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Document Details :

Title: Catholic Dialogue Schools
Subtitle: Enhancing Catholic School Identity in Contemporary Contexts of Religious Pluralisation and Social and Individual Secularisation
Author(s): POLLEFEYT, Didier , RICHARDS, Michael
Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
Volume: 96    Issue: 1   Date: 2020   
Pages: 77-113
DOI: 10.2143/ETL.96.1.3287376

Abstract :
Amid contexts of religious and philosophical pluralisation as well as social and individual secularisation, Catholic schools today face renewed questions of Catholic identity. This contribution argues that such Catholic identity can be effectively renewed through three key lines of development, each in relation to a religiously and philosophically plural context: (a) post-critical belief as a form of symbolic faith-understanding, (b) theological recontextualisation of the living Catholic faith tradition, and (c) intercultural and interreligious dialogue in a Catholic frame. Taken together, these three positions pose a renewed identity for Catholic schools that is both theologically legitimate (authentic to its own tradition) and culturally plausible (in dialogue with a context of religious and philosophical plurality). In the different sections of this contribution, each of these three positions is developed through a combination of typological theory, theological reflection, and empirical data samples – the latter of which are drawn from recent studies, conducted by the Enhancing Catholic School Identity Research Group at the Catholic University of Leuven, that translate the typological theories discussed herein into empirical instruments to help inform the reflections of school and church leadership on the direction of Catholic identity for Catholic schools today.

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