Tilburg University Conversion and Church: The Challenge of Ecclesial Renewal Schelkens, Karim; Van Erp, Stephan DOI: 10.1163/9789004319165 Publication date: 2016 Document Version Version created as part of publication process; publisher's layout; not normally made publicly available Link to publication in Tilburg University Research Portal Citation for published version (APA): Schelkens, K., & Van Erp, S. (Eds.) (2016). Conversion and Church: The Challenge of Ecclesial Renewal: Essays in honour of H.P.J. Witte. (Brill's Studies in Catholic Theology; Vol. 2). 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Download date: 02. okt. 2021 i Conversion and Church © koninklijkeKoninklijke brillBrill nvNV, leidenLeiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/97890042763389789004319165__001001 ii Brill’s Studies in Catholic Theology Edited by Pauline Allen Joseph Carola Paul van Geest Paul Murray Marcel Sarot VOLUME 2 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bsct iii Conversion and Church The Challenge of Ecclesial Renewal EssAys in Honour of H.P.J. Witte Edited by Stephan van Erp Karim Schelkens LEIDEN | BOSTON iv Cover illustration: Painting by Egon Schiele, Conversion, 1912. Want or need Open Access? Brill Open offers you the choice to make your research freely accessible online in exchange for a publication charge. Review your various options on brill.com/brill-open. Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. 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ContentsContents v Contents List of Authors ix “We Must Always Be Converted”: The Church and the Challenge of Renewal 1 Stephan van Erp and Karim Schelkens Part 1 Systematic Theological Perspectives 1 The ‘Conversion’ of the Disciples: Schillebeeckx’s View of the Resurrection of Christ 9 Nico Schreurs 2 The Presence of the Absent: Augustine and Deification 27 Matthias Smalbrugge 3 “It’s Better, Then, I Arm Myself with Foresight”: Dante on the Relationship between Conversion and Belief in Providence 39 Wiel Logister 4 Post-Mortem Conversion? 53 Marcel Sarot 5 Seeing Christ on the Battlefield: Sign-Making, Sacrament and Conversion 65 Stephan van Erp Part 2 Ignatian Voices 6 A Theatre of Desire: The Philosophical Meaning of the Ignatian Exercises 89 Inigo Bocken vi Contents 7 Temptation as Conversion: The Architecture of the Sant’andrea al Quirinale and the Ductus of Conversion 106 Arnold Smeets 8 “I Have Wounded My Soul with the Instrument of Salvation”: The Threefold Spiritual Development of Gerard Manley Hopkins S.J. 123 Joep van Gennip 9 Pope Francis’s Call for the Conversion of the Church in Our Time 147 Catherine E. Clifford 10 A New Spring for the Church: The Ecclesiological Vision of Pope Francis Emerging in Evangelii Gaudium 178 Eugene Duffy Part 3 Vatican II and Conversion 11 “To Offer a Reasoned Account of the Truth of God”: Vatican II as a Lasting Call to Theological Conversion 205 Erik Borgman 12 Ecclesial Conversion: Some Canonical Reflections 226 Thomas J. Green 13 A Pneumatological Conversion? The Holy Spirit’s Activities According to Lumen Gentium 244 Jos Moons Part 4 Ecumenical Perspectives 14 De Oecumenismo Catholico et de Opere Conversionum: The Relationship between Ecumenism and the Apostolate of Conversions before and during Vatican II 263 Peter De Mey Contents vii 15 Conversion: Key Concept or Hot Potato in Contemporary Ecumenism? 288 Annemarie C. Mayer 16 Ecclesial Repentance and Conversion: Receptive Ecumenism and the Mandate and Method of Arcic III 304 Adelbert Denaux 17 The Essential Conversion of the Churches 326 André Birmelé Index 339 viii Contents List of Authorslist of authors ix List of Authors André Birmele is emeritus Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the University of Strasbourg and senior staff member of the Institute for Ecumenical Research of the Lutheran World Federation. Inigo Bocken is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Religious Studies at the Radboud University Nijmegen and Director of the Titus Brandsma Institute. Erik Borgman is Professor of Public Theology and Director of the Cobbenhagen Center at Tilburg University. Catherine Clifford is Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Saint Paul University, Ottawa. Peter De Mey is Professor of Roman Catholic Ecclesiology and Ecumenism at KU Leuven. Adelbert Denaux is emeritus Professor of Biblical Exegesis at KU Leuven and the former dean of the School of Catholic Theology at Tilburg University. Eugene Duffy is Lecturer in Ecclesiology at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. Stephan van Erp is Professor of Fundamental Theology at KU Leuven. Joep van Gennip is a Church historian and archivist at the Dutch Jesuit Archives (ANSI). Thomas J. Green is Professor of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America. x List Of Authors Wiel Logister is emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology at the Theological Faculty of Tilburg. Annemarie C. Mayer is Professor of Systematic Theology and the Study of Religions at KU Leuven. Jos Moons is Chaplain and PhD-student at the School of Catholic Theology at Tilburg University. Marcel Sarot is Dean and Professor of Fundamental Theology at the School of Catholic Theology at Tilburg University. Karim Schelkens is Associate Professor of Church History at the School of Catholic Theology at Tilburg University and Guest Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of KU Leuven. He is also secretary general of the European Society of Catholic Theology. Nico Schreurs is emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology at the Theological Faculty of Tilburg. Matthias Smalbrugge is Professor of European Culture and Christianity at the Free University of Amsterdam. Arnold Smeets is Director of LUCE, Centre for Religious Communication at the School of Catholic Theology at Tilburg University. “We Must AlwAys Be Converted” “We Must AlwAys Be Converted” 1 Chapter 0 van Erp and Schelkens “We Must Always Be Converted”: The Church and the Challenge of Renewal Stephan van Erp and Karim Schelkens In the Angelus, on the Sunday before the opening of the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis spoke about conversion and the forgiveness of sins. He pointed out that conversion is not just for atheists but also for those who already consider themselves Christians: “No one can say: I’m fine. Not true, it would be pre- sumptuous, because we must always be converted”. The term ‘conversion’ is used in many different contexts and in a variety of ways. No single definition can be offered which could do justice to the polysemic and dynamic nature of this concept. Meanwhile, we are faced with a theological concept which each and every theologian will somehow have to come to terms with. This has also been the case for Professor Henk Witte, who held the Xaverius Chair for Ignatian Spirituality and Theology at the School for Catholic Theology at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, between 2011 and 2016. Admittedly, Witte has never written a full-fledged study on ‘conversion’, but he did not cease to touch upon the subject from various different angles. For those who study his work more closely, the concept of ‘conversion’ is quietly present as a leitmotiv throughout his theological writings, from the very first years to the most recent period. In 1986, when Witte was finishing his doctoral dissertation on the notion of the hierarchia veritatum, the hierarchy of truths in the decrees of the Second Vatican Council, he came across the word when studying the conciliar inter- ventions of Archbishop Eugene Louis D’Souza.1 The young systematic theo logian seems to have been triggered by D’Souza’s focus on the conversio cordis. In his dissertation, Witte devoted some reflections to the term, clarify- ing that a true conversion of the heart involved an interplay of personal modesty, and the avoidance of ‘hypertrophia’, the over-accentuation or exag- geration of dogmatic truths. Conversion then could be defined as a capacity for reflection (without ‘overdue rationalizations’, Witte warned in his early work), and above all as a discernment that leads to a certain balance and nuance. 1 H. Witte, “Alnaargelang hun band met het fundament van het christelijk geloof verschillend is”. Wording en verwerking van de uitspraak over de ‘hiërarchie’ van waarheden van Vaticanum II, (Tilburg: Tilburg University Press, 1986), Cf. D’Souza’s intervention at the council: Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II (as) II.6, 195–6.