Review article
Attitude ofChurch teaching toward religions before II vatican council
Nikola Bižaca
orcid.org/0000-0001-9412-508X
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Split
Abstract
In the context of a wider investigation of theological roots of the
council declaration "Nostra Aetate", the author of the article studies
the predominant attitudes of the central church teaching of XIX and
XX century toward the non-christian religions.
Analysing the primary sources, the author shows that, for centuries, the catholic theology and teaching treated the problem of religions exclusively in the view of a chance of individual salvation of pogans. The stronghold of such a chance was reduced to three key ideas: "fides implicita", "votum baptismf and "ignorantia invincibilis".
Then, analysing a few speeches on religion made by the popes of
XIX and XX century, the author arrives at a conclusion that, as late as until the later phase of Pio XTs pontificate, the central teaching had a markedly apologetic and negative attitude toward the memebers of the other religions. Certain drifts from the black-white attitude toward non-christians were noticed only in the decades preceding the II Vatican council, when one could hear of some values in non-christian cultures, but not much of religions. Still, no attitude was taken regarding the theological character of non-christian religions, or any explicit readiness for dialogue to face them. This was going to happen not until the II Vatican council, the author concludes.
Keywords
church teaching; Nostra Aetate; salvation of pogans
Hrčak ID:
51383
URI
Publication date:
21.9.1998.
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