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Document Details : Title: Gemeenschappen van de Geest Subtitle: De theologieën van de nieuwe katholieke bewegingen Author(s): AHERN, Kevin Journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie Volume: 57 Issue: 4 Date: 2017 Pages: 374-389 DOI: 10.2143/TVT.57.4.3262790 Abstract : Over the past thirty years, a range of new Catholic movements, including Focolare, L’Arche and Regnum Christi, have emerged in the church as a new form of religious life. Gathering consecrated, ordained, and lay members, these multi-vocational movements are dynamic forces in many parts of the church. For critics, they represent dangerous ‘sectarian’ collectives bent on establishing a parallel church. For supporters, they are communities of Holy Spirit at the frontlines of the church’s response to secularization and relativism. Today, these movements stand at the crossroads in the face of two important transitions. Internally, they are experiencing the need to grow their structures and modes of operating as the first generation of founders pass away. Externally, the movements must contend with a new ecclesial reality in light of Pope Francis’ ecclesiology of encounter. In the face of these internal and external transitions, the movements must, as Francis recently urged them, find a way to attain a greater state of ‘ecclesial maturity’. Such a task demands communal discernment and a deeper theological analysis to comprehend both the sources and significance of this phenomenon as a whole. To this end, this paper examines the broad phenomena of the new ecclesial movements and their relationship to three areas of theology, namely the ecclesiology of communion; a missiology centered on the new evangelization; and a charismatic pneumatology. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these theological frameworks will be essential for them as they seek to reach their state of ‘ecclesial maturity’. |
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