Enti ecclesiastici e riforma del Terzo settore. Profili canonistici

For the ecumenical movement, the Second Vatican Council was a turning point that fundamentally changed the conditions for relationships between the churches. Since the council, the Roman Catholic Church has become an active partner in the ecumenical movement, while until the middle of the 20th century it had deliberately rejected any recognition of the ecumenical movement as a new reality in the life of the churches. The change has particularly affected the World Council of Churches (WCC), and the jubilee of the Second Vatican Council (2nd VC) is an appropriate moment to assess the developments in ecumenical relations during these fifty years. Of course, the significance of the 2nd VC goes far beyond its impact for ecumenical relations. Mention could and should be made of its new understanding of the place of the church in the modern world, of its affirmations of human rights and religious liberty, as well as of its initiatives preparing the way for inter-religious encounter and dialogue. The following reflections, however, will be limited to the development of ecumenical relations in the fifty years since the council. The generation of those in the leadership of the WCC who witnessed the 2nd VC and who participated in its successive sessions as observers on behalf of the WCC and of some of its member churches has passed away. This is true in particular for the first general secretary of the WCC, Dr W.A. Visser't Hooft; for the principal observer on behalf of the WCC, Dr Lukas Vischer; and for the two Orthodox observers, Dr Nikos Nissiotis and Fr Vitalij Borovoij. Their accounts still provide a vivid testimony for the groundbreaking significance of the council. The present attempt to assess the development in ecumenical relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC is written from the perspective of someone who since 1971 has been involved in shaping these relationships, who was co-secretary of the Joint Working Group between the Vatican and the WCC, and general secretary of the WCC from 1993-2003. The foundation for the new phase in ecumenical relationships was laid decisively by the Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, which was approved by the council in November 1994. With its affirmation that those “who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are brought into certain, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church” (N. 3), the decree formulated the ecumenical consequences of the new articulation of the ecclesiological self-understanding of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium). Thus, the relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and the other Christian churches were placed on a new basis. Soon after the council, this became evident in the development of an impressive network of bilateral dialogues between the major church families, which have led to important results. An assessment of these dialogues, which have been documented in several volumes under the title “Growth in Agreement,” is beyond the scope of these reflections. In the immediate period following the announcement of the forthcoming Vatican Council, the WCC became the privileged ecumenical partner for the Roman Catholic Church. Even before the official establishment of the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, a first secret encounter took place at Milano in 1960 between Cardinal Bea, the future president of the secretariat, and Dr Visser't Hooft, the general secretary of the WCC. Subsequently, the WCC served as a facilitator for the invitations of ecumenical observers at the council and was itself represented by two observers. The position papers and commentaries of the ecumenical observers were taken seriously at the council. For example, the preface to the Decree on Ecumenism, which refers positively to the ecumenical movement, has been influenced by a memorandum from the WCC. A second encounter between Cardinal Bea und Dr Visser't Hooft took place in April of 1964, even before the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism. It prepared the way for the establishment of a Joint Working Group (JWG) between the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC with the initial mandate to clarify the basis for future relationships. During its first mandate period between 1965 and 1967, the JWG developed a very productive activity. With the publication of a basic working document on the understanding and the methodologies of “ecumenical dialogue” it had fulfilled its initial task. As a consequence, a number of common initiatives were launched for direct collaboration between the Vatican and the WCC. Mention should be made in particular of the joint Committee on Society, Development and Peace (SODEPAX), which began its work with a joint secretariat in 1968. High hopes were placed in this endeavour and SODEPAX quickly became a symbol for the new quality of relationships. However, the increasingly independent dynamics of its activities led the two parent bodies to reduce and refocus the mandate, and eventually this form of structured cooperation was concluded in 1980. The Joint Advisory Group on Social Thought and Action that was created in its place proved to be ineffective and was terminated after a few years. The same fate caught up with two other early initiatives, that is, the Women's Ecumenical Liaison Group and a structure for cooperation in the field of the laity, both of which