Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 80 No. 3, 2010.
Original scientific paper
Some Thoughts about the State and Perspective of Priests in Society
Gordan Črpić
; Centre for Promotion of the Social Teaching of the Church, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The article is entitled »Some Thoughts about the State and Perspective of Priests in Society.« The author decided on this title because it is not possible in such a small paper to present the entire problem relating to this topic. In his analysis he starts with some theoretical models based on the presumption that the state of the priest in contemporary Croatian society cannot be observed in isolation of the entire trend present in Western society which influence the situation in Croatian society in various ways. The author bases his analysis on the works of Daniele Hervieu-Léger, Grace Davie, José Casanova and Zygmunt Bauman. In particular he apostrophises that Western societies experienced a break in the »memory chain«, which disenabled adequate religious socialisation. In that context, priests are delegates – contemporary archivists – of religious memory who through hyper esthetical liturgy and strictly preserved moral standards, as experts in religious preservation of the faith in a secularised society, not only keep a religious and moral postulate but require an expert religious service of this kind. The second view leans on Casanova’s idea of the »de-privatisation« of religion – that is, of the fact that religion and in particular Christianity, is one of the strongest social drivers and that it cannot remain in the sphere of privacy and esthetical. This opens a huge perspective on the activities and presence of the Church – of priests and laity in the social sphere. In that context, priests are not exclusively experts isolated from the faithful but are part of the faithful – part of »God’s people« who act jointly in society, particularly in times of need. Naturally, the Liturgy has a vital role in this game in addition to its function of being inspirational for action and not just to archive memories.
Keywords
priests; community; memory; family; liturgy
Hrčak ID:
59700
URI
Publication date:
19.10.2010.
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