¹ Mannion, Gerard: ‘A Virtuous Community – The Self-identity, Vision and Future of the Diocesan Church’ in Timms, Noel (Ed.): Diocesan Dispositions and Parish Voices in the Roman Catholic Church, Chelmsford, Matthew James, 2001, 125Google Scholar.

² C., Hodgson, Peter: Winds of the Spirit, London, SCM, 1994, 54Google Scholar. Although he then somewhat commits the same ‘offence’ at the same time as trying to illustrate its danger (!)

³ O’Malley, John: “Reform, Historical Consciousness and Vatican II's Aggiornamento’, Theological Studies, 32 (1971), 573–601CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Cf. Dulles, Avery: Models of the Church, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1988Google Scholar. By paradigm, Dulles is of course (as was Hodgson) utilising the work of Thomas Kuhn. Dulles’ later work is more qualified and less conducive to any ecclesiological pluralism that this volume.

⁵ A point made also by Lakeland, Paul, The Liberation of the Laity, New York, Continuum, 2003, 262–3Google Scholar.

⁶ Pottmeyer, Hermann: Towards a Papacy in Communion – Perspectives from Vatican Councils I & II, New York, Crossroad, 1998, 110Google Scholar.

⁷ I have briefly discussed Weber's typologies in relation to ecclesial authority in Mannion, Gerard: ‘What Do We Mean by Authority?’, in Hoose, Bernard (ed.): Authority and Roman Catholicism – Theory and Practice, Ashgate Press, 2002, 26–7, 31Google Scholar.

⁸ Recent church documents would appear to endorse such a particular paradigm of what it is to be church, namely, a particular version of the ‘Communio’ ecclesiology (e.g, cf. Communionis Notio and Dominus Iesus).

⁹ An informative collection of essays on this concept is Detraditionalization – Critical Reflections on Authority and Identity, eds Heelas, Paul, Lash, Scott & Morris, Paul, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Howland Sanks, T: ‘Globalization and the Church's Social Mission’ in Theological Studies, 60 (1999), 626Google Scholar.

¹¹ Ibid. 626 & ff.

¹² Cf. Nietzsche, , The Gay Science, Ed. Williams, Bernard, Nauckhoff, ET Josephine, Cambridge, CUP, 2001, no. 125Google Scholar.

¹³ Pattison, George: A Short Course in the Philosophy of Religion, London, SCM, 2001Google Scholar. See, especially, chaps 8, 9, 10. Cf., also, a study which specifically examines these issues in the context of postmodern theory itself: Lowe, Walter: Theology and Difference – The Wound of Reason, Bloomington, Indiana Univ. Press, 1993Google Scholar, where Lowe states that all theology is, in sense, a grappling with the problem of evil.

¹⁴ Brierley, Peter and Wraight, Heather: ‘Christian Leadership in a Postmodern Society’ in Nelson, John (ed.): Leading, Managing, Ministering – Challenging Questions for Church and Society, Norwich, Canterbury Press, 87–8Google Scholar.

¹⁵ See Bauman, Zygmunt: ‘Postmodern Religion’. For a recent study of this ‘consumerisation’ of the church, cf., Drane, John: The MacDonaldsization of the Church, London, DLT, 2000Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Griffin, David Ray et al: Varieties of Postmodern Theology, Albany, SUNY, 1989Google Scholar. Griffin's approach is discussed in Tilley, Terence, with Westman, Craig: ‘David Ray Griffin and Constructive Postmodern Communalism’ in Tilley, Terence ed: Postmodern Theologies, NY, Orbis, 1996Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Postmodernism and the New Enlightenment, by Meynell, Hugo A., Washington, Catholic University of America Press, 2000Google Scholar

¹⁸ Heelas, Paul: ‘On Things Not Being Worse, and the Ethic of Humanity’ in Detraditionalization – Critical Reflections on Authority and Identity, eds Heelas, Paul, Lash, Scott & Morris, Paul, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996Google Scholar.

¹⁹ For a brief and accessible discussion of further challenges to the once ‘prevailing’ postmodern wisdom in its various forms, cf. the various essays in ‘After Postmodernism’, the Forum section of The Philosophers’ Magazine, Issue 20 (Autumn 2002), 34–50.

²⁰ Indeed, globalisation has emerged from other ‘grand narratives’ and ideologies, not least of all neo-liberal economics and political philosophy.

²¹ Howland Sanks, T: ‘Globalization and the Church's Social Mission’ in Theological Studies, 60 (1999), 625CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²² Griffin, David Ray et al: Varieties of Postmodern Theology, Albany, SUNY, 1989Google Scholar. His assessment is based upon the teachings issued under the name of John Paul II, which naturally are shaped by and representative of the institutional and central church ‘powers’ in general. However, I do not wish to imply that Griffin would agree with the analysis offered here, but his terminology is helpful and his own analysis constructive.

²³ See, also, the exploration of this question in McLoughlin, David: Communio Models of Church – Rhetoric or Reality?’ in Hoose, Bernard (ed.): Authority and Roman Catholicism – Theory and Practice, Ashgate Press, 2002, 181–190Google Scholar.

