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This thesis explores the use of eucharistic language in the theatre theories of three different mid-20th-century Polish theatre companies--the Reduta Theatre, the Rhapsodic Theatre, and the Laboratory Theatre--especially as expressed in the writings of their respective primary founders: Juliusz Osterwa, Mieczysław Kotlarczyk, and Jerzy Grotowski. The thesis also describes how the Rhapsodic and Laboratory Theatres inherited different elements of the Reduta tradition, and how those two diverging branches of the Reduta's legacy have affected contemporary theatre. In addition, the thesis examines how different 20th-century theatre theorists have related the eucharist to theatre, and evaluates the legitimacy of the claim that religious rituals such as the eucharist can and ought to be replaced by secular theatrical rituals. Special attention is paid to Carl Lavery's three views of the sacred: secular, theological, and a/theological. Alexander Schmemann's conception of the eucharist is used to correct Lavery's presentation of the theological sacred and to argue for the possibility of a Christian sacred theatre, or a "eucharistic theatre." The thesis defines the concept of a eucharistic theatre; demonstrates the extent to which the Reduta, Rhapsodic, and Laboratory Theatres meet this definition; and suggests some ways in which a eucharistic theatre may be created today.

This thesis has two aims. Firstly, in order to answer the question, ‘In what sense do people see Mary as a type of the Church?’, this thesis will set up original typological models of the relationship between Mary and the Church (chapter 1). It will then demonstrate how and why an eschatological element came to be present in these models (chapter 2).It will be a contention of this thesis that looking at the Mario-ecclesial discussions set out in chapters 3 and 4 through these typological models will allow a greater depth of analysis. The models allow one to discern differences between and nuances in various views of the relationship between Mary and the Church that would be impossible to discern if one were using just the language of ‘type’. Secondly the thesis will show how each Mario-ecclesial discussion has been affected by the socio-political context of the time. Specifically, the thesis will analyse the Mario-ecclesial discussions of the patristic, medieval and modern periods in the light of the typological models. In chapter 1, the patristic Mario-ecclesiologies of Irenaeus and Ambrose will be considered. In chapter 2, Bernard of Clairvaux will be used to analyse the eschatological nature of the Mario-ecclesiology in the medieval period. In chapter 3, the contrasting Mario-ecclesiologies of the Second Vatican Council and Hans Urs von Balthasar will be compared. In chapter 4, it will be suggested that John Paul’s model of the Mario-ecclesial relationship was based on his eschatological vision for the Church and the role that Mary plays in that future which is both imminent and already realised. This thesis will demonstrate that by using the typological models in these periods a greater depth of analysis can be achieved. This will be particularly true of the complex and nuanced discussions on Mary in the Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth century. This analysis will culminate in the particular Mariology of John Paul II.

This thesis argues that a close reading of Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) and Emmanuel Levinas reveals a common phenomenological and ethical interest in the embodied human person. Attention is also given to points of disagreement that are theological in character. Despite different religious commitments, their treatment of the body provides the basis for an overlooked dialogue in which both emphasise the giftedness of the embodied human subject, the ‘other’. In the postmodern context, the body is a key theme and the focus of much debate, yet little has been said of observations made by both Wojtyla and Levinas about each other’s work, or how this relates to their own development. This is surprising given their huge contribution to philosophy, ethics and theology in the 20th century. Levinas' mature philosophical works build on his ongoing interest in phenomenology, but the body remains problematical. For him, incarnation is questionable, because he refuses an incarnational avatar. There is no escape from commitment or responsibility and the theme of alterity is absolute. Yet, communio is the necessary objective of the human situation, in which bodies do not simply make incarnate presence possible, but are fragile, wounded and vulnerable. This is crucial: bodies can be violated and even crucified. Wojtyla addressed this paradox in his Wednesday audiences in what became known as his ‘theology of the body’, which in turn shaped his principle paradigm of alterity, the nuptial mystery. There is an irreconcilable difference in these two views of the body, in which Wojtyla’s nuptial mystery contrasts strongly with Levinas’ alterity. With this important variation in mind, it is demonstrated that the thread of agreement between Levinas and Wojtyla is the logic of the gift; that the body speaks a language of gift-exchange that is fundamentally ethical and theological.

