I dag kl 12 snakket pave Benedikt om festen for Herrens dåp før ha ba angelus-bønnen på Petersplassen. Like før hadde paven (som bildet viser) døpt flere barn i det Sixtinske kapell.

I sin tale nevnte paven at den apostloliske/katolske forkynnelsen alltid hadde sett på Jesu dåp som en viktig handling, både som et uttrykk for det trinitariske mysterium, og som en profeti på Jesus blod-dåp på korset – og som et symbol på alle Frelserens sakramentale handlinger.

Deretter tok paven opp forholdet mellom vår dåp og Jesu dåp. Han sa: “In the Jordan the heavens opened (cfr Lk 3:21) to indicate that the Saviour had opened for us the way to salvation and we can walk down it precisely thanks to the new birth ‘of water and Spirit’ (Jn 3:5) that comes about in Baptism. In this, we are inserted in the mystical Body of Christ that is the Church, we die and resurrect with Him, we are covered by Him”. A responsibility and a commitment are born of this union with Christ: “ ‘listening’ to Jesus, that is, believing in Him and following him in docile manner and doing his will. It is in this way that each of us can tend towards holiness, an aim that, as the Second Vatican Council recalled, constitutes the vocation of all who are baptized.”

Jeg har lenget grublet over og studert den karismatiske bevegelsen, som på en måte er sterk (spesielt i den tredje verden), samt har en viss kraft og inderlighet som vi kristne trenger, men som på den andre side skaper mange problemer, både teologisk pg praktisk (slik jeg selv ser det). I den siste av sine ekstra mega-trender, som jeg tok fram sist uke, skriver John Allen om dette:

As several readers pointed out, any list of Catholic mega-trends that overlooks the astonishing growth of Pentecostal and Evangelical forms of Christianity worldwide cannot be complete. A recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life offers a comprehensive run-down of the numbers. According to the Pew research, today there are an estimated 500 million “revivalists” in the world, including members of stand-alone Pentecostal and Evangelical denominations as well as charismatics within established denominations. Revivalists now represent one-quarter of the total Christian population of two billion, compared with just 6 percent of the Christian total 30 years ago. The “Pentecostal wave” is the world’s fastest-growing religious movement, making especially strong inroads in the global South. At one level, this mega-trend means that Catholicism will be increasingly pushed in a charismatic direction, towards greater openness to the miraculous, the experience of healings and exorcisms, a more literal reading of Scripture, and more spontaneous styles of liturgical expression. In Brazil alone, the world’s largest Catholic country, almost half of the population describes itself as “charismatic,” with profound consequences for how the faith is taught, preached, and lived. At another level, the “Pentecostal wave” also creates new competition for Catholicism, given that a hefty percentage of the revivalists are defectors from the Catholic church. To take one example, a study commissioned in the late 1990s by CELAM, the Latin American Catholic bishops’ conference, found that 8,000 Latin Americans were deserting the Catholic church for Evangelical Protestantism every day. Among other things, this competition for souls promises to reshape the ecumenical conversation; in 1992, John Paul II used the phrase “ravenous wolves” to refer to Pentecostal and Evangelical “sects” in Latin America, a more aggressive language that hints at a shift from détente to apologetics in inter-Christian relations. In whatever fashion Catholicism chooses to approach the revivalists, including the growing number within its own fold, they are an unavoidable feature of the religious landscape.

Hva er den største trusselen mot kristendommens plass i samfunnet, Islam eller sekulariseringen? I sin liste over mega-trender hadde John Allen skrevet om Islam, men etter at han fikk respons fra lesere, skrev han følgende:

In describing the rise of Islam, especially its more radical currents, I wrote last week that in some ways it represents the “chief ideological rival” of the Catholic church. Several readers took issue with that formula, some out of sensitivity to Muslims, but others because they believe there’s a greater ideological foe: Western secularism, especially in Europe. Many pointed to the “ecclesiastical winter” of contemporary Europe as a mega-trend. While sociologist Fr. Andrew Greeley has documented that “de-Christianization” has not gripped Europe uniformly, nevertheless the indicators in many places are striking.

