Abstract

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: This article seeks to outline what may be called a ‘diagnosis’ of the relationship between the church and the world, according to the English blessed, John Henry Newman. In his opinion, this relationship will always be conflictive and it is destined to remain so (an account that seems to be confirmed, and perhaps even accentuated, in our time).

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The discussion, follow­ing a brief hermeneutic because of its limited extension, reflects on Newman’s thesis relevant in its thought: the church-world opposition, an opposition on which this author is highly descriptive, and whose approaches do not have any ambiguity.

THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The argumentative line of the article stops at three points consistent with each other and coherent within the British religious’s exposition: 1. The customs of the church and the world differ completely. 2. Wanting to adopt the criteria of the world is always a danger­ous lure for the church. 3. A dichotomous relationship with the world, a world fallen by sin, is a natural condition for the church.

RESEARCH RESULTS: The evident tension between the church and the world emerges from the analysis carried out in the investigation.

CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: What is the usual framework of the relationship between the church and the world according to Cardinal Newman? This question, tacitly present in this ar­ticle, is answered by Newman in a negative way (as it shows with well-founded reasons, in my opinion, a problematic bond which dates from the beginning of the church and that in the future will continue to be so). His thesis confirms and expresses an essential discordance between two realms of different condition: a temporal one, the world, and an eternal one, the church. From his writings on this subject, it is concluded that the mission of the church is to evangelize the world in an incessant way, although the results of it seem always a little insuf­ficient and even infertile.