The Second Vatican Council became an important light for the Church in its inner revival and in focusing on the multidimensional world. It is expressed in 4 constitutions, 9 decrees and 3 declarations. The Constitution Lumen gentium presents the Church using the following categories: the mystery, the sacrament of salvation, The People of God, the divine-human reality, hierarchical and charismatic structure, various states on the way to the eschatological fulfillment, where Mary is the icon of believers. The Council also showed the important role of the laity in the identity of the Church. This new vision was not only a cosmetic change
of the form of expression of the content of faith, but a new understanding of the Church, rooted in the Bible and the patristic teaching. At the same time some questions demand a further deepening and defining: the relationship between the Petrine Office and the college of bishops, the collegiality of bishops, the relationship between the office and the charism in practice, the form of responsibility of lay persons in the Church. It was courageous of the Second Vatican Council
to show that the principle Ecclesia semper reformanda is real. The Church lead by the Holy Spirit transforms into new community, improves, converts, rejects what is not the essence of faith, but only a human form, good in a particular time and place. So there is no agreement on the revolution, but on the cleansing and progress.

Feminist theology striving for women’s liberation in the world and in the Church very often raises an issue of the hierarchy of the Church. This is because women’s discrimination in the Church is most evident in the perspective of the hierarchy. It seems that the two most important demands to improve the position of women in the Church and to achieve equality of all members of the Church are a change of perception of ecclesiastical offices (as a service, not domination) and the possibility of women’s ordination. These demands are interrelated. In this paper I will present in greater detail the discussion about the second demand. Arguments for and against ordination of women will be set forth. I will also pay attention to another essential issue for the women’s liberation: it is a language
through which we describe the mystery of God. According to the feminist theologians only inclusive language opens the way to perceive women as close to God as men. Moreover, the paper shows feminist theology as a successor of some conciliar conceptions of the Church and also in a certain sense as a fruit of the Second Vatican Council.

The Second Vatican Council was a turning point in the Catholic Church on its way to the unity of Christians. The pontificate of Pope John Paul II was the fulfillment of the teachings of this council in practice. This article presents this blessed time of care for the unity of Christians on the basis of three fundamental issues. First the teachings of the said pope devoted to ecumenism have been presented in a synthetic manner. For obvious reasons the most fundamental reference text here is the Ut unum sint encyclical. It was the first document published after the Second Vatican Council, which deals with the subject of unity of the followers of Christ and
shows what has already been achieved. It also depicts the present day situation of ecumenism and the need for its further development in the light of the preaching of the Gospel to all nations. This encyclical inspires the other two issues developed in this article, that is the issue of spiritual and practical ecumenism and its fruits in the life of the Church and its mission which consists in pursuing a longlasting unity among Christians.

Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate is by many commentators of his pontificate marginalized and considered a weak point of the teaching of the Pope. It is accused of more pastoral than social nature, naivety, and even some daydreaming. Unfairly. Paradoxically, what is disclosed as its weakness, after careful reading may prove to be its strength. This article aims to show that Caritas in Veritate can be read according to three key concepts: understanding, loving, action. These
terms define some interdependent layers of the encyclical, and their skillful interpretation allows to extract from the text of the Pope an interesting vision of the mission of Catholics in the today’s world.

Nine Demonstrations from the second series of the Persian sage’s works begin with a lecture De circumcisione, and they were to be directed against the Babylonian Jewish teachings. The Chosen People departed from true God and became similar to the godless Amorites, Sodomites and Gomorhites. In the context of anti-Judaic dispute  Aphrahat describes the essence and meaning of Christian circumcision, which is baptism, as a sign of faith (signaculum fidei). In a manner characteristic of his scripturist argumentation, the Persian provides negative (Adam, Jeroboam, Manasses) as well as positive (Abel, Henoch, Noah, Shem, Japheth, Abraham) examples of those famous Biblical figures for whom circumcision had a relative meaning in their lives, and its value was dependent on faith and observance of the orders of Law.

