Date of Award
6-1972
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Theology
First Advisor
Quentin Quesnell
Second Advisor
Cyril Vollert
Third Advisor
James P. Scull
Fourth Advisor
Francis J. Doherty
Fifth Advisor
Edward Finer
Abstract
The following analysis of cultural adaptation in a revealed religion developed out of a concern over the crisis and, to some extent, the chaos which followed upon the changes in theology and religious living in the ,ears immediately following the Second Vatican Council. This study is written in the hope that a fuller understanding of the process of change in a broader cultural context may help relieve some current tension and contribute to constructive acceptance of the inevitable fact of change in religious culture and in all dimensions of historical living.
The original plan of this work called for a case-study of one particular attempt at religious reform. The study was to be objective, that is, a standing back and observing how a felt need for renewal was met in this one concrete case, and how the change, when effected, reached old goals through new forms. By means of the case- stud1 the reader could follow the life-history of one idea of religious reform from its birth through its attempted actualization, observing along the way the temporal and cultural humanly limiting factors that would in turn inevitably lead to the subsequent obsolescence of the idea in question as a timely expression of the Christian idea. Such a treatment, it was felt, would surely make some contribution to the understanding of the phenomena which accompany change in the realm of human creations.
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