From the time of the early church to the present century, Christian assumptions about and theological responses to sport have been problematic. In the present century, evangelicals in North America lack a developed theological ethic about how Christians should regard modern sport--the practices, purposes, and values. What little theology there is, is an uninformed folk theology of muscular Christianity in which the primary means of evaluating sport is in terms of its instrumental utility with no recognition of goods that might be internal to sport. In this thesis, I formulate a modest Christian ethic for sport as a way toward reimagining sport in the Christian life as an embodied, penultimate good. I have chosen Augustine, John Paul II, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer as the three primary interlocutors with whom to shape a theological discourse about and construct for modern sport. Together, they assist in exploring fundamental convictions of the Christian tradition and determining what bearing these should have on Christian moral reflection and deliberation on this cultural activity. In chapter one, Augustine‘s ethic is organized around three integral motifs: God and happiness, ordered and disordered loves, and the use and enjoyment of goods. By beginning here, a Christian ethic addresses the charges against Augustine‘s idealism set in the historical context of ancient Rome where the Christian tradition first engaged sport extra-biblically. These motifs lay the groundwork for how a Christian might relate to sport. In chapter two, I examine an exemplary modern attempt—by the American philosopher Paul Weiss—to give a moral and philosophical account of sport. Weiss develops a philosophy of sport around themes derived from classical Greek literature, including bodily excellence, anthropology, and teleology. Weiss‘s Greek ideals and philosophical categories function as heuristic tools because many issues of modern sport are connected in a variety of ways to these ancient Greek ideals. Weiss forms a bridge historically and philosophically to thicken our description of modern sport, to refine this thesis‘s analysis of some important categories native to modern sport, and to focus on what this phenomenon entails for a Christian ethic today. In chapter three, I engage with John Paul II's complex and rich account of the internal moral and theological goods of sport. John Paul II's personalism provides a much stronger basis for analyzing the goods intrinsic to sport than does Weiss--one that is, moreover, consistent with (while building on) the Augustinian foundation laid in chapter one. I demonstrate that in John Paul II's theology of sport, sportive actions find a significant analogue in the Christian doctrine of creation in relation to the body of the athlete, in which perspective sport may be seen as sign and gift shared with other embodied sportspersons. I propose that sport is an ontic-embodied good and gift that is only properly conceptualized in a Christian ethic, an ethic in which the pursuit of excellence is an objective that fulfils the dignity and worth of the whole human person. By contrast, Paul Weiss' philosophy of sport instrumentalizes embodied pursuits, such as sport. In chapter four, Dietrich Bonhoeffer‘s Christological basis for Christian ethics serves to repair the persistent problem of dualism—two-sphere thinking—for modern muscular Christianity. Bonhoeffer‘s comprehensive vision of reality places Christ at the center of life and existence so that the question of the good becomes the realization of the reality of God in Christ. Therefore, a Christian ethic does not justify how the reality of God in Christ relates to sportive culture by appealing either to the sacred or secular, but justification is in Christ, since He has drawn and holds it all together. In chapter five, I continue with the problem of modern muscular Christianity in order to constructively reimagine how to relate the reality of Christ as the ultimate to sportive reality, the penultimate. This eschatological paradigm further organizes the final chapter in two important ways. First, the logic of sport is often governed by alien ends and loves. Augustine‘s ethic refines this problem as a matter of how the practice of sport can educate our desires according to competing teloi. Second, I elucidate the importance of St. Paul‘s sport metaphor (1 Cor 9:24-27) as another angle for interpreting and ethically engaging the complex lived experience of sport itself. This sport metaphor functions eschatologically to integrate sport and the Christian life and to ennoble this activity as a practice for moral and spiritual formation.

This thesis critically examines and synthesizes Newman's theological views on the nature and aims of a Catholic academy, by comparing his life and work with recent documents of the Catholic Church, including Ex Corde Ecclesiae (1990) and The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium (1997). Its primary original contribution is the systemisation of Newman's educational ideal based on this theological focus and intertextual method. Part one, 'Retrieving the Sources', employs an historico-theological ressourcement. It seeks to rediscover sources for Catholic educational renewal from Newman and the magisterium, even as these are based on a similar return to the sources of Scripture and the classic texts of Christianity. Chapter one introduces the aims, methods, sources, and working definitions. The second and third chapters analyse Newman's specifically educational formation, writings, and praxis, in light of theological concerns. Part two, 'Restoring the Foundations' begins with an examination in chapter four of the Christian humanism Newman developed through a retrieval of the Alexandrian Fathers. His contributions to the tradition included an imaginative rearticulation of the preeminence of Christ and theology in education, and of a Christian hierarchy of educational aims. Chapters five and six consider Newman's relevance to the contemporary concerns of school identity and climate, illustrating the type of `theological prescriptions' advocated by John Paul II. Three appendices provide original syntheses of background information and unpublished material. The concluding chapter brings the most important findings into sharp relief, while suggesting areas for further study. Newman propounded his theological convictions regarding Catholic education with passionate intensity through his literary art and his positive personal influence. They have continuing relevance, despite the differences that separate his world from ours. He offers enduring principles for study, and inspiring stories for re-imagining the Church's mission of restoring all things in Christ, through a courageous and continual renewal of Catholic schools and universities.

