Base church
Basisgemeinde is the common German term for Christian , mostly Catholic groups or communities that have been formed in Latin America especially since the 1950s . In Spanish they are called comunidad eclesial de base , in German: ecclesiastical base community.
history
The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and the Second General Assembly of the Latin American Episcopate in Medellín (1968) supported the self-organization of the laity in the Catholic Church. For this reason - and parallel to the development of the theology of liberation - in the sixties, seventies and up to the eighties of the 20th century, base churches emerged in many Latin American countries, especially in the economic fringes and among the poor. Some of them developed a strong political awareness, especially in Brazil and Nicaragua , where the revolution (1979) enjoyed strong support in the base communities. Since the 1990s, the base communities have been developing with different focuses: from an Afro-American, feminist, ecological or Indian perspective.
Worldwide importance
The Latin American base communities found great interest and also imitators in Europe and North America. In Africa and Asia, similar structures developed simultaneously in the Catholic Church - there usually under the name of Small Christian Communities - Small Christian Communities . Numerous processes of networking and cooperation between the various continental currents are currently taking place.
In Europe, grassroots community movements formed primarily in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. There have also been a few attempts in Germany. On the part of liberation theology, it has been criticized on various occasions that the German reception of the basic community concept often ignores the political content of the Latin American model and only sees a new ecclesiological paradigm in the basic communities, i.e. interprets them as a purely church development.
The practical theologians Norbert Mette and Hermann Steinkamp developed their concept of social pastoral care a. a. based on a critical and solidarity-based discussion of the base communities and their reception in Germany.
literature
- Sybille Bachmann : Church base communities in Central America. Origin, development, ideas. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1993 ( Würzburg studies on fundamental theology. Volume 15).
- Leonardo Boff : The Rediscovery of the Church. Base churches in Latin America. Grünewald, Mainz 1980.
- Wolfgang Max Burggraf: From bushes and grass roots , in: Martin Seidler u. a. (Ed.): Church lives from ... 2000.
- Joseph G. Healey , Jeanne Hinton (Eds.): Small Christian Communities Today. Capturing the New Moment. Orbis Books, Maryknoll 2005.
- Elmar Klinger , Rolf Zerfaß (eds.): The basic communities - a step on the way to the church of the council. Echter, Würzburg 1984.
- Antonio Reiser , Paul Gerhard Schoenborn : Basic communities and liberation. Reader on theology and Christian practice in Latin America. Youth Service, Wuppertal 1981.
- Stefan Silber : Recognition and autonomy. The interplay of base and hierarchy in the Latin American base communities. In: Diakonia . 38, 3, 2007 pp. 166-172.
- Franz Weber : Daring inculturation. Base churches in Brazil - a pastoral-historical interim balance. With a foreword by Bishop Erwin Kräutler . Grünewald, Mainz 1996.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Ramminger: Church-critical movements in the FRG and theology of liberation. In: Raúl Fornet-Betancort (ed.): Liberation theology. Critical review and perspectives for the future. 3rd volume. Matthias Grünewald Verlag , Mainz 1997, pp. 113-128.
- ^ Norbert Mette, Hermann Steinkamp: (Creative) Reception of Liberation Theology in Practical Theology. In: Raúl Fornet-Betancort (ed.): Liberation theology. Critical review and perspectives for the future. 3rd volume. Matthias Grünewald Publishing House, Mainz 1997.