In the Netherlands, the proportion of the population with no religious affiliation has gone from 23 percent to 59 percent in a single generation, prompting Greeley to observe that “the Dutch may have become a pagan people almost overnight.” In a similar vein, vocations to the priesthood and religious life have plummeted. .. The church has scant influence in public life, as symbolized by the unwillingness of the European Union so much as to mention God in the preamble to its draft constitutional document. There’s also the rise of an increasingly pugnacious form of atheism, evidenced most recently by Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, often premised on appeals to science. All this represents a serious challenge to the church in the West, and perceptions of such a crisis were at least partly responsible for the election of Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy. Diagnosis, however, is easier than cure. There will continue to be strong debate as to whether the solution is to “modernize” the church, bringing it more into line with contemporary secular expectations — or to reinforce its traditional identity, on the grounds that secularism poses a crisis not of structures or teachings, but of nerve.

En gang for lenge siden hadde presteskapet nesten monopol på forkynnelse, katekese, trosformidling, katolsk undervisning osv. I den sjette av sine mega-trender skriver John Allen videre om dette punktet:

That monopoly has been eroded over the centuries by the invention of the printing press, the rise of a free press in the West, the emergence of theologically sophisticated laity, the spread of independent broadcast outlets, and a host of other factors. Today, anyone who can find their way to a Starbucks with a laptop can be their own publisher. The blogosphere is full of Catholic offerings. … The Catholic conversation is a wide-open marketplace, and if bishops want to make themselves heard, it has to be by dint of their message rather than their office.

Vi merker mange steder i dag at katolikker leter etter en tydeligere identitet, vi ser dette både innenfor liturgi og katolsk undervisning, fra ordenslivet til katolikkers deltakelse i politisk arbeid. Dette skriver John Allen i beskrivelsen av den andre av sine mega-trender:

Another major force is the relentless press for a stronger sense of Catholic identity, an impulse felt in virtually every area, from liturgy to education, from religious orders to the church’s engagement with secular politics. In his famous homily 24 hours before his election as pope, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger laid out what he saw as the central challenge facing the church: a «dictatorship of relativism,» meaning the rejection of objective truth. Like John Paul II before him, Benedict is keenly concerned that Catholics do not assimilate to this broader secular mentality. As the practical translation of this imperative, the church has seen a growing emphasis over the last 25 years on what sociologists call the «politics of identity» — efforts to reinforce distinctively Roman Catholic language, practices and belief systems, our markers of difference in a rapidly homogenizing world. The emphasis on identity cuts across debates large and small, from whether theologians should have a mandatum from a bishop certifying their orthodoxy, to whether lay people should be allowed to purify the sacred vessels after Mass.

Det er svært tydelig at Den katolske kirkes (og andre kirkers) senter har flyttet seg fra nord til sør i løpet av de siste hundre årene, og denne utviklingen kommer til å fortsette. I den første av sine mega-trender skriver John Allen om dette:

In 1900, there were 459 million Catholics in the world, 392 million of whom lived in Europe and North America. Christianity 100 years ago remained an overwhelmingly white, first world phenomenon. By 2000, there were 1.1 billion Catholics, with just 380 million in Europe and North America, and the rest, 720 million, in the global South. Africa alone went from 1.9 million Catholics in 1900 to 130 million in 2000, a growth rate of almost 7,000 percent. This is the most rapid and sweeping demographic transformation of Catholicism in its 2,000 year history. Sao Paolo, Jakarta and Nairobi will become what Leuven, Milan and Paris were in the Counter Reformation period, meaning major centers of pastoral and intellectual energy. Different experiences and priorities will set the Catholic agenda as leaders from Africa, Asia and Latin America rise through the system, reshaping the texture of church life.