ceased operation after only a few years. What remained from this initial hopeful period were official cooperative relationships in the fields of theological study, especially in the framework of the Commission on Faith and Order; of mission and evangelism, facilitated especially by Catholic missionary orders; of ecumenical diakonia; and of inter-religious dialogue. The most long-lasting cooperative endeavour has been the joint preparation of the Week of Prayer for Christian unity. At the 4th Assembly of the WCC in Uppsala (1968), Fr Roberto Tucci SJ in a public address mentioned the possibility that the Roman Catholic Church might join the WCC as a full member. At the same time, the Vatican approved the inclusion of Roman Catholic theologians as official members of the WCC Commission on Faith and Order. Since then all decisive theological study processes in the WCC have benefited from full Roman Catholic participation. One year later, in June 1969, Pope Paul VI visited the WCC secretariat in Geneva. This was a gesture of high symbolic significance, even though the Pope left no doubt about the difficulties that still needed to be resolved on the ecumenical way. In the same year, the JWG formed a small working group to study the conditions and implications of a possible Roman Catholic membership of the WCC. The report under the title “Pattern of Relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches” (1972) came to the conclusion that there were no fundamental obstacles preventing possible membership. However, serious consultations on the highest levels in the Roman Curia led to the conclusion that the Roman Catholic Church would not further pursue this option in the near future. These conditions have not changed in the forty years since then, even though the Roman Catholic Church has joined national ecumenical structures in more than fifty countries as a full member. The focus of ecumenical activities on the part of the Vatican shifted more and more towards bilateral dialogues with the major Christian church families and structured cooperation with the WCC was reduced. despite all divisions which have occurred in the course of the centuries there is a real though imperfect communion which continues to exist between those who believe in Christ and are baptized in his name . . . Through the development of the ecumenical movement that communion has been experienced anew. This is not to claim that it has been created anew. Since it is beyond human power and initiative, it precedes all ecumenical efforts for the restoration of the unity of all Christians.1 The report also referred to the failure of the efforts to give visible and structured expression to the relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC. While there was no doubt that the Roman Catholic Church could accept the basis of the WCC, the report indicates that the Roman Catholic Church understood its constitution “as a universal fellowship with a universal mission and structure as an essential element of its identity.” It sees further difficulties in “the way in which authority is considered in the Roman Catholic Church and the processes through which it is exercised.”2 In this way the report for the first time points to the fundamental differences in the understanding of ecclesial fellowship, and thus it concludes this assessment with the question: “How can the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches, without forming one structured fellowship, intensify their joint activities and thereby strengthen the unity, the common witness and the renewal of the churches?”3 In any case, the question how “the real, though imperfect communion” can gain visible shape has remained open since then and it has become clear that the Decree on Ecumenism of the 2nd VC did not offer a conclusive answer. In the following years, until the 5th Assembly of the WCC at Vancouver (1983), cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church concentrated more and more on the work of the Commission on Faith and Order. During this period the commission concluded its work on the convergence documents on “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” (BEM), which were approved at the meeting of the commission in Lima (1982). In appropriating the results of bilateral dialogues and with full participation of the Roman Catholic members of the commission these convergence texts manifested a large measure of agreement on central issues of doctrine and church order. No other result of ecumenical theological work has been discussed on a similarly broad level in the churches. In 1987 an official response from the Roman Catholic Church to the convergence texts stated that “BEM is perhaps the most significant result of the [Faith and Order] movement.” The response underlines that baptism is the decisive basis for the communion which “already exists between divided Christians.” It is somewhat more reserved regarding the text on the eucharist, but it considers that a reception by all churches of the theological understanding and description of the celebration of the eucharist as expressed in the Lima document would be an important development in the direction of affirming a “common faith.” Critical questions were addressed in particular to the document on the ministry. But even here the response comes to the conclusion that the acceptance of the proposals of the Lima document on the ministry would represent a “major step towards Christian unity.”4 In order to avoid misunderstandings