Church as institution: polemics between catholic journals "Concilium" and "Communio"

The article analyses the polemics on the institutional and authoritative aspects of life of the Catholic Church in the international Catholic journals “Concilium” and “Communio”, created in the first few years following the Second Vatican Council. The former welcomed reforms and sought to extend the conciliar innovations to various spheres of Catholic Church life; the latter was represented mainly by conservative authors. These journals, which numbered among their authors the most prominent theologians of their time, express different views on the post-conciliar development of Catholicism, illustrate the long-standing conflict between modernism and traditionalism, reveal the specific make-up of the modern Catholic academic community as well as a new phase in the development of Catholic mass-media. The author concludes that the institutional aspect of the life of the Catholic Church constituted an important part of the discussion in these journals, especially in the 1970-ies - the early 1980-ies. Whereas the authors of “Concilium” advocated for democratization of Church life, the limitation of authoritative powers of the bearers of the Church office and the distribution of authority in the Catholic Church, “Communio” attempted to protect the authority of Catholic magisterium, warn against a hasty reinterpretation of the institutional power and emphasize its inextricable connection with the nature of the Church itself. At the same time, “Communio” took care to meet the requirements of the academic genre, while “Concilium” expressed a high degree of critical anti-institutional pathos, which the declared intention to accept Church reform does not directly imply. The texts published in the journals demonstrate a deep-rooted conflict, which dates back to the period of fighting modernism, and, being still unresolved, continues to determine the life of the Catholic Church. The contrasting editorial policies reflect, on the one hand, the intensifying polarization and the pluralistic character of Catholic theology after the Second Vatican Council, on the other hand – a close interaction between the religious and the socio-political life spheres of modern Catholics, which renders the analysis of religious communication even more relevant.