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Friday, August 7, 2015

Old language and new



I found a wonderful summary done by Jesuit John O'Malley that sums up for me the work of Vatican II in terms of language then and now in the Church. I am sharing it here:

"At stake were almost two different visions of Catholicism:
from commands to invitations
from laws to ideals
from definition to mystery
from threats to persuasion
from coercion to conscience
from monologue to dialogue
from ruling to service
from withdrawn to integrated
from vertical to horizontal
from exclusion to inclusion
from hostility to friendship
from rivalry to partnership
from suspicion to trust
from static to ongoing
from passive acceptance to active engagement
from fault finding to appreciation
from prescriptive to principled
from behavior modification to inner appropriation."

The above is quoted by Robert Blair Kaiser in this book Inside the Jesuits: How Pope Francis Is Changing the Church and the World. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

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