastoral accommodation for ex-Anglicans, Anglicanorum Coetibus does not measure up to the aspirations of Anglican ecumenism. In particular it is not the unity without absorption hoped for by Paul VI and Cardinal Willebrands. Nonetheless the offer is a significant step that, seen rightly, augurs well for future ecumenical relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the origins and evolution of the Vatican's political theology and ecclesiology for Europe from Pius XII (especially after the Second World War) and including the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It seeks to examine the continuities of the 'Idea of Europe' in papal thought against a background of changing political context - the end of the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the communist state system, the emergence of a united but diverse Europe after 1989. The political structures of the continent now include within its geographic sweep Western and Eastern Christian churches which, divided by tradition and modern history, find their relationship a key marker in the contemporary religious identity of Europe. This reality is a significant framework for Vatican thinking on Europe especially for John Paul II and Benedict XVI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an ecclesiological assessment of Pope Benedict's first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est. It draws parallels with an earlier papal encyclical, also, on charity and suggests that the attention in the latter to the exercise of charity within the Catholic church is a much needed supplement to Benedict's attention to what the church might teach the ‘world’ ad extra about charity. Indeed, the article suggests that the Catholic church must strive all the more to be truly a sacrament (both a sign and mediation) of that love that constitutes the very threefold being of God, both ad intra and ad extra. But, first and foremost, the church must learn to exercise such love within its own confines before it can hope to teach those in the wider human family anything about charity. The promise of applied trinitarian ecclesiology in serving such ends is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Edith Stein's philosophical and theological anthropology is foundational to the "new feminism" that both Paul VI and John Paul II called for in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. In particular, this article shows how Stein helps to respond to Simone de Beauvoir's argument that taking women's biology into consideration leads to essentialism with political implications. This article outlines main themes in the new feminism, and gives a brief overview of the ideas about the "hour of woman" and the "feminine genius" pronounced by popes Paul VI and John Paul II. This article then describes and analyzes Stein's psycho-physical theory of the human person. Finally, this article considers the importance of Stein's thought for feminist theology, with brief application to the issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]