Dominikaneren Aidan Nichols har nylig utgitt en bok der han ber om full innsats fra katolikker for at England kan vende om til den katolske tro. Jeg ble tipset om dette fra en som leser denne bloggen, men jeg leste om boka allerede for noen få dager siden. Jeg har også sett diskusjoner om hvordan man best skal forstå Nichols. Han ønsker ikke å fokusere på en kamp mot andre kirkelige forsamlinger, men mer direkte på at mennesker må vende om til kristen (og katolsk) tro.
Nichols har også skrevet lignende ting før – se her. Og slik kan vi i dag lese videre i The Catholic Herald:
Convert England to Catholicism, says papal ally
One of Britain’s leading theologians has broken ranks with the ecumenical establishment by calling for Catholics to convert non-Catholics.
Fr Aidan Nichols, the English theologian most closely associated with the thinking of Benedict XVI, has appealed for England to be “re-made” as a Catholic country.
He set out his radical and comprehensive programme for Catholic renewal in a new book entitled The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England, published by Family Publications.
In his preface he says that Catholic Christianity should be put forward “not as an occupation for individuals in their solitude but as a form for the public life of society in its overall integrity”.
He admits that the conversion of England is “an absolutely colossal agenda”, adding: “It can only be brought into being, so far as it depends on us to do so, by a coordinated strategy for recreating a full-blooded catholicity with the power to… transform a culture in all its principal dimensions.
“That is what ‘the mission to convert’ and ‘the conversion of England’ mean to me.”
His comments will be seen as an implicit criticism of the direction of the Church in England and Wales. He points to “flagship” Catholic institutions which have “suffered shipwreck through secularisation”.
The Second Vatican Council, he argued, did not replace mission with dialogue. Instead it drew attention to respectful dialogue and an understanding of other faiths as a necessary condition of missionary work.
Fr Nichols, a Dominican friar, argues that the disappearance of other Christian and non-Christian religions would not necessarily be “a Bad Thing”, since the Catholic faith contains all the elements of truth, goodness and beauty that are present in other forms of Christianity and faith traditions.
He argues that Catholicism was crucial in the formation of England and suggests that the Church is well suited to remaking a “not terribly impressive culture” dominated by “supermarkets and sport”.
English Catholicism is fit for the challenge, he explains, because it is a “pot-pourri” of recusant families, Anglican converts and Irish, Polish and Filipino immigrants. He says the example of the original Anglo-Saxon conversion of England showed that only a mixture of “indigenous and exogenous elements” can successfully transform a whole society.
Fr Aidan Nichols’s plan for renewal:
Firmer doctrine in our teaching and preaching
Re-enchant the liturgy
Recover the insights of metaphysics
Renew Christian political thought
Revive family life
Resacralise art and architecture
Put a new emphasis on monastic life
Strengthen pro-life rhetoric
Recover a Catholic reading of the Bible
Fr Nichols identifies a number of strategies he believes the Church ought to implement to draw England back to the faith.
He argues for the renewal of Christian political thought beyond merely a concern for the poor. Indeed, he suggests that religious apathy is partly a product of Christianity’s removal from the political sphere.
A “re-enchantment” of the liturgy is also needed, he says, since liturgy forms the imagination and is crucial in “getting others to grasp the inwardness of Catholic Christianity”. He cites Cardinal John Henry Newman’s prediction that belief fails where “the imagination is against us”.
Fr Nichols also stresses the need to “recover lost ground” in the intellectual argument for faith.
He argues there should be a “revival of doctrine” in catechetics and preaching, and a recovery of metaphysics to give people a “coherent and deep philosophy of the created order”.
He proposes a stronger defence of the unborn and a recovery of the Catholic reading of the Bible – “a reading of Scripture in the same spirit as that in which it was written, rather than in the light of academic fashion”. He also calls for the “revivification” of the family through the re-union of domestic and work life.
Gratias, pastor Oddvar.
Interessant at det ble en hovedpost og ikke et saksinnlegg!
Fr. Nichols bok er allerede bestilt..;)
Da han snakket til medlemmene av Troskongregasjonen, blant annet om det kommende dokumentet fra Roma om bioetikk, understreker Paven igjen at den Katolske kirke er den ene og sanne Kirke og nødvendigheten av at andre konverterer.
«In an address to members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith currently meeting in Rome for their plenary assembly, Pope Benedict XVI confirmed recent Vatican declarations on Catholicism as the “one true church” and the necessity of seeking converts to the faith, and also offered a preview of a coming document on bioethics. »
http://ncrcafe.org/node/1572
Interessant at Fr. Nichols og Paven kommer med slike ting nesten synkronisert. Det er nesten så det virker planlagt. men igjen, de gjør ingenting annet enn å gjenta kjent doktrine.