A invenção do Padre: genealogia da subjetivação clerial em seminários católicos

A presente pesquisa investiga a produção de subjetividade em seminários católicos. Por meio de diversos teóricos, girando em torno do eixo conceitual da Análise Institucional (em sua vertente socioanalítica e, principalmente, esquizoanalítica), pesquisou-se um importante seminário católico diocesano na região Sudeste, um dos primeiros fundados no Brasil. Um seminário é a instituição de internato em que muitos homens vivem, estudam e trabalham, durante oito anos em média, para se tornarem padres. Nossa pesquisa de campo utilizou-se da observação participante, oriunda da antropologia e sociologia, em diversas visitas ao estabelecimento, durante as quais fomos autorizados a participar de todas as atividades dos 110 seminaristas internos. Em seguida, alguns seminaristas, de todas as etapas da formação, e todos os 5 padres formadores foram entrevistados. Recorremos a entrevistas abertas de história de vida, segundo os procedimentos da História Oral italiana. Guiados pela distinção da filosofia de Spinoza de três gêneros de conhecimento, buscamos dramatizar a formação clerical em três níveis de compreensão: os Signos ou afectos, as Noções ou conceitos, as Essências ou perceptos. Por meio dessa trajetória, constatamos o predomínio da dimensão do instituído e de uma modelização homogeneizadora de tipo romana, resultando em que os clérigos ali formados se fechem em uma identidade sacerdotal claramente identificável e encapsulada na obediência aos centros de poder eclesiais: a Cúria romana, a Mitra diocesana e a Paróquia. Busca-se, na formação, reproduzir a subjetividade serializada segundo um Modelo sacerdotal institucionalizado, no qual as dimensões litúrgica e disciplinar são ressaltadas, em detrimento das dimensões místico-políticas sendo a perseguição à Teologia da Libertação um importante analisador dessa característica. A constante vigilância da pureza doutrinal, litúrgica, organizacional e teológica indicou-nos a pressão em reprimir a dimensão místico-profética, que range, querendo se expressar. Em vista disso, bem como de inúmeros outros analisadores, conceitos e personagens produzidos ao longo da pesquisa, pudemos constatar que o desejo clerical, modulado na formação seminarística, oscila entre dois pólos: um pólo sacerdotal-romano-paranóico e um pólo profético-libertador-esquizo. No primeiro, há redução à identidade hegemônica nascida nos centros de poder eclesiais, fechando-se à diferença, na busca de um projeto de imortalidade frente às intempéries da vida e transformações da História, produzindo práticas hierárquicas a partir de um pensamento de caráter transcendente, representativo. No segundo pólo, há busca de singularização, nascida do seguimento a Jesus, o conseqüente compromisso com os menores e excluídos dentro e fora da Igreja e o processo inerente a esta produção de sentido, criando-se, em conseqüência, uma radical imanentização da vida cristã e de seus pólos e transcendências: material/espiritual, fé/vida, Igreja/Mundo, mística/política. O seminário pesquisado, indicador das transformações micropolíticas da Igreja contemporânea, produz hegemonicamente um desejo sacerdotal-romano-paranóico, forjando funcionários do poder da Igreja, burocratas do aparelho de Estado romano, aplicadores de suas rubricas litúrgicas e normas doutrinais e morais, e não profetas do Reino de Deus, máquinas de guerra libertadoras quanto a tudo o que oprime a potência da vida e suas inauditas expressões singulares.

A Theological Challenge: Coordinating Biological, Social, and Religious Visions of Humanity

This paper attempts two tasks. First, it sketches how the natural sciences (including especially the biological sciences), the social sciences, and the scientific study of religion can be understood to furnish complementary, consonant perspectives on human beings and human groups. This suggests that it is possible to speak of a modern secular interpretation of humanity (MSIH) to which these perspectives contribute (though not without tensions). MSIH is not a comprehensive interpretation of human beings, if only because it adopts a posture of neutrality with regard to the reality of religious objects and the truth of theological claims about them. MSIH is certainly an impressively forceful interpretation, however, and it needs to be reckoned with by any perspective on human life that seeks to insert its truth claims into the arena of public debate. Second, the paper considers two challenges that MSIH poses to specifically theological interpretations of human beings. On the one hand, in spite of its posture of religious neutrality, MSIH is a key element in a class of wider, seemingly antireligious interpretations of humanity, including especially projectionist and illusionist critiques of religion. It is consonance with MSIH that makes these critiques such formidable competitors for traditional theological interpretations of human beings. On the other hand, and taking the religiously neutral posture of MSIH at face value, theological accounts of humanity that seek to coordinate the insights of MSIH with positive religious visions of human life must find ways to overcome or manage such dissonance as arises. The goal of synthesis is defended as important, and strategies for managing these challenges, especially in light of the pluralism of extant philosophical and theological interpretations of human beings, are advocated.