The thesis analyzes the presence and function of Sacred Scripture in the writings of John Paul II. The absence of previous monographic works on the question makes it necessary to construct a method based on articles from academic journals that do deal with the subject. The questions most widely treated in the theology of Scripture during John Paul II’s pontificate are discussed and compared with the places where he dealt expressly with the subject: essentially, his discourses to the Pontifical Biblical Commission. The extensive use of Scripture in his lengthy Petrine magisterium is analyzed statistically and thematically. In the light of these data, John Paul II’s exegesis of a particular text of Scripture in analyzed, and the echo that modern exegesis has in the papal documents is considered.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the meaning of Theology of the Body (TOB) and seeks to find ways to incorporate its themes within ministry. There are three parts to this thesis: St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, Pope Francis’s principles of evangelization, and phenomenology. Both the themes of TOB and the principles of evangelization were analyzed separately then phenomenologically analyzed together to find new implications for ministry and ways to incorporate these teachings into ministerial work. The first part of this research is Theology of the Body. This theological anthropology looks at the meaning of humanity and how man and woman are called to live in relationship with each other. For the purposes of this research four main themes that summarize the main themes of Theology of the Body were selected: the human vocation is to be a total gift of self, authentic love is found in a communion of persons, the human body is a sacrament, and the human body has an inherently spousal dimension. The second part of this thesis looks at the political theology of Pope Francis. This is exhibited in his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii gaudium. In this papal document, he lists four principles of evangelization that are important for ministry and encountering society. These principles are time is greater than space, unity prevails over conflict, realities are more important than ideas, and the whole is greater than the part. Just like the themes of Theology of the Body, these principles were analyzed to establish a greater understanding of their meaning. The third part of this thesis is phenomenology. Phenomenology is a philosophical methodology that seeks to describe an object and its potentiality. It does so by using a phenomenological reduction that brackets presuppositions or biases towards the phenomena. The object that is analyzed is then described. In this research, the themes of TOB and principles of evangelization were paired up and phenomenologically analyzed by looking at each text and its meaning. These analyses were documented and examined to create suggestions on the use of Theology of the Body for ministry. The end result of this research provides recommendations on ways to incorporate Theology of the Body into pastoral ministry. Instead of focusing on the creation of a curriculum or specific program, this thesis suggests that the best way to implement Theology of the Body is to intentionally incorporate it into all aspects of ministry. Pastoral ministers should create a culture of encounter that supports each individual while dialoguing and creating an understanding of the importance of TOB. Additionally, ministers should embody the values this document teaches. Theology of the Body offers insight on how the human person should exist in community with others and this research provides suggestions to help ministers make these themes a reality.

Placing the theological anthropology set forth in the foundational addresses of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body alongside feminist theological perspectives, this dissertation proposes a more adequate anthropology, proper to the human person as female and male. My objectives include engaging feminist criticism and related theological frameworks, such as feminist, Trinitarian, and embodiment theologies in order to advance a theological anthropology that assimilates a fuller human perspective.Based on a critical essentialist method, this dissertation accepts difference between sexes as an anthropological criterion by which to assess integrated female and male relationships to one another and to God, but does so in a way that defines terms, refines conclusions, and proposes lacunas in the discourse. The significance of this dissertation is twofold. First, it distinguishes the early discourses of the Theology of the Body as foundational to the entirety of John Paul II’s audiences in contrast to a pervasive disregard for close attention to early texts in favor of later discourses on sexual ethics. Second, it advances both unique perspectives of the Theology of the Body and feminism towards a more adequate anthropology that thrives in mutuality and reciprocity, in which neither female nor male is diminished. Third, this dissertation contributes to a conversation about the bodily-person, including embodied difference, in which difference is encountered as a necessary principle for unity, particularly in the acts of self-gift and relationship.My conclusions incorporate John Paul II’s claim that the body reveals the person with a feminist concern that marginalized persons, especially women, are created as imago Dei in the same measure as every other person. By considering topics of language and meaning, theology and embodiment, anthropology and feminism, and relationships and complementarity, this dissertation concludes that the Theology of the Body discourses offer a rich perspective through which a necessary and more adequate theological anthropology can be achieved.

