Review article

Movements, Associations, Communities - 'The Irregularity' of Charismas and Church Normative

Miron Sikirić ; Franciscan Theology - Institution of Higher Education of Franciscan Province Bosna Srebrna, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

This article deals with the theological and ecclesiological notion of charisma, the mutual immanency of the charisma and institution, the charisma in the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council and Cannon Law and the charisma and movements in the Church.
In the title the author surmises relations between the charisma and institution, i.e. new spiritual movements and Church normative. The author concludes that the charisma is always given within the Church as an institution so that it can help her to achieve a balance which is innate to her polarity. Calling her to absolute primacy of the Spirit and relativizing her authority so that it does not become absolutely autocratic, the charisma revives the institution helping her to overcome the obsession of competing with any form of authority which, in the Church, virtually always resulted in the advantage of the hierarchy over the laity and only occasionally the laity over the hierarchy.
Considering the relationship between the Church as a visible institution and charismas there should not be any absolutism or excessive intimacy. There is no room for any conflict between either element, between the Church of love and the Church of the law. The charisma does not create conflicts or Church revolutions or turbulence but, above all, in responds to appeals to the eschatological call of the Church. It supports the institution while searching for its own identity, which constantly threatens latent antinomy. The relationship of »mutual immanency« between the charisma and institution is at the same time an indicator of the methodology and »style« in the realisation of the charisma. There should never be a lack of care for the »objective« in this realisation or appeal to authentic faith; finally, there should never be any lack of urgency for every charisma to put themselves to the service of the mysteries of the Church.
The charisma itself carries an immanent structure that determines the way it will be achieved in the Church, because immanent structures create rules in life that morally oblige those receiving the charisma even before those rules are sanctioned by Cannon and positive norms. At this level there is a charisma-institution because with the effects of the Spirit, inter-subjective morally obliging duties and rights connected to the charisma emerge from the charisma itself: the Spirit is the source of the charisma and of the institution too. Cannon institutionalisation is just another step that emerges when the Church recognises the charisma as relevant and appropriate to her salvational aim and when Cannon norms are set that regulate the realisation of the charisma and mutual relations that will emerge from it within the Church community. It is here in fact that the charisma becomes a Cannon institution. Together with other elements that structure the Church communio - these being the sacrament and the Word - the charisma reveals its creative power that Cannon law has, and thanks to it connects the institutional or communal with the personal and ecclesial or the objective with the subjective.
By nature, the charisma presumes the existence of the institution. As a privileged expression of the presence and effects of the Holy Spirit, the charisma has the role to challenge the institution to authenticity and vitality that enables it to truly be a support to the Church and an expression of the Church's ministry.

Keywords

charisma; institution; constitution; Church movements; associations; Second Vatican Council; ecclesiology; Cannon Law -1983; territorially

Hrčak ID:

28226

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/28226

Publication date:

12.8.2008.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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