Thesis advisor: Margaret E. Guider / Thesis advisor: Dominic Doyle / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis advisor: John Baldovin / Thesis advisor: Liam Bergin / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis advisor: Thomas Massaro / Thesis advisor: Andrea Vicini / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

with Dr. Joseph T. Kelley / Cushing Hall 001

Thesis advisor: Richard Lennan / Thesis advisor: Roberto Goizueta / A number of theologians claim that the church has not tapped into the fullness of Vatican II’s teaching on the sensus fidelium. As an attempt to address that concern, this thesis examines the teaching authority of the laity as a key element of the sensus fidelium in the church. It argues for a fuller realization of Vatican II’s emphasis on the laity’s participation in Christ’s prophetic office. It proposes a three-part lay hermeneutic (hermeneutic of everyday life, hermeneutic of desire, and hermeneutic of trust) as a relevant, authoritative framework for discerning the sensus fidelium. This thesis employs a method that is primarily critical, hermeneutical and practical. It is structured in three chapters. Chapter One offers a comprehensive theology of the sensus fidelium. Chapter Two focuses on the laity, their sense of the faith and the process through which they receive the faith. Chapter Three presents a vision of church that is attentive to the teaching authority of the laity. Through an analysis of the laity’s sensus fidei as an integral dimension in the discernment of the sensus fidelium, this thesis emphasizes that authority in the church derives from all its members and that the interpretation of faith is a process that invites the participation of all the baptized as sharers in Christ’s prophetic function. In such a church, the laity and ordained together equally belong to the guild of interpreters of God’s revelation. Consequently, the laity possess a teaching authority that contributes significantly to the life of the church. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis advisor: O. Ernesto Valiente / Thesis advisor: Margaret E. Guider / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis advisor: David Hollenbach / This thesis analyzes how the Catholic Church in Burundi used and can still use Catholic understanding of human rights to advocate for peace. Human rights discourse can be a way of translating the Catholic values of human dignity and human sacredness into secular language. Moreover, as Burundi is a signatory to most of the international instruments on human rights, this discourse becomes a tool for the Catholic Church in Burundi to denounce the violation and abuse of human rights and to advocate for peace. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

This dissertation focuses on the diocese of Linz in the Habsburg Monarchy during the second half of the nineteenth century, examining how the Roman Catholic Church and its priests adapted to and confronted the broad set of modernizing forces that were shaping the world around them against the backdrop of rising Ultramontanism within the Church. The study is divided into three sections. The first section explores the structural and ideological transformation of the Catholic Church in Upper Austria in this period. With a focus on the clergy, it examines the changing networks and structures of religious life; it investigates how the diocese changed under the watch of Bishop Franz Josef Rudigier (1853-1884) and Franz Maria Doppelbauer (1889-1908), and also under the influence of Ultramontanism. The second section examines the confrontation with liberalism. It begins in the 1850s, exploring how two events - the building of a general hospital in Linz and the burial of a prominent Protestant in a small town - inform our understanding of the dynamics of Catholic-liberal conflict in 1850s Austria. Next it turns to the height of the Austrian Kulturkampf between 1867 and 1875, exploring, how liberals and Catholic-conservatives presented a social vision that used the active exclusion of the 'other' to define itself. The third section shifts from liberalism to socialism, and from a study of the rise of Ultramontanism to that of Ultramontanism in practice. Examining Catholic responses to the social question, the study argues that Ultramontanism created its own internal set of contradictions when converted into policy, especially after the publication of the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. Instead of bringing the different elements together within the Church, the encyclical had the opposite effect; each group began to interpret the document in different ways and to act accordingly, effectively demolishing the image of Catholic unity that existed around Ultramontanism.

This thesis aims to study the development of the concept/model “the church as the family of God” and to explore its implications in terms of participation of church members and the social mission for the church in Vietnam. The discussion of the development of the ecclesiological concept helps to construct an ecclesiology of the church as the family of God in response to the call of Pope John Paul II in the Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa (1995).It also assists the Vietnamese church in its evaluation and implication of the model of the church as family. This ecclesiological model has been promoted since the seventeenth century and emphasised since the Second Vatican Council in the church in Vietnam. The scope of this thesis studies the biblical, theological and ecclesiological development of the concept/model of the church as God’s family. It also investigates the understanding of the family and the church as family in Vietnam, the mutual relationships of church members and the characteristics of the mission of the church in the world. Then it explores the implications of the ecclesiology of the church as the family of God for the local church. A proper understanding of these issues is necessary because it helps the Vietnamese church to apply authentically the model of the church as the family of God. Chapter One discusses the biblical understanding of the family of God as the metaphor for the relationships between God and his people and among members in the church. The metaphor “the family/the household of God” was applied to the house church in early Christianity and provides some relevant implications for the church today. Chapter Two examines the theological foundations of the concept in patristic writings, in the liturgy and in church documents. Chapter Three explores the components of an ecclesiology of the church as the family of God which include trinitarian, Basic Ecclesial Communities, ancestral veneration and liberation ecclesiologies. Chapter Four investigates the traditional as well as modern Vietnamese family and its challenges in order to identify the foundation of the understanding of the concept of family in the local church. Chapter Five describes the development of the concept/model of the church as family in the organisation of the Vietnamese church that appeared in the seventeenth century and in some documents of the local church. Chapter Six analyses church hierarchy and the participation of the people of God. It provides some implications of the ecclesiology of the church as God’s family for the promotion of the participatory church in Vietnam. Chapter Seven examines the characteristics of and the practical tools in the church’s social mission and explores the challenges to the implications of the social mission of the church as the family of God. The conclusions of this thesis are that the concept/model and the applications of the church as the family of God have basic foundations in scripture, in patristic writings and in church documents. The concept of family in these materials implies two main meanings: the familial relationships between God and the people of God (or the church) and the mutual relationships among people in the church as well as in society. These relationships are based on human interactions in the family which are problematic in some situations. Therefore, the model of the church as family must be patterned on trinitarian communion of the divine family so that it can overcome the limitations of the human family. In that context, the Vietnamese family pointed out advantages as well as disadvantages in the development of the model of the church as family. The concept of family is very close to the Vietnamese; it provides some possibilities to develop the participation in the church and its mission in society. However, to some extent, the concept and the structure of the Vietnamese family which was influenced by Confucianism have challenged the local church in these areas. Therefore, the proper understanding of hierarchy and the church’s social mission were discussed. Based on that understanding some applications were also proposed in order to help the Vietnamese church to overcome these challenges and become an authentic model of the family of God.