The Church in Dialogue: What Approach? And With Whom?
By Randall Smith
The Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes says that the Church has the duty of responding to "the perennial questions which men ask about this present life and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the other," in "language intelligible to each generation." So too, one often hears that the Church should be "in dialogue" with the modern world. This is not the same as "accompanying" people, which presupposes no disagreement. In dialogue, the parties can disagree in hopes of coming to a better understanding of one another.
So, let's…
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