Other
Implementation of the Council in our regional church
Rudolf Brajčić
Abstract
By Regional Church we mean the dioceses in Yugoslavia where Croatian
is spoken.
I) Translations and Commentaries of the Council documents
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All the Croatian bishops partook in the Council, but they did not contribute towards any essential formation of the Council documents.
After the Council they strived to fathfully implement its docrees and
constitutions. During the period from 1965 to 1969 the Bishop’s Conference issued all the documents of Vatican II in separate booklets. The Catolic Publishing House: »Kršćanska Sadašnjost« published all tie
documents 'in one volume in 1970 with an Index. The periodicals: Bogoslovska smotra, Svesdi, Crkva u svijetu, et al., published various articles by Croatian theologians regarding the Council documents. The most signiificiant contributor was Tomislav Šagi-Bunić who later on issued his articles in three volumes. The Croatian Jesuits started a series of commentaries of the documents of which four volumes have been published to date. Some priest’s have chosen Council themes for their doctoral dissertations.
II New Structures of the Church as the Community of the Faithful
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The liturgical reform was implemented gradually in obedience to the
guidelines of the Holy See. No dissident movements resulted.
Thirteen Councils and two secretariates were formed within the
Bishop’s Conference. While diocesan priest’s councils were formed
immediately, dilocesan pastroral councils and parish pastoral aouncils
still have not been formed in the majority of our dioceses and
parishes. The best example of consequent renewal were in Religious
congregations, but their numbers have decreased in the last decade.
III) Ecclesiastical conflicts — A search for Catolic tolerance and Legal
pluralism
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Franciscan and diocesan priests have been in conflict since the foundation of the regular Church hierarchy in 1881 regarding the distribution of parishes, in Bosiriia and Herzegovina. The Coucil renewal did not help toj ease this problem. In 1977 the Catholic Theological Society was founded. The Bishop’s Conference refused to approve the formation and statutes of the Society. Some people regard this Society as a »Trojan horse« in our Church, and its members state th at the
problems concerning the Society are purely culturalnoncanormcal. The
Charismatic and Prayer group movements have been actively involved
in the events occurting in the parish of Međugorje, diocese of Mostar.
While some prelates and priests say that the experiences of the seers
can be explained naturally, others state that the spirit of penance and
conversion apparent in Međugorje should be kept up. These and other
conflicts should not be ignored, nor overemphasized. They are a vehicle
for the search for Catolic tolerance and legal pluralism.
IV) An openess towards others
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The Council Documents: UR, DH, NAE, GS, request that Catholics
should strive for openess towards the eastern orthodox, musllms and
ateists. We were unable to make noticeable progress in this area. One
of the reasons could be a lack of openess from the other side.
Keywords
Council; local Church; implementation
Hrčak ID:
86144
URI
Publication date:
12.6.1986.
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