L’Église dans l’espace public: représentations et situations de parole

• Autor(a) principal: Jobin, Guy
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: fra
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/didaskalia.2016.3235

The public space of democratic societies is a ‘place’ of action and of discourse. What a social actor does or says there depends, to a large extent, on his own representation of the relationship that exists between the group to which he belongs and the body politic of which he is part. Is this relationship one of conflict? Or is it rather based on mutual esteem? Does it go as far as collaboration? We can see, the representation of the relationship between the institution of belonging and the body politic is at the heart of what in rhetoric is termed as the discourse situation. It is through the ‘discourse situation’, in other words through the circumstances and context that in their way shape any form of discourse, that I will approach the issue of ecclesial discourse in the public space. In this text, I have two objectives: 1) to show an awareness of the changes that have marked ecclesial representations of the relationship Church/ body politic with and after Vatican Council II; 2) to demonstrate how public ecclesial discourse has adjusted to these changes. To do so, I will proceed in three steps: firstly, I will summarily define what I understand by ‘public space’; secondly, I will cast an eye on the Catholic theories of the relationships Church/body politic following Vatican II; lastly, I will show how these theoretical shifts have effectively led, in their turn, to shifts in ecclesial discourse.