El trabajo aborda la cuestión de la misericordia divina en el pontificado de Juan Pablo II. Se hace un estudio pormenorizado del concepto misericordia en sus principales documentos, profundizando sobre todo en la trilogía trinitaria de encíclicas (Redeptor hominis, Dives in misericordia y Dominum et vivificantem). Entre estas, se presta especial atención a la encíclica Dives in misericordia que de modo amplio ofrece una reflexión monotemática sobre la misericordia, convirtiéndose en el documento base para el análisis del concepto misericordia. Asimismo, se estudian las aportaciones a la misericordia que aparecen en los escritos personales de Juan Pablo II antes y después de ser nombrado papa. Por último se investiga en qué modo ha influido la vida y los escritos de Santa Faustina Kowalska en la reflexión y en la devoción de Juan Pablo II a la Divina Misericordia. Se pueden extraer las siguientes conclusiones: una, que el tema de la misericordia ha sido una verdad nuclear en el pensamiento de Juan Pablo II, quién a lo largo de su vida ha experimentado esa misericordia a través del contacto con personas que han sido modelos de misericordia. Dos, que la verdad de la misericordia se ha convertido en un mensaje que el mundo de hoy necesita oir, y que ha de recordarse que la divina misericordia difundida por Santa Faustina Kowalska, se ha visto reforzada teológicamente por el magisterio de Juan Pablo II.

El objetivo de este trabajo es realizar un análisis de los primeros escritos de Karol Wojtyπa como clave para comprender el posterior desarrollo de su pensamiento. Nuestra tesis es que el núcleo esencial de su propia visión filosófica y teológica se encuentra ya en sus obras literarias (poesías y dramas) y en su tesis doctoral dedicada a la teología de fe en los escritos de san Juan de la Cruz. Estos dos momentos, la poesía, que aparece en su vida por primera vez cuando tiene 18 años, y su interés por la mística española, se apoyan y enriquecen mutuamente. En estas primeras obras puede descubrirse la verdadera fuente del pensamiento del futuro papa Juan Pablo II.

Throughout his papacy, John Paul II delivered a series of 129 audiences about the body, sex, and the meaning of life; his exegesis was later published as the text titled Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body. His work is not only a reaction against the sexual revolution, but also against modernity’s neo-Manichaean culture and ethics in general. At the core of his theological anthropology are the truths that the body is an expression of the person; that the human person is most fulfilled in the gift of self; and that together, in mutual self-giving, the male and female bodies constitute a spousal analogy through which we may come to an understanding of the Trinity on earth. This project aims to condense the text and apply it as a literary theory to elucidate three novels: The Handmaid’s Tale, A Clockwork Orange, and Written on the Body.

Publication of a letter from Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, dated 17 January 1983, addressed to Msgr Álvaro del Portillo, the Prelate of Opus Dei. In the letter, the Prefect informs the Prelate that he had been received by Pope John Paul II in an audience on 8 January 1983. He also states that on this occasion, the Pope had clarified de meaning and the scope of the change of the positioning of the canons concerning personal prelatures in de Code of Canon Law of 1983.

Hope Reaching Beyond the Limit is a musical setting of a six-poem cycle by Karol Józef Wojtyła (Pope John Paul II, 1920-2005) for bass-baritone and string quartet. This poetry explores the deepest and most fundamental questions of the human person: what is the meaning of life and death? In an effort to wrestle with such lofty questions, I use a variety of techniques to enhance the listener's experience of the poetry. For example, throughout the piece, I employ text-painting so that the listener can more easily enter into the scenes which the singer is describing. I portray changes in mood by shifts in harmonic centers. For ideas that may be a key to understanding the entire work, I alter pitch material to create a sense of freshness or important arrival. And in order to reinforce the main message of the poetry, I incorporate fragments of a traditional Gregorian chant sequence, Victimae Paschali Laudes, whose message is similar to that of the poetry being used.

