11/07/2025 11:00
- 15:00
HALL: Dean's Hall of the Faculty of Catholic Theology
Proponent:
Ferracci L.
Chair:
Macconi I.
Speaker:
Cornelli E.,
Monsalvo Basaldua M.F.,
Mourao Permoser J.T.,
Neddens P.D.C.,
Njeri Mwaura P.,
Samita Z.,
Trotta S.
It is common to speak of an "ecumenical winter," and to blame it on a conservative return to tradition and certainty. This diagnosis is often followed by exhortations to overcome institutional inertia, reject ecclesial prejudices, and transcend self-interest and fear of change. Yet today we are witnessing what appears to be a restart of ecumenism that has a light and a shadow side. As differences over hot-button ethical issues continue to increase, the impulse to find alternative paths to classical ecumenism becomes stronger: especially outside Europe, ecumenical circles are emerging with the capacity to build programs to advance current knowledge using a variety of theoretical frameworks derived from theology and the social sciences. Issues that they address include empowerment of women in church and society, ministerial formation, development of contextual theologies from non-western perspectives. On the other side, Christianity today is swept by a fundamentalist wind blowing from the United States to Russia and uniting evangelical and Orthodox Christians against abortion and same-sex marriage, but also in the nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state. Some have called it "ecumenism of hate" or "trench ecumenism," as it is known in its North American variant, where "intolerance is a celestial mark of purism. Reductionism is the exegetical methodology. Ultra-literalism is its hermeneutical key." In this framework, this panel aims to propose a reasoning on this double face of the present ecumenism considering a) the international and national spreading of conservative moral and value conceptions; b) Its controversial relationship with established churches and political power; c) Local and grassroots experiences of "unconventional" ecumenism making common cause in social ethics and responding to world needs; d) New non-ecclesial and non-theological actors and agents of ecumenism (women, youth, students, political activists).