²⁴ Cf. Bauman, Zygmunt: ‘Postmodern Religion’ in Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity, ed. Paul Heelas, Oxford, Blackwells, 1998, 55–78Google Scholar.

²⁵ Haight, Roger: ‘The Church as Locus of Theology’ in Why Theology?(Concilium 1994/6, pp 13–22).

²⁶ Pattison, George: A Short Course in the Philosophy of Religion, London, SCM, 2001Google Scholar. Prevalent amongst such movements in recent times has been the (predominantly Anglican)‘Radical Orthodoxy’ movement which, in some of its forms, appears to promote a neo-exclusivism and seeks to hark back to some imagined ‘golden era’ of doctrine and theology ‘untainted’ by separate philosophical interests and questions of secular relevance.

²⁷ Cf. Burrell, David: ‘Radical Orthodoxy in a North American Context’ in Hemming, Laurence P. (ed.): Radical Orthodoxy – A Catholic Enquiry, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000, 28Google Scholar. For further aspects of comparative, as well discussions of additional forms of theological method and enquiry which are markedly different to the ‘Radical Orthodox’ and ‘Beyond Criticism’ forms of approach to the subject, cf. Jobling, J’annine and Markham, Ian (eds): Theological Liberalism – Creative and Critical, London, SPCK, 2000Google Scholar.

²⁸ Kirkpatrick, Frank G: The Ethics of Community, Oxford, Blackwell, 2001, 104–5Google Scholar. As opposed to the following assertion by Edward Schillebeeckx: ‘There is no revelation in ethical matters; ethics is a human process. It is not God who says “This is ethically permitted or forbidden.” It is human beings who with reflection and experience must say this and establish it’, I am a Happy Theologian, London, SCM, 1994, 70Google Scholar. So there is no such thing as a ‘Christian ethic’. Though Kirkpatrick associates such a theology with the ‘philosophy of communitarianism’(104)– which itself can have many forms and actually can work against an isolationist position in theology. Naturally, the divisions between ‘opposing camps’ can never be understood in simply black and white terms.

²⁹ James, Hanvey: ‘Conclusion – Continuing the Conversation’ in Hemming, Laurence P. (ed.): Radical Orthodoxy – A Catholic Enquiry, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000, 169Google Scholar.

³⁰ Of related concern here is the fact that the Roman Synods of recent decades have, in effect, been nothing of the sort for the very same reason. Cf. Ludwig Kaufmann, ‘Synods of Bishops – Neither “concilium” nor “synodos”’ in J. Provost, K. Walf (eds.), Collegiality put to the Test, Concilium(1990, 4), 67–78.

³¹ Haight, Roger, ‘The Church as Locus of Theology’, Concilium, (1994, 6), 13–22.

³² Had Luther only observed his own theology of humility more in practice, who knows what might have been in his conversations with church authorities before the final break with Rome!

³³ Cf. Leonardo Boff, ‘Images of Jesus in Brazilian Liberal Christianity’, in J. Miguez-Bonino (ed.), Faces of Jesus(1977), where Boff, himself, states that this phrase best describes his monumental work, Jesus Christ Liberator. (English trans. London, SCM, 1978)

³⁴ Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, Phenomenon of Man, New York, Harper, 1959, 31Google Scholar.

³⁵ Ibid., 264.

³⁶ Küng, Hans: The Church – Maintained in Truth, London, SCM, 85Google Scholar.

³⁷ Howland Sanks, T: ‘Globalization and the Church's Social Mission’, 626.

³⁸ Echoing the ARCIC document The Gift of Authority, London, CTS, 1999Google Scholar.

³⁹ Cf. Raiser, Konrad: ‘Opening Space for a Culture of Dialogue and Solidarity – The Missionary objectives of the WCC in an Age of Globalization and Religious Plurality’, Lecture at the SEDOS Seminar, Ariccia, 19 May, 1999, (this can be viewed at http://www.sedos.org./english/raiser_2.html).

⁴⁰ See the discussion by Huizing, Peter ‘Subsidiarity’ in Mannion, G., Gaillardetz, R., Kerkhofs, J. and Wilson, K. (eds.), Readings in Church Authority – Gifts and Challenges for Contemporary Catholicism, Harmondsworth, Ashgate, 2003, 207–09Google Scholar. The full article appears in Alberigo, G., Provost, J. (eds)Synod 1985 – An Evaluation, Concilium(1986), 118–123Google Scholar.

⁴¹ I discuss the relation between the two in greater detail in two forthcoming articles, ‘Ethics and Ecclesiology in a Postmodern Age – Comparative Considerations’, and ‘Systematic Preliminaries on Ethics and Ecclesiology – Act and Being in the Church’.

⁴² Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, 265.

⁴³ Ibid., 264.

⁴⁴ Reuver, Marc, ‘Emerging Theologies – Faith Through Resistance’ in The Ecumenical Movement Tomorrow, eds. Reuver, Marc, Solms, Friedrich & Huizer, Gerrit, Kampen, Kok Publishing, 1993, 263–80Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ With regards to this debate, Kilian McDonnell has ‘set the ball rolling’ in ‘The Ratzinger/Kasper Debate: The Universal and the Local Churches’, Theological Studies 63 (2002) 1–24Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ The arguments put forth here have developed out of my earlier ‘A Virtuous Community’.