An in-depth study of Karol Wojtyła's creative synthesis of medieval and modern thought, in which he brings together 1) traditional Thomistic metaphysics and anthropology and 2) the insights of contemporary phenomenology, in order to understand the reality of man as person in his integral totality.

Solidarity as spiritual exercise: a contribution to the development of solidarity in the Catholic social tradition By Mark William Potter Director: David Hollenbach, S.J. ABSTRACT The encyclicals and speeches of Pope John Paul II placed solidarity at the very center of the Catholic social tradition and contemporary Christian ethics. This dissertation analyzes the historical development of solidarity in the Church's encyclical tradition, and then offers an examination and comparison of the unique contributions of John Paul II and the Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino to contemporary understandings of solidarity. Ultimately, I argue that understanding solidarity as spiritual exercise integrates the wisdom of John Paul II's conception of solidarity as the virtue for an interdependent world with Sobrino's insights on the ethical implications of Christian spirituality, orthopraxis, and a commitment to communal liberation. The dissertation probes the relationship between spirituality and ethics in general, and Ignatian spirituality and Catholic social teaching, in particular. My analysis of solidarity in the encyclical tradition (Chapter 1) provides an historical overview of the incremental development of solidarity in the writings of successive popes and ecclesial councils from Pius XII through Paul VI. In considering the unique contributions of John Paul II, I turn first to the theological and philosophical formation of Karol Wojtyla and the sociopolitical context of Poland (Ch. 2). My analysis then turns to a consideration of Pope John Paul II's social encyclicals (Ch. 3), with the goal of offering a definition of solidarity that integrates his intellectual formation and social context with the development of solidarity in the official social tradition. Next, I examine the development of solidarity in the writings of Jon Sobrino, first through an analysis of his intellectual and spiritual formation in the revolutionary context of El Salvador (Ch. 4), and then through an analysis of his unique theological contributions to the topic (Ch. 5). Based on Sobrino, I offer an articulation of solidarity as spiritual exercise as an original contribution to the development of solidarity in the Catholic social tradition (Ch. 6).

The dissertation of 761 pages takes its bearing from the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte (NMI) in which John Paul II outlined the path the Church is to adopt in the newest epoch. At stake is the “necessity to rediscover the full practical significance of Chapter 5 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, dedicated to the universal call to holiness (NMI 30). To meet this challenge, John Paul II stressed that a concrete “pedagogy of holiness” is required, which above all must include a “spiritual path” without which “external structures … will serve very little purpose (NMI 43).” The Polish Pontiff invited all ecclesial movements to present their original pedagogy of holiness (cf. NMI 31). The author of this dissertation responds to this challenge by highlighting the task of the Blessed Virgin Mary as educator in a pedagogy of holiness both in the teachings of John Paul II and of Father Joseph Kentenich, founder of the Schoenstatt Movement. The dissertation consists of two parts with a concluding chapter comparing John Paul II’s considerations with those of Father Kentenich. Part I focuses on Pope John Paul II’s concept of holiness and the task of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the process of education towards human perfection. The topic is developed in six chapters: (1) Pope John Paul II’s notion of the Human Person’s call to Human Fulfillment and Holiness; (2) Wojtyla’s Philosophical Anthropology in “The Acting Person;” (3) the Pope’s Theological Anthropology; (4) his concept of Holiness; (5) his Marian Teaching and (6) John Paul II’s Contribution to a Pedagogy of Holiness. Part II concentrates on Father Joseph Kentenich’ quest for the New Person called to holiness. Parallel to part I the topic is structured in six chapters: (1) Father J. Kentenich as a Pioneer of a Pedagogy of Sanctity; (2) his Theological Anthropology in view of his Pedagogy of Holiness; (3) his Concept of Holiness; (4) his Mariology; (5) his notion of Mary as Educator and (6) Mary as Educator of Holiness in the Schoenstatt Tradition.The final chapter highlights in 3 steps the commonalities and distinctive accents of Paul II’s pastoral vision for the third millennium and the spiritual thrust on which Father J. Kentenich founded the Schoenstatt Work: (1) Anthropological Foundations for a Pedagogy of Holiness; (2) Holiness - Fulfillment of the Human Person; (3) Mary - Model and Mother of the Human Person called to Holiness. The thesis concludes by addressing perspectives of further development in the pastoral field.