Eduard Ferenţ: Motivaţia teologică a angajării sociale
Motivaţia teologică a angajării sociale
Petru GHERGHEL: Omul de lângă noi, omul între bine şi rău
The man is capable to make real miracles of life and of history, but also a lot of disasters. What is man: an angel or devil? What is the role of man in the society and what is his purpose? The man carries in his soul, in his all being God’s image, becoming in this way the masterpiece and the crown of all creation. Regarding the nature of man, Bishop Petru Gherghel is referring to the affirmation of the Fathers of Church: Irineu from Lyon, Leon the Great and Thomas Aquinas. The morality of the human acts depends of the chosen object, of the followed purpose and in the circumstances of his action. The true value of the man of nowadays stays in his moral conscience. The Church must give all his riches of values and teachings for perfection of the man next to us.
Daniel CIOBOTEA: Biserica Ortodoxă în Europa, astăzi
Romania joining European Union will be the biggest country with the Orthodox majority member of the European Union. The Orthodox Christians are watching the European Union either full of fear, either full of hope. Beyond these shared opinions, the Christian Churches from Romania together with the Judaic religion have expressed their support for Romania’s adhesion to the European Union. This adhesion is wanted with the hope that, next to what she will to receive, Romania will contribute to the enrichment of the spiritual and cultural European patrimony. The development work of the united Europe is seen as a new chance and challenge to express the fidelity to the Gospel, and in this way the Churches have to be together, have to be united.
Ioan ROBU: Biserica Catolică în Europa, astăzi
What is really the New Europe and what Christian values is still accommodating? What advantages and disadvantages presents a Europe who gives the felling that the man is able to manage without God? In today’s Europe a breakdown is revealed between the technical possibilities and moral strength: moral strength has not been developed along with the scientific development. If it is necessary that from the New Europe the respect of the human dignity and the respect of what is sacred for the other to be present, in the same way is necessary that in the united Europe to be developed a profound and clear dialogue with the other religions, dialogue that has to reflect and show to everyone the true nature of the Church.
Wilhlem DANCĂ: Ce facem cu adevărul în spaţiul public?
Every man is searching to find out the truth. But in the public life the truth has turned into a relative conception and can be interpreted in every way one wishes, whether is for the advantage of some or for the disadvantage of others. In a world in which, among other things, it is pursued to have an ethics without truth, a metaphysics without fundaments, a Christianity without Christ, a sincerity without truth, a holiness without God and a politics without principles, peoples are still searching for the truth. There are many people wondering between the quick-sands of scepticism finding satisfaction only in the partially and casually truths. But there are also those who, willing to authentically and adequately study the truth, are helping the society to open itself towards philosophy and to philosophize and also, are supporting the Church in its mission of beeing in the service of the Truth. The returning to the recta ratio, to the normal, dialogical, opened towards the others and the Other rationality is possible and the participants to the International Congres „Truth and morality in public life” have been trying to point out this fact.
Vittorio POSSENTI: Fondamenti religiosi e laici della democrazia
Analyzing the phenomenon of democracy, Vittorio Possenti exposes the religious and laical fundaments of democracy. A true democracy that wishes to open the borders of a civilized world must maintain the feeling of affiliation to the humanity. The author thinks that democracy must stay away from the temptation of fundamentalism, that must promote the person and not the forms of selfishness. The democracy needs religion if it wants an undiluted man (one can not deny to a man the religious dimension). The rights of man should be the main program of a democracy. The author underlines some of the democracy principles: treating the person as a purpose and not as a mean (the man is in the world but it not belongs to the world), forming a nation in which there are to be respected both natural low and positive low, responsible freedom, an ethics that encourages the common good, the participation to the public life. The article pleads for an equilibrated democracy that has in its center the person.
Gaudium et spes, în dialog cu Mons. Lorenzo CHIARINELLI
Gaudium et spes has been a much waited document that generated some fierce controversy. For the elaboration of this document a group of Council Fathers, that rehashed the famous 13th Scheme, have worked intensively. Among these ones has been the Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Woityla. This interview presents the Council’s intention regarding this document, also how the document’s elaboration process took place and how can it be read today taking into account the signs of the present time, after 40 years from its promulgation.
DT1710_Gaudium et spes, în dialog cu Mons
Lucian FARCAŞ: Constituţia pastorală privind Biserica în lumea contemporană Gaudium et spes
One of the main goals of the Second Vatican Council was to show who is the Church and what is the message it wants to deliver to the today’s humanity. The crisis of the contemporary values, the technological and informational explosion, the changing of the moral values system have been some aspects that the Council Fathers had in mind when they elaborated the pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes. The elaboration of this essential document has been followed by many criticisms regarding especially by the means of the dialogue with the world and by the Church’s receiving from the society’s behalf. This article develops a three-way presentation: the process of making the Constitution, the analysis of the document and of the echoes it generated and the new interpretations regarding the changing of some social and moral values.
Radu CARP: Pierre Manent şi tradiţia gândirii europene despre religie şi politică
In the French political thinking in the second part of the XXth century, especially under the influence of structuralism and Marxism, often religion was repudiated. After 1980, there are some authors who opposed this general tendency; one of them is Pierre Manent, who succeeded in avoiding the ideology of the left-wing and who kept an important place for religion in his thinking. This study presents the principal books of the French political thinker and, finally, exposes the main ideas of these books: secularization is not an irreversible process in Europe; politics and religion are not completely separated; after the fission of the strong notions of State, revolution, Marxism, the state organizations need true reference points, and one of them could be religion. This last solution has an intense and strong resonance in the contemporary Romanian context.