Ecclesiology: Unity and Diversity in Catholic Christianity

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The module begins with the origins of the self-understanding of Church in the New Testament, and its antecedent history in the Hebrew Bible. It then outlines some of the developments that have taken place over the last 2,000 years. Loyola Institute 47 Next there is a careful study of key texts in contemporary Catholic selfunderstanding, as articulated in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, principally Lumen Gentium, studied with and alongside other key texts have have direct bearing on ecclesiology, 'Ad Gentes Divinitus', 'Unitatis Redintegratio', and 'Orientalium Ecclesiarum'. The module studies some of the contested issues in Church governance today; the relation between Papal primacy and Episcopal sacramentality and the related theological issue of the relation between local Church and universal Church, the issue of in Church governance and ministry, and the contested issues in the theology of the magisterium. Catholicity's unity in diversity is carefully studied as the communion of Churches with diverse liturgical rites and canonical arrangements.