A eclesialidade das novas comunidades : as novas comunidades como uma forma de autorrealizacao da igreja

Abstract

This master’s thesis attempts to estimate the role of lay associations known as New Communities in the Catholic Church ecclesiology. It is divided into three sections. The first one studies how the sociocultural contexts of modernity and postmodernity engender religious pluralism and new religiousness, as well as the ecclesial context related to the laity, whose apostolate has been strongly promoted by the Second Vatican Council, in adopting the ecclesiology of communion, creating the need for places of true life experience, softening individualism. The second section recognizes the presence of ecclesial movements since the first centuries of the Christian era, marked by the charisms infused into the founder for the Holy Spirit; it examines the New Communities as an authentic experience of Church, shaped by the charisms of the Spirit, giving effectiveness to the testimony of its members in a multiform unity; it highlights the New Communities charismatic origin, some sociological aspects, life sharing and the consecrated life of believers of different states, the emphasis given to the process of Christian formation; it checks their canonical inclusion, its difficulties and gives suggestions. The third section prioritizes the ecclesial signs, according to the criteria of the Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici, and the dynamism to communion and mission; it evaluates how those new ecclesial realities are effective tools for the personal meeting with Jesus Christ and analyzes their relationship with the parishes. The methodology is bibliographic, through Italian scholars and universal Church documents since Vatican II, documents of the Church in Latin America, especially Santo Domingo and Aparecida, and documents of the Church in Brazil. It concludes by recognizing the New Communities as one of the current protagonists of the ecclesiology of communion, fulfilling the primary evangelizing mission of the Church in communion with all ecclesial realities, pointing different possible forms of insertion in the local Churches.