Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Nicholas LashOctober 07, 2012

Nicholas Lash, a former professor of theology at Cambridge University and a frequent contributor to The Tablet, writes in the December 13 issue about the role of the bishop as teacher, and the difference between teaching and commanding. Back in 1992, Professor Lash reported for America on a historic meeting of European theologians in Stuttgart, Germany. His three articles below are presented in pdf format.

"Europe has before it a unique opportunity for rebirth and renewal and, at the same time, the possibility of acute disorder and immense danger," Lash wrote in his introductory report, "Theology on the Way to Stuttgart" (April 4, 1992).

Lash argued in "The Broken Mirror" (May 16, 1992) that "theology is necessarily dependent upon confession and church. There is no faith without the confession of faith, without the community of faithful, the church."

Finally, in "In Search of the Prodigal" (June 13, 1992), Lash commented that "if Europe is to be 're-evangelized,' the European churches must be made young again" and the resources for this work "are likely to come, at least in part, from outside Europe."

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
David Smith
13 years 3 months ago
Good reading.  A good writer.  Thanks.

It's interesting to note that Vatican II was populated only by white males, probably mostly if not entirely from safely outside the Iron Curtain and representing the third world little if at all.  Thus, a huge amount of experience was not represented there; therefore, its conclusions and emphases may be in many ways deficient and suspect.
Chris NUNEZ
13 years 3 months ago
SEEMS TO ME THAT GABRIELA MISTRAL was saying precisely that in her mystical poem "Caida de Europa". Having seen the devastation of Europe in the first half of the 20th century she put her hope in the New World, and specifically in a United States that had adopted the Bishops Plan of 1917 as the foundation of the New Deal.

She was also instrumental along with other Latin American, and Catholic intellectual/diplomats who along with Jacques Maritain gave shape to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This is a good model to revisit as we ponder the fate of Europe, and the New World and its sibling nations outside of Europe.

The latest from america

The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.
Stephanie SaldañaMarch 28, 2024