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Document Details :

Title: Scholen van dialoog in liefde
Subtitle: Kruisbestuiving tussen Gravissimum educationis en Perfectae caritatis anno 2015
Author(s): BOEVE, Lieven
Journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie
Volume: 55    Issue: 4   Date: 2015   
Pages: 358-379
DOI: 10.2143/TVT.55.4.3197448

Abstract :
Wie vandaag Gravissimum educationis en Perfectae caritatis samen leest, kan niet anders dan verbaasd zijn over de diverse paradoxen, spanningen en overeenkomsten die een dergelijke oefening met zich meebrengt. In de eerste plaats gaat het hierbij over de documenten zelf: hun ontstaansgeschiedenis, finale teksten en receptiegeschiedenis. Maar ook de huidige situatie van het (katholieke) onderwijs en het religieuze leven draagt hiertoe bij, zeker wanneer die bezien wordt vanuit een West-Europees perspectief. In dit artikel wil ik enkele van deze paradoxen, spanningen en overeenkomsten schetsen als voorbereiding op een systematischtheologische reflectie over de band tussen beide conciliedocumenten anno 2015.



How can we conceive of the role of the catholic school in today’s post-Christian context? And in what way may a retrieval of Gravissimum educationis and Perfectae caritatis assist us in doing so? In Part I, I first discuss divergent appreciations of GE and PC, which already began at the time of the Second Vatican Council. Second, I mention some of the commonalities between the two documents, thus setting the stage for further reflection. In the third section, I open this reflection by showing how a rereading of the documents points to the different dynamics both documents display when we consider the way they deal with the relation between the world and the Kingdom of God. Nevertheless these documents fit the one call to holiness which is addressed to all Christians, and which, motivated by giving testimony to the Kingdom of God, contributes to the humanization of the world in light of the Gospel through the praxis of love. In Part II, I engage in a systematic-theological reflection on dialogue, love and education. I first explain how through the Second Vatican Council dialogue has become a main feature to think God’s engagement with humanity, the world and history. I also point out that this dialogical dynamics today should best be considered in terms of interruption. Especially the dialogue with contemporary philosophies of difference assists us in making this theological-methodological point. In the second part, I develop how the dialogical-interruptive dynamics, then, leads us, first, to interrupt our theologies of love, and secondly, challenges us to be interrupted by love. In the third section I argue that this dialogical-interruptive dynamics of love assists us in reconsidering the role and vocation of catholic education as an apostolate of love and holiness to which all the faithful are called, in order to ‘to promote a more human manner of living in this earthly society’. I develop this further by pointing to the double contextual and theological interruption that is at stake when reconsidering the catholic school in and for our times.

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