Academic literature on the topic 'Traditional catholic'

Thesis advisor: Richard Lennan<br>Thesis advisor: Dominic Doyle<br>Religion is central and vital for an Igbo person. No Igbo person exists in isolation from his/her community. An indigenous and traditional Igbo society is communal; it does not entertain any sense of individuality. But the coming of the missionaries broke into this communal bond with a new religion that threatened the traditional society when it began to exalt the individual soul. The Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, in his book Things Fall Apart, portrays a situation in which an African indigenous missionary (Mr. Kiaga) succeeds in separating a son (Nwoye) from his African parent (Okonkwu) so that the son can become a Christian and be saved. But alone? As the son leaves his parents’ house for the mission compound the missionary quotes the Bible, “Blessed is he who forsakes his father and mother for my sake…” Achebe’s story depicts a situation in which the family is utterly divided as a result of the parents’ or their children’s conversion to Christianity. At this point, things fall apart. The pivotal core of the traditional Igbo society cannot hold again. The majority of the missionaries saw African religion from within their Western understanding and concluded that it was heathen, anti-Christian, and repulsive. African societies started to disintegrate when traditional religion was attacked. A rift occurs between the family and the extended family. Instead of bringing reconciliation and understanding, Christianity in this case brings division. This is because converts were instructed to leave everything behind, including families, for the sake of the gospel. But the Igbo Traditional Religion looked at life in a holistic way. There was no contradiction between sacred and profane, hence many people were horrified when the first converts wanted to set themselves apart, away from other members of the community. This is why inculturation is important, as it enables the Igbo Christian to see and experience life in a holistic manner without doing needless violence to cultural values. The failure of the early missionaries to inculturate the cultural values of the people is the conundrum. The result raises some theological problems. In the attempt to ascertain a balance, most times, the Christians in Africa, particularly in Igboland, find themselves oscillating between Christianity and African Traditional Religion (ATR). The need for a reconciliation is long overdue. It is best given a lasting, concrete and a dialogical chance through inculturation<br>Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2018<br>Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry<br>Discipline: Sacred Theology

Religija apibrėžiama kaip vienas iš patvariausių identiteto resursų, pastaraisiais dešimtmečiais patiriančių didžiausius pokyčius. Šiandieninėje Lietuvos visuomenėje sociokultūrinės aplinkybės keičia tradicinio religinio identiteto turinį, taip pat simbolių, vartojamų konstruojant katalikų religinį identitetą, naudojimo, supratimo bei reikšmės suteikimo pobūdį. Šis darbas skirtas analizuoti katalikų religinio identiteto kaitą per religinio ir kultūrinio identitetų sąveiką. Darbo objektu pasirinktas katalikų religinis identitetas. Darbo tikslas: išskirti ir aprašyti katalikų religinio identiteto kaitos tendencijas ir dominuojančius tipus. Tyrimo metu siekiama aprašyti ir išanalizuoti katalikybės praktikavimo būdus bei katalikiškos tapatybės konstravimo pagrindinius resursus, taip pat nustatyti ir aprašyti religinių praktikų „sukultūrinimo“ ir etnifikacijos formas. Tyrimui atlikti pasirinktas kokybinis pusiau struktūruotas interviu metodas. Tyrime dalyvavo 16 informantų, kurie priklauso ribiniams katalikams, laiko save lietuviais bei yra vyresni nei 18 metų. Rezultatai: Tyrimo duomenų analizė parodė, kad formuojasi pusiau tikinčių, socialinių bei ribinių katalikų tipai. Pusiau tikintiems katalikams religinis tapatumas turi įtakos savęs supratimui, tačiau socialinių katalikų tarpe ši įtaka nepastebima. Katalikas suvokiamas tik kaip ženklas, nurodantis priklausymą Katalikų bendruomenei. Dalyvavimas religinėse praktikose bei ritualuose yra kultūrinių tradicijų bei... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]<br>Religion is defined as one of a steadiest resource of identity which is going through the changes in the last decades. Nowadays the sociocultural factors are changing a content of a religious identity, also are changing a nature of usage, understanding and meaning providing by symbols which are used to construct catholic religious identity in Lithuania’s society. This master thesis is a sociological research of catholic religious identity change which is analyzed through the interplay of religious identity and ethnicity. In this work the main object is a catholic religious identity. The aim of this study was to investigate and describe the main tendencies of the change of catholic religious identity and dominant types of catholic religious identity. In this study it is trying to describe and analyze forms of practices of Catholicism and the main resources of catholic identity construction, also to identify and describe forms of acculturation and ethnification of religious practices. Methods of research: in this study was used a qualitative semi-structured interview. There were collected 16 interviews with middle Catholics, who consider themselves as Lithuanians, and were older than 18. Results: The analysis of the data showed that it is forming passively religious, social and liminal Catholics types. A religious identity influences a self understanding and behavior for the passively religious Catholics, but this influence is not noticed for social catholic. Catholic is... [to full text]

