Abstract
At the end of the fifties of the twentieth century, the Catholic Church entered into a new epoch of its history, thanks to the charismatic Pope John XXIII. Particularly two documents, accepted by the participants of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), Nostra Aetate (Our Age) and Dignitatis humanae (On Human Dignity), were decisive in this process.
This chapter debates the contribution by the French historian Jules Isaac in this context. He made an important contribution to the study of Antisemitism in the years after the Holocaust. After the war, in the year 1947, Jules Isaac met with a group of Jewish and Christian intellectuals to whom he submitted the main theses of his work which were to form the basis for the so-called Ten Points of Seelisberg. They became one of the most important cornerstones of the Jewish-Christian dialogue.
This chapter argues that it is appropriate to introduce the concept of postsecularism as a kind of hermeneutical key for the present pluralistic character of contemporary societies.
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Notes
- 1.
The original first use of this term, meaning “bringing up to date” occurred in a speech by Pope John XXIII on “The Ecumenical Council will reach out and embrace under the widespread wings of the Catholic Church the entire heredity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Its principal task will be concerned with the condition and modernization (in Italian: aggiornamento ) of the Church after 20 centuries of life. May it be that side by side with this, God will add also, through whatever edification we may offer, but above all by merit of the omnipotence of the Most High who can draw new chosen sons from the very stones, one other result: a movement toward recomposition of the whole Mystical Flock of Our Lord.” The Criterion. Archdiocese of Indianapolis (United States of America), July 7, 1961.
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Tausch, A., Obirek, S. (2020). The Failure of the Catholic Church in Postsecular Context?. In: Global Catholicism, Tolerance and the Open Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23239-9_1
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