Abstract:
The universal and local Church, in its divine and human nature, is configured in a visible, earthly and temporal way in the parish community. The parish community is the Church of the Gospel and of Christ, a sign and sacrament of salvation. The inculturation of the Gospel, in the course of history and in the most diverse human circumstances, happens to a large extent in the parish community, space of life and praxis of the Catholic faith. The phenomenon of secularization, urbanization and modern rationality, the secular constitutional state, the maximization of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience, exposes the limits of the structure and work of the parish Church. The calls for renewed ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, deepened by José Comblin and by other theologians, ecclesial leaders and agents, become understandable; and our theological collaboration gathers elements for the discussion of the problems of the Catholic Church in relation to the city and the urban population and indicates that the first initiative for its updating must be that of the parish. Theology of the City of Comblin offers a vast theological and ecclesiological content that unfolds within the limits inherent to the structure and performance of the local and parish Church in relation to the urban world. From these first ideas, with the subsequent defense of another parish system in the city, theological reflection considers aspects essential to the restructuring of the parish system and to the renewal of the Catholic Church: change as a process of new Christian awareness and ecclesial action. From the notion of the nature of the Church, the new parish configuration is born. It concludes by examining the proposal for sectorization conceived as an urban church or parish.
