In a chapter titled "JHN on the Development of Doctrine" in a section 'The Sensus Fidelium', Prof T Rowland quotes Yves Congar:
"We live in a world that is desacralized, individualistic, analytic and academic, a world in which ideas are investigated for their own sake and easily separated from their signs or their sensible embodiments. For us, one of the faithful is a 'believer', one who holds intellectually certain transcendental maxims, who has "religious convictions."
But in the Christian tradition in which thought impregnated at least until the thirteenth century, a fidelis was someone sacramentally incorporated in the ecclesial reality. Not only was the faith he professed essentially the Trinitarian faith of the Symbol, it was the reality in him of baptism and his being part of the Church which, after having brought him to birth, formed him, nourished his life, governed all his actions, consecrated and united every moment of his existence to Christ."
'This is a good definition of a fully functional fidelis', the good Prof. notes.
That same day, I happened to read a newspaper article about Synodal Sr. Nat.
'....The Second Vatican Council has empowered Catholics “but we are in a kind of transitional phase, and in the mindset of many people, they haven’t realised (they) are called to be active”.
“We need to continue to empower lay people to help them understand the church is not only the priests and the bishops, the church is also the people,”.....
... Gender equality and mutual respect was a problem for society as well as the church: “Even if we see women prime ministers in many countries, we also know with the #MeToo movement that we have a long way to go to get rid of a pattern of abuses of power above women.”
I was left wondering if these people were indeed from the same planet, let alone church.
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