the response however underlines once again the self-understanding of the Roman Catholic Church and its unity by quoting explicitly the affirmation in the Decree on Ecumenism (No. 4) that the “unity of the one and only Church which Christ bestowed on His Church from the beginning . . . subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope that it will continue to increase until the end of time.”5 It links this with the expectation “that the study of ecclesiology must come more and more into the centre of the ecumenical dialogue.”6 When in 1984 Pope John Paul II visited the ecumenical centre in Geneva he emphasized his office as Bishop of Rome, which had served as the visible point of reference and as the guarantee of unity in faithfulness to the apostolic tradition. Ten years later, after the Commission on Faith and Order at its 5th World Conference in Santiago de Compostela also recommended a common study of the question of a universal office of unity, the Pope came back to this question in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint “on commitment to ecumenism” (1995) and invited church leaders and theologians “to engage in a patient and fraternal dialogue on this subject” in order “to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation” (No. 95f). This dialogue has begun, but so far no solution has been found. The WCC assembly at Vancouver (1983) gave the impulse for a “conciliar process for justice, peace and the integrity of creation,” which became a crystallization point for ecumenical cooperation in the period until 1990. The Roman Catholic Church was invited to co-sponsor this process. While it accepted this invitation on national and regional levels, its participation on the global level remained restricted, especially because of questions regarding the ecclesiological foundations of the conciliar process. This fact served to underline the need to give more focused attention to the issues of ecclesiology, as had been urged already in the Roman Catholic response to the BEM document. On the basis of a proposal by the Faith and Order Commission, the 6th Assembly of the WCC at Canberra (1991) in its declaration on “The Unity of the Church as Koinonia: Gift and Calling” re-affirmed the importance of the concept of koinonia in searching for a common ecumenical understanding on ecclesiology. Since its 5th World Conference at Santiago de Compostela (1993) the Commission on Faith and Order had concentrated its attention on working out a convergence statement on the church. Several preliminary statements were published and circulated among the churches for reaction. After successive revisions, a final text has been accepted by the Commission in 2012 under the title, The Church: Towards a Common Vision. In November 2013 it was received by the 10th Assembly of the WCC at Busan and it is now before the churches for serious study and appropriate reception. It will now have to be seen whether and how the Roman Catholic Church will respond to this concerted ecumenical effort to address the core issues of ecclesiology that have been at the centre of ecumenical dialogues during these past decades. This question is of particular interest since, with the document “Dominus Jesus” (2000) and the subsequent Decree with “Responses to some questions regarding certain aspects of the Doctrine On the Church” (2007), the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith strongly affirmed the uniqueness and exclusivity of the Roman Catholic Church and defended a rather restrictive interpretation of the teachings of Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of the 2nd VC. This is a matter of concern particularly for the churches of the Reformation. The council had referred to them as “ecclesial communities,” but this has now been sharpened in the sense that they cannot “according to Catholic doctrine be called Churches in the proper sense,” since, due to “the absence of the sacramental priesthood they have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the eucharistic mystery.”7 These statements were issued by the Vatican under the responsibility of Cardinal Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI. Whether new ecumenical signals will come from Pope Francis still has to be seen. At this stage it appears that there are still profound differences in the understanding of the church and of ecclesial communion. On the one hand we discern a universal ecclesiology oriented towards communion with the Bishop of Rome and the recognition of his primacy which stands over against an ecclesiology that recognizes the plurality of local churches and is oriented toward a communion in which “all churches are able to recognize in one another the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church in its fullness.”8 This brief retrospective of developments during these fifty years leaves a mixed impression. The 2nd VC and particularly the Decree on Ecumenism have irrevocably brought the Roman Catholic Church into the ecumenical movement and its ecumenical commitment has been re-affirmed in very solemn terms by successive popes. In many ways the Roman Catholic Church has even begun to claim leadership responsibility regarding the development of ecumenical relationships that would have been unthinkable in the period before the 2nd VC. The numerous bilateral doctrinal dialogues have reached important clarifications regarding basic issues of faith and order and have concluded many of the doctrinal controversