Dialogue Ad Intra: The Relevance of Lumen Gentium and Christus Dominus for a Synodal Church
Dirk Ansorge
Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology , GermanyAbstract
In order to outline the Council’s understanding of the “dialogue ad intra,” the article will first provide a brief introduction to the concept of dialogue within the Church as set out in selected conciliar documents. To illustrate the Council’s ecclesiological framework for promoting dialogue, an outline of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Ecclesiam suam will follow. As documents such as Lumen gentium and Christus Dominus were the result of compromises between opposing theological factions at the Council, they sometimes offer inconsistent ecclesiological concepts, which affect later understanding of dialogue within the Church. Therefore, the ecclesiological concepts of “apostolicity” and “true equality” of all the baptised will be examined in terms of their implications for ecclesial counselling, decision-making, and accountability procedures. The final passage will present a proposal for resolving the tensions between opposing concepts of dialogue within the Church, in light of the Church’s understanding of itself as a “complex reality.” (LG 8)
Keywords:
dialogue ad intra, synodality, counselling, accountability, Church as “complex reality", Lumen gentium, Christus DominusReferences
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Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology
Dirk Ansorge, prof. for Dogmatic Theology and History of Dogma. He studied philosophy and Catholic theology at the universities of Bochum, Jerusalem, Strasbourg, Tübingen and Münster. Ansorge was a lecturer in theology at the Catholic Academy of the Diocese of Essen for several years. Since 2011, he has held the Chair of Dogmatic Theology and History of Dogma at the Jesuit Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt am Main, which is run by Jesuits. From 2014 to 2018, he served as Vice-Rector in Sankt Georgen. Currently, Director of the Alois Kardinal Grillmeier Institute for the History of Dogma, Ecumenism, and Interreligious Dialogue. He lectures in dogmatic theology and the history of dogma, with a particular focus on the theology of creation, sacramental theology, Christology, and ecclesiology. He also researches the relationship between religion and politics in the Middle East, focusing on the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In January 2023, Ansorge was elected president of the Association of Catholic Faculties, Institutes and Departments in Germany. He moderates the commentary on the Council's document Christus Dominus in the international project “Vatican II: Event and Mandate”.
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