- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Church and Society
- 1 University Theology as a Service to the Church
- 2 Teaching Authority in the Church
- 3 Catholicism and American Culture
- 4 Faith and Experience
- 5 Newman, Conversion, and Ecumenism
- 6 The Uses of Scripture in Theology
- 7 John Paul II and the New Evangelization
- 8 Historical Method and the Reality of Christ
- 9 Religion and the Transformation of Politics
- 10 The Church as Communion
- 11 The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II
- 12 The Challenge of the Catechism
- 13 Crucified for Our Sake
- 14 John Paul II and the Advent of the New Millennium
- 15 Priesthood and Gender
- 16 The Travails of Dialogue
- 17 The Ignatian Tradition and Contemporary Theology
- 18 Mary at the Dawn of the New Millennium
- 19 Should the Church Repent?
- 20 Human Rights
- 21 Can Philosophy Be Christian?
- 22 Justification Today
- 23 The Papacy for a Global Church
- 24 The Death Penalty
- 25 Religious Freedom: A Developing Doctrine
- 26 Christ Among the Religions
- 27 When to Forgive
- 28 The Population of Hell
- 29 True and False Reform in the Church
- 30 John Paul II and the Mystery of the Human Person
- 31 The Rebirth of Apologetics
- 32 A Eucharistic Church
- 33 How Real Is the Real Presence?
- 34 Benedict XVI
- 35 The Mission of the Laity
- 36 The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century
- 37 Evolution, Atheism, and Religious Belief
- 38 Who Can Be Saved?
- Mcginley Lectures Previously Published
- Index
True and False Reform in the Church
True and False Reform in the Church
April 23, 2003
- Chapter:
- (p.401) 29 True and False Reform in the Church
- Source:
- Church and Society
- Author(s):
Avery Cardinal Dulles
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
This chapter looks at the reforms in the Church, examining the valid from the false ones. The idea of reform is as old as Christianity itself. Reform is by definition a good thing, and frequently is needed both on the personal and on the institutional level. Reform may be either restorative or progressive. Restorative reform seeks to reactualize a better past or a past that is idealized. Progressive reform aims to move ahead toward an ideal or utopian future. Either style can run to excess. Restorative reform tends toward traditionalism; progressive reform, toward modernism. In any discussion of reform, two opposite errors are avoided. The first is to assume that because the Church is divinely instituted, it never needs to be reformed. This position is erroneous because it fails to attend to the human element. The second error would be to assail or undermine the essentials of Catholic Christianity.
Keywords: reform, progressive, restorative, traditionalism, modernism
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- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Church and Society
- 1 University Theology as a Service to the Church
- 2 Teaching Authority in the Church
- 3 Catholicism and American Culture
- 4 Faith and Experience
- 5 Newman, Conversion, and Ecumenism
- 6 The Uses of Scripture in Theology
- 7 John Paul II and the New Evangelization
- 8 Historical Method and the Reality of Christ
- 9 Religion and the Transformation of Politics
- 10 The Church as Communion
- 11 The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II
- 12 The Challenge of the Catechism
- 13 Crucified for Our Sake
- 14 John Paul II and the Advent of the New Millennium
- 15 Priesthood and Gender
- 16 The Travails of Dialogue
- 17 The Ignatian Tradition and Contemporary Theology
- 18 Mary at the Dawn of the New Millennium
- 19 Should the Church Repent?
- 20 Human Rights
- 21 Can Philosophy Be Christian?
- 22 Justification Today
- 23 The Papacy for a Global Church
- 24 The Death Penalty
- 25 Religious Freedom: A Developing Doctrine
- 26 Christ Among the Religions
- 27 When to Forgive
- 28 The Population of Hell
- 29 True and False Reform in the Church
- 30 John Paul II and the Mystery of the Human Person
- 31 The Rebirth of Apologetics
- 32 A Eucharistic Church
- 33 How Real Is the Real Presence?
- 34 Benedict XVI
- 35 The Mission of the Laity
- 36 The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century
- 37 Evolution, Atheism, and Religious Belief
- 38 Who Can Be Saved?
- Mcginley Lectures Previously Published
- Index