Advances in cybernetic and nanotechnological body modifications currently allow for enhancements to human physical and mental function which exceed human species-based norms. This thesis examines body modification and human enhancement from two perspectives—Roman Catholicism and Transhumanism— in order to contribute to bioethical deliberations regarding enhancement technologies. Roman Catholicism has a longstanding tradition of bioethical discourse, informing the healthcare directives of Roman Catholic institutions. Transhumanism is more recent movement that endorses body modifications and human enhancements as a means of individual betterment and social evolution. The thesis first considers definitions of human enhancement and levels of normalcy in connection to cybernetic and nanotechnological bionic implants, and outlines a series of criteria to assess a technology’s potential bioethical acceptability: implantability, permanency, power, and public interaction. The thesis then describes Roman Catholicism’s response to non-enhancing decorative body modifications (cosmetic surgeries, common decorative modifications such as tattoos and piercings, and uncommon modifications such as scarifications and brandings) in order to establish a basis for possible Roman Catholic responses to enhancing cybernetic and nanotechnological modifications. This is followed by an analysis from a Roman Catholic perspective of the major social issues brought forward by enhancement technologies: commodification, eugenics, vulnerability, and distributive justice. Turning to Transhumanism, the thesis describes the origins and philosophy of the movement, and then discusses the bioethical principles it advances with regard to human enhancement. The thesis concludes by locating points of convergence between Transhumanism and Roman Catholicism that could be the basis of more widely accepted ethical guidelines regarding modification technologies.

The African Understanding of marriage is undoubtedly to be numbered among those customs and usages which must be integrated into the Christian tradition to help towards the creation of a genuinely African Christianity. Christian marriage in Africa finds itself torn between three major demands, namely: the claim of the Gospel as interpreted by Western Christianity, the claims of African tradition, and the claims of modern men and women. This is due to the problem created by the standard which the African Church inherited from the Western Christian Community and its past, made worse by much uncertainty as to the place or implications of the standard for men and women in Africa today. For many decades, Western Scholars have defined and described the African traditional beliefs, institutions and practices in terms contrary to their own faiths and experiences. Early missionaries, explorers, and other foreign investigators branded the religious practices and traditional institutions of the African peoples in such unacceptable and derogatory terms as animism, paganism, heathenism and fetishism. Anything that did not come from the "civilised" world was labelled "primitive". Modern researches based on more thorough sociological, anthropological, linguistic, and theological verifications have demonstrated the inadequacies of the former theories. Through this study, the researcher has demonstrated that the traditional Yoruba institutions and practices like marriage and family life, can and should serve as a point of contact for a kerygmatic proclamation. We must continue to explore ways to put such cultural information at the disposal of the reflecting minister and faith community both critically and practically. The study has suggested at least three postures from which the conversation between the religious tradition and cultural information might begin: (a) the religious tradition challenges the culture; (b) the religious tradition is challenged by the culture; (c) the religious tradition uses the resources of the culture in pursuit of its own religious mission.

This paper studies the theological anthropologies of the Catholic thinkers Alice von Hildebrand and Margaret Harper McCarthy. I place my research of these two theologians, categorized as religiously conservative thinkers, among other contemporary research on women in traditional religions by using types of agencies inspired by researchers such as Phyllis Mack, Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood. This paper analyzes how the two theologians construct their anthropologies, systems that see man in a relationship with a God-given order that dictates the role of freedom and responsibility in both the relationship with fellow human beings and his or her teleological goals. I argue that this anthropology comes from their reading of biblical passages and interpretations of real life experiences that break with secular, liberal and individualist patterns of thought. Using a hermeneutics aware of the tensions between secular readings of religious texts and readings that focuses on a self-transcendence, I present a reading of the theologians' systems of thought as a balancing act between liberal and poststructuralist feminist critiques. I argue that both Hildebrand and McCarthy reject the liberal and poststructuralist anthropologies because of their conviction that the liberal and poststructuralist anthropology is inadequate by not addressing the ontological reality of the human complementarity of the sexes. I also identify a tension in the theologians critique of feminism and what I take to be a dialectic between criticizing and appropriating feminist goals for women.