01/07/2026 11:20 - 12:20

HALL: Pola - A206a

Contact: Faggioli M.

Chair: Faggioli M.

How do the particular churches—canonically understood as dioceses and their equivalent in the Eastern Churches—relate to the "one, holy, catholic, apostolic" ecclesial reality? This is not only a question from the Council of Nicaea 1700 years ago. It is a burning question today, all the more as other Christian traditions face schism, whether between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches, the Anglican Communion and GAFCON, or the now-disunited United Methodist Church. It is deeply connected as well to the rise of non-denominational Christians spurred on by new technologies, organizational possibilities, and political-ideological cleavages offering revolutionary new way of resourcing and communicating. The question here is about Global Catholicism, inevitably part and parcel of this larger context. What does Catholicism look like on the ground in its various instantiations? How does it hold together? What centripetal and centrifugal forces are at play in the vast network that is Global Catholicism? Is a common juridical authority, based ultimately on concepts derived from ancient Roman law, sufficient to hold together something that is no longer an imperial construct? What can we learn from stories of specific Catholic churches in specific places? What does an historically grounded geo-ecclesiological lens offer? What might that suggest for the third millennium of the Catholic Church, one characterized not by an overwhelming presence in a limited part of the world but by a moderate to significant presence all over the world? Can lessons regarding catholicity per se speak to politics and political questions at a time of fragmentation and global power vacuums rapidly being filled by players acting on naked self-interest? What about doctrine of war and of peace? If all politics is local, surely all ecclesiology is local as well.