BEING A CHURCH IN A SECULARISED WORLD

TAKING OFF FROM VATICAN II

Authors

  • Theodore Mascarenhas Gregorian University

Keywords:

SECULARISED WORLD, VATICAN II

Abstract

The Council focuses its attention on the world of men, the whole
human family along with the sum of those realities in the midst of
which it lives; that world which is the theater of man’s history, and
the heir of his energies, his tragedies and his triumphs; that world
which the Christian sees as created and sustained by its Maker’s love…1
With these words the Second Vatican Council announced to the
world, the active participatory role of the Church. The Council
Fathers intended to make it clear that the realm of faith and the so
called “secular” world could not be treated as two separate
irreconcilable entities but as a single integrated reality. And in
another document the Council Fathers once again indicated the
whole hearted involvement of the Church in the affairs of the World.
In Lumen Gentium, the Council Fathers wrote, “The present-day
conditions of the world add greater urgency to this work of the Church so
that all men, joined more closely today by various social, technical and
cultural ties, might also attain fuller unity in Christ.”

Author Biography

Theodore Mascarenhas, Gregorian University

Fr Theodore Mascarenhas SFX, has a Doctoral Degree in Sacred Scripture from the
Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome. His Doctoral Dissertation The Missionary Function
of Israel in Psalms 67, 96, 117 is published by the University Press, Dallas , USA, 2005.
He is the Head of the Departments for Cultures in Asia, Africa and Oceania at the
Pontifical Council for Culture and a visiting Professor of Sacred Scriptures at the
Gregorian University, Rome, St Thomas University, Rome and the Pilar Theological
College, Goa.

References

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Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution, Lumen Gentium, No. 13, 21 November 1964, in AAS 57 (1965).

http://www.secularism.org.uk/what-is-secularism.html accessed on 03-07-2013

Iain T. Benson “Notes Towards a (Re) Definition of the ‘Secular,’” University of British Columbia Law Review, Special Issue, “Religion, Morality and Law” (2000).

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http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20120902_it.html

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John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, Inter-Varsity Press, 2010.

Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes, 7 December1965, no. 17, in AAS 58 (1966).

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Chuck Palahniuk, New York: Random Publishers, 2002.

Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter, “Caritas in Veritate,” L’Osservatore Romano, English Edition, 8.07.2009.

Josef Ratzinger, Homily at the Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff (18 April 2005).

The Essential Pope Benedict XVI: His Central Writings and Speeches (2008) edited by John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne.

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John Paul II, Fides et ratio, Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998.

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Published

2013-09-30

How to Cite

Mascarenhas, T. (2013). BEING A CHURCH IN A SECULARISED WORLD: TAKING OFF FROM VATICAN II. Asian Horizons, 7(03), 536–546. Retrieved from https://dvkjournals.in/index.php/ah/article/view/2661