Customer Reviews

Church: Charism and Power, Liberation, Theology, and the Institutional Church

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This is the best book for understanding our mighty Catholic Church, philosophically, existentially, phenomenologically, theologically, both in its reading and in its troubled history (of this very book, as well as of the Church).

Okay, so for a full perspective you might also want to read the great and Very Reverend Father Hans Kung's Church as well as his The Catholic Church: A Short History (Modern Library Chronicles) and the excellent study of ecclesiology Church: The Human Story of God by the Reverend Father Edward Schillebeeckx, but they are rather drily technical while passionately faithful. The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism provides a comprehensive, objective examination of the Church presented in beautifully mosaic pieces, alphabetically, in brief items as well as scholarly lengthy articles.

In Brother Boff alone do we discover the kindness of Christian heart and soul and compassion with the brilliance and systematic approach of a highly trained theologian. In fact the way he lays out his reasoning resembles strongly Saint Thomas Aquinas in dialectic format.

This is the book which is described by Harvard Divinity Professor of Theology Harvey Cox in his definitive The Silencing of Leonardo Boff: The Vatican and the Future of World Christianity as a rather disjointed compilation of academic articles and lecture notes which nevertheless holds an overarching theme of our Church, its charismas and its powers.

Thus the first of these articles examines Models and Pastoral Practices of the Church. Friar Boff herein presents several models of Church around the triad of eschatalogical Kingdom-World-Church and the priority given each of these. The first model is exclusively triumphalist Church, withdrawing itself from the world entirely. Prematurely Boff declares this model would not long survive, as it now exclusively has, yet cannot much longer except as a dry and static museum piece. Fortunately the urgent passages closing the recent great Apostolic Exhortation Sacramento de La Caridad: Sacramentum Caritatis reveal an evolution from this clerical and cloistered model to a dynamic and universal Eucharistic concern.

The models thus emphasize an increasing concern for the world, and participation with the poor of this world, and a greater fidelity to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, moving from Mater et magistra, encyclical letter of his holiness Pope John XXIII; Christianity and social progress to Sacrament of Salvation, to Church from the Poor. It is impossible to represent here in a few phrases the depth of Brother Boff's excellent and exact presentation; I can only urge you to read it carefully knowing that several will not. There is much here of great worth and much to learn about how and why we live our Faith commitment to her fullest.

In a similar way, the second article examines Theological Tendencies and Pastoral Practices, presenting several theological approaches, their strengths and their shortcomings. The first of course is strongly current, seeing Theology as a depositum fidei, unchanging in expression and application, unaware of limiting cultural and temporal contexts, and stoutly defended. After an explanation of this theology, Brother Boff concludes: "Its principal limitations are that it is not existential, has no historical basis, runs the risk of rigidity, and creates bounty hunters for heretics and for those who criticize doctrinal statements (p. 14)."

Brother Boff then beautifully and brilliantly examines and explains several other tendencies in theology; it is a joy to read, exhilarating. The next tendency is Theology as Initiation into the Christian Experience, in which "Truth is lived as a transforming encounter (metanoia), rather than being a mere presentation of facts, thus helping to ground the Church as a community of Faith." This tendency is followed by Theology as a reflection on the Mysterium salutis "a key concept both in ancient tradition and in the theology of Vatican II." Next comes Theology as Transcendental Anthropology as found in Father Karl Rahner and the Gregorianum's Flick and Alszeghy. Then we read of Theology as the Sign of the Times, as described in Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: Gaudium et Spes, and developed "with political theology, the theology of secularization, the theology of hope and process theology." The endnotes here indicate the works of Metz, Moltmann and the systematic studies of Ducoq. The final tendency thus examined is the Theology of Captivity and Liberation, in a section you really need to read, both in its strengths and limitations. This article closes with Brother Boff's declaration of the theology needed in the Church today (or rather upon publication over a quarter century ago).

You can see here the impossibility of adequately presenting all the riches which this book contains within this amazonian format, even in these two first articles. I mention only the titles of a few other articles: The Church and the Struggle for Justice and the Rights of the Poor; The Violation of Human Rights in the Church; Roman Catholicism: Structure, Health and Pathologies; In Favor of Syncretism: The Catholicity of Catholicism; The Base Ecclesial Community: A Brief Sketch; Ecclesia Docens versus Ecclesia Discens, and An Alternative View: The Church as Sacrament of the Holy Spirit, to name just a few of these excellent and essential articles of Our Faith.

Highly recommended for your close reading, brilliant, profound, yet clear as a mountain stream. Get two; you will need them. I just did, as I will need them too. Mark and marginate one and keep the other one clean and wrapped for the end of time. May we all get there together as one.

You can bash the Catholic Church all you want as a layperson. I have been known to be critical of the Church from time to time, and I know quite a few Protestants who have made a career out of it. One expects some restraint when you wear the collar however. Boff's diatribe does nothing for Church reform IMO. There are Zacchaeuses as well as lepers in the church...sadly Boff fails to realize this fact.

I read this book last night and it is an example of ecclesiology that is contrary to the magesterium of the church.Leonardo Boff is a longtime dissenter and critic of the Church.The Catholic Church did not appreciate his criticism and dissenting view of Church leadership and also felt his liberation theology had politicized everything and accused him of Marxism. In 1985, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith directed at that time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), silenced him for a year for his book Church: Charism and Power.

He was almost silenced again in 1992 by Rome which finally led him to leave the Franciscan religious order and the priestly ministry.

Most theologians practice theology on their knees, Boff is an example of a theologian practicing theology in front of a mirror.