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Document Details :

Title: Ehespiritualität
Subtitle: Die Anfänge einer Laienbewegung im 20. Jahrhundert
Author(s): KNIEPS-PORT LE ROI, Thomas
Journal: Marriage, Families & Spirituality
Volume: 15    Issue: 2   Date: 2009   
Pages: 150-158
DOI: 10.2143/INT.15.2.2047103

Abstract :
The articles traces the historical roots of a lay movement in 20th century Catholicism which coined the term and developed the programme of a 'conjugal spirituality'. The origins of that movement can be found in the 1930’s in France where a group of married lay people sought pastoral advice because they could find no satisfactory anwers in the Church’s discourse up till then for the questions that moved them: What truly constitutes a Christian marriage? and How does one live it in concrete terms? The Teams of Our Lady which originated from that group and similar movements raising after World War II in several other countries thus marked the beginning of the search for a specific lay spirituality that had become aware of its distinctiveness from a celibate lifestyle and from a monastic spirituality. The article shows, however, that under the influence of priests who helped the couples make their voices heard in the church, the original emancipatory power of this lay movement became transmuted into a true-to-the-church commitment. These groups thus represented only the official branch of a much broader quest for lay and marital spirituality.

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