The short pericope of Genesis 50,15-21 is a literary climax of the Joseph’s story. It presents the history of Joseph as an action of Divine Providence. Joseph himself proves that it is true. He claims that all human plans and activities are controlled by God. Furthermore, he underlines the fact that the retribution for evil and harm does not belong to human being but only to God. Another important message conveyed by this pericope is an idea that in God’s plans suffering and evil will always be transformed into good, so that God’s plans concerning individuals and nations may be carried out.

The dignity of a human person is set forth by many different realities, also by the law of the Gospel. In this context it appears to be an important commandment to love your enemies which is a special case of the commandment to love your neighbour. It is thoroughly analyzed by great scholastic scholars, from among which St. Thomas Aquinas and Bl. John Duns Scotus have been chosen in order to collate their thoughts. They appear similar: one shall love in a human person what is God’s gift, but not what is evil. Because according to the Biblical Law a human should always be loved, so also an enemy never completely loses his or her human dignity in any moment of his or her life. The enemy preserves some part of God’s resemblance which can be loved despite the worst sins. The human dignity is inalienable and universal.

Tłum. Magdalena Mazur

The Holy Scripture concerns many issues, among them also moral problems of a social and political nature. The Lectionary for Mass reflects this fact to a certain extent – as it contains among others the texts that indicate directly (explicite) or indirectly (implicite) such problems. The author of the article attempted to divide the biblical readings into two groups explaining that such distinctions of the pericopes, although clearly emphasizing the discussed problem, may be controversial. The L ectionary contains also many other texts of moral, social and political nature – therefore those of them have been chosen which express the problem in a better way and may help people exercising power and politicians to find guidance in the Divine Revelation. It is worthy stressing that the lists of biblical texts should spur the priests to proclaim God’s Word faithfully and courageously; the priests should also actualize it taking under consideration the specific social and political life conditions. The preacher of the Word of God may, however, fall into disfavour of with such politicians who promote the laic style of life and even impose it on others taking advantage of their power. Jesus Christ is the best example of courageous and uncompromising proclamation of the Good News and He grants the preachers salutary power that allows them to follow Him faithfully.

From the very beginning of the change of the political system in 1944 members of the clergy were forced to show political loyalty and willingness to cooperate with the authorities. The undertaken research leads to a conclusion that the opinion promoted by contemporary propaganda presenting attitudes among the clergy as mostly positive does not seem to be so self-evident. In the Diocese of Katowice passive, hesitant and indifferent attitudes certainly dominated. Positive attitudes were rare (mainly “priests patriots”). In the communist system resignation from openly hostile attitudes could be interpreted as rising passive resistance. 1956 only partly restricted the repressive policy of the authorities towards the clergy.

One of the main functions of a sacred song is a formation of believers’piety. Sacred song is a heritage of the Upper Silesian Church’s tradition and culture where the whole community of the people of God is singing. The sources of the sacred songs are a confirmation of this commendable tradition. This work focuses on a selected group of Upper Silesian sets of prayers and songs which were published between 1914 and 2004 in the Archdiocese (former Diocese) of Katowice. This article is a kind of continuation of the study ”Upper Silesian prayer-books up to 1914” by s. Gaudencja (Teresa Ochot).

The principle of solidarity is a key principle of social life in Catholic social teaching. It is also inherent in the culture of Europe and in the European Union documents. The extreme situations taking place in Europe allow to verify if the rule is actually applied in the solving of European problems. An important event in Europe in recent years is the war in Ukraine. Ukraine, aspiring to membership in the European Communities and associated with the European Union, has been encompassed by the principle of solidarity. Europeans living in the post-communist EU countries recognize, however, that solidarity is not the only key to solving the problem of Ukraine. Sometimes more important than solidarity seem to be the particular economic interests of the countries of the “old” EU, and solidarity remains a task to be accomplished.