SEEKING FOR THE ESSENCE OF THE PARADIGM OF DE-SECULARIZATION: INCULTURATION – THE SELF-MANIFESTATION STRATEGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT OF SECULARIZATION (original) (raw)

Within the institutions of religious bodies, there has appeared a number of particularly interesting areas of study around the ever widening discourse on secularization. One of these includes the intensive interactions taking place along the line sacrum – profanum which are aimed at the adjustment of ecclesiastical institutions to the rapidly changing realities of the modernised world. This article investigates the dynamism of these interactions in the light of the paradigm of desecularization which has emerged from them. In contrast to the previous secularization paradigm, this modified approach facilitates the development of a perspective which demonstrates, in a more balanced way, the two-sided relationships between the adherents of religion and the members of other segments of societal life, thus helping to redefine the concept of secularization. According to this newly developed view, religion still plays an important role as an institution which acts as a catalyst within the cultural-forming processes which determine the reality of human life within late modernity. However, in order to perform this role the Church’s institutions have to develop new ways of carrying out their mission, one of these being the missionary agency of the Roman Catholic Church based on the idea of inculturation.