Original scientific paper
Paresis in Željko Mardešić's work
Jadranka Brnčić
orcid.org/0000-0002-0568-5673
; Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Filozofski fakultet
Abstract
The article is focused on certain aspects of contemporary topics which Mardešić had opened up since 1991. More specifically, it is about the way he did it, openly and uncompromisingly touching the neuralgic points in the life of the Catholic Church. The phrase „open speech” or parrhesia is mentioned in the New Testament about forty times and refers to: 1. confidence; 2. testimony and 3.open, clear, unequivocal speech directed against hypocrisy in one’s own environment. The article is particularly focused on paresis (Gr. parrhesia) as auto-criticism which was usually neglected in the history of Church, and in Mardešić’s texts it appears in the sense of benevolent recognition and questioning of the crisis of religion and of „removing masks”. Mardešić’s paresis is fraught with virtues like: intellectual honesty, dialogicality and sensitivity to the signs of the times. In the situation of complex relations and problems of our world today, fifty years after the Council, it has become apparent that Church in Croatia is exposed to dangers that have bogged down in political Catholicism or, unlike the Council, condemns secularism, taking its mechanisms herself, which can be read as a sign of crisis in the relationship between religion and faith, or even of the crisis of authentic fidelity to the Gospel in the Church. Mardešić’s paresis is characterized by stylistic restraint, scientific reservations and by human circumspection, therefore his texts require careful reading and understanding. Otherwise, they may be, as unfortunately happens, exposed to shortened even distorted interpretations, or to interpretations without sharpness of his paresis.
Keywords
Mardešić; paresis; intellectual honesty; dialogicality; signs of the times; political Catholicism; secularism
Hrčak ID:
192658
URI
Publication date:
21.12.2017.
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