The parish priest on duty : a practical manual for pastors, curates, and theological students preparing for the mission : being a brief summary of the prescribed manner of administering the sacraments, the service of the dead, and sundry other pastoral functions in accordance with the Roman Ritual (The Sacraments) / by H.J. Heuser.

http://www.archive.org/details/theparishpriesto00heusuoft

A reconsideration of the theological conception of sin in the light of the psychoanalytic conceptions of shame and guilt

Boston University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Department of Religion.

An Historical and Theological Analysis of Campus Crusade for Christ's Evangelistic Practice in Two American University Contexts

This dissertation, an exercise in practical theology, consists of a critical conversation between the evangelistic practice of Campus Crusade for Christ in two American university contexts, Bryan Stone's ecclesiologically grounded theology of evangelism, and William Abraham's eschatologically grounded theology of evangelism. It seeks to provide these evangelizing communities several strategic proposals for a more ecclesiologically and eschatologically grounded practice of evangelism within a university context. The current literature on evangelism is long on evangelistic strategy and activity, but short on theological analysis and reflection. This study focuses on concrete practices, but is grounded in a thick description of two particular contexts (derived from qualitative research methods) and a theological analysis of the ecclesiological and eschatological beliefs embedded within their evangelistic activities. The dissertation provides an historical overview of important figures, ideas, and events that helped mold the practice of evangelism inherited by the two ministries of this study, beginning with the famous Haystack Revival on Williams College in 1806. Both ministries, Campus Crusade for Christ at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) and at Washington State University, inherited an evangelistic practice sorely infected with many of the classic distortions that both Abraham and Stone attempt to correct. Qualitative research methods detail the direction that Campus Crusade for Christ at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) and Washington State University have taken the practice of evangelism they inherited. Applying the analytical categories that emerge from a detailed summary of Stone and Abraham to qualitative data of these two ministries reveals several ways evangelism has morphed in a manner sympathetic to Stone's insistence that the central logic of evangelism is the embodied witness of the church. The results of this analysis reveal the subversive and pervasive influence of modernity on these evangelizing communities—an influence that warrants several corrective strategic proposals including: 1) re-situating evangelism within a reading of the biblical narrative that emphasizes the present, social, public, and realized nature of the gospel of the kingdom of God rather than simply its future, personal, private, and unrealized dimensions; 2) clarifying the nature of the evangelizing communities and their relationship to the church; and 3) emphasizing the virtues that characterize a new evangelistic exemplar who is incarnational, intentional, humble, and courageous.

The Practice and Understanding of the Eucharist in the United Church of Christ: A Practical Theological Study

This dissertation explores the complexity of the understanding and practice of the Eucharist in the United Church of Christ as revealed in a textual analysis of the UCC Book of Worship (1986) and a qualitative study of five representative UCC congregations. Little has been written on this topic, save for several brief articles on the history of the theology of the sacrament in the two bodies that merged to form the UCC in 1957: the Congregational Christian Churches (CC) and the Evangelical and Reformed Church (E&R). This dissertation advances the topic through a practical-theological study that brings into critical conversation contemporary eucharistic practices in five congregations and a historical theological analysis of liturgical traditions in the UCC and antecedent denominations. Through this conversation, the study articulates common themes of a UCC eucharistic theology and explores implications for ongoing theology and practice in the denomination. The introduction explicates the methodology employed in this study, guided by Don Browning's work. The first two chapters present the findings of the focus group interviews and an interpretation of those results respectively. Chapter three analyzes the eucharistic liturgies in three historic books of worship used in the E&R heritage. In chapter four, two of the antecedent resources utilized in the CC tradition are analyzed. The short-lived Hymnal of the United Church of Christ, published in 1974, includes liturgies that would find fuller expression in the 1986 Book of Worship. That hymnal is examined in chapter five. Chapter six interprets the two services of "Word and Sacrament" found in the Book of Worship. Chapter seven offers a comparative analysis of the focus group findings and the theology inherent in the Book of Worship. The final chapter offers strategic recommendations for revised theory and practice. The conclusion points toward areas for further research: it propels a critical conversation around the notion of covenant, Christ's presence in the meal, and who can receive and officiate at the Eucharist. This dissertation concludes that the UCC lives within a balance of multiple, complementary theologies and challenges the denomination to make stronger connections between the meal and mission, reconciliation, and tradition.

Making Sadza with Deaf Zimbabwean Women: A Missiological Reorientation of Practical Theological Method toward Self-Theologizing Agency among Subaltern Communities

Missiological calls for self-theologizing among faith communities present the field of practical theology with a challenge to develop methodological approaches that address the complexities of cross-cultural, practical theological research. Although a variety of approaches can be considered critical correlative practical theology, existing methods are often built on assumptions that limit their use in subaltern contexts. This study seeks to address these concerns by analyzing existing theological methodologies with sustained attention to a community of Deaf Zimbabwean women struggling to develop their own agency in relation to child rearing practices. This dilemma serves as an entry point to an examination of the limitations of existing methodologies and a constructive, interdisciplinary theological exploration. The use of theological modeling methodology employs my experience of learning to cook sadza, a staple dish of Zimbabwe, as a guide for analyzing and reorienting practical theological methodology. The study explores a variety of theological approaches from practical theology, mission oriented theologians, theology among Deaf communities, and African women’s theology in relationship to the challenges presented by subaltern communities such as Deaf Zimbabwean women. Analysis reveals that although there is much to commend in these existing methodologies, questions about who does the critical correlation, whose interests are guiding the study, and consideration for the cross-cultural and power dynamics between researchers and faith communities remain problematic for developing self-theologizing agency. Rather than frame a comprehensive methodology, this study proposes three attitudes and guideposts to reorient practical theological researchers who wish to engender self-theologizing agency in subaltern communities. The creativity of enacted theology, the humility of using checks and balances in research methods, and the grace of finding strategies to build bridges of commonality and community offer ways to reorient practical theological methodologies toward the development of self-theologizing agency among subaltern people. This study concludes with discussion of how these guideposts can not only benefit particular work with a community of Deaf Zimbabwean women, but also provide research and theological reflection in other subaltern contexts.

The analysis of large-scale turbulence characteristics in the Indonesian seas derived from a regional model based on the Princeton Ocean Model

Turbulence characteristics in the Indonesian seas on the horizontal scale of order of 100 km were calculated with a regional model of the Indonesian seas circulation in the area based on the Princeton Ocean Model (POM). As is well known, the POM incorporates the Mellor–Yamada turbulence closure scheme. The calculated characteristics are: twice the turbulence kinetic energy per unit mass, <i>q</i>²; the turbulence master scale, &ell;; mixing coefficients of momentum, <i>K</i>_M; and temperature and salinity, <i>K</i>_H; etc. The analyzed turbulence has been generated essentially by the shear of large-scale ocean currents and by the large-scale wind turbulence. We focused on the analysis of turbulence around important topographic features, such as the Lifamatola Sill, the North Sangihe Ridge, the Dewakang Sill, and the North and South Halmahera Sea Sills. In general, the structure of turbulence characteristics in these regions turned out to be similar. For this reason, we have carried out a detailed analysis of the Lifamatola Sill region because dynamically this region is very important and some estimates of mixing coefficients in this area are available. <br><br> Briefly, the main results are as follows. The distribution of <i>q</i>² is quite adequately reproduced by the model. To the north of the Lifamatola Sill (in the Maluku Sea) and to the south of the Sill (in the Seram Sea), large values of <i>q</i>² occur in the deep layer extending several hundred meters above the bottom. The observed increase of <i>q</i>² near the very bottom is probably due to the increase of velocity shear and the corresponding shear production of <i>q</i>² very close to the bottom. The turbulence master scale, &ell;, was found to be constant in the main depth of the ocean, while &ell; rapidly decreases close to the bottom, as one would expect. However, in deep profiles away from the sill, the effect of topography results in the &ell; structure being unreasonably complicated as one moves towards the bottom. Values of 15 to 20 × 10^&minus;4 m² s^-1 were obtained for <i>K</i>_M and <i>K</i>_H in deep water in the vicinity of the Lifamatola Sill. These estimates agree well with basin-scale averaged values of 13.3 × 10^&minus;4 m² s^-1 found diagnostically for <i>K</i>_H in the deep Banda and Seram Seas (Gordon et al., 2003) and a value of 9.0 × 10^&minus;4 m² s^-1 found diagnostically for <i>K</i>_H for the deep Banda Sea system (van Aken et al., 1988). The somewhat higher simulated values can be explained by the presence of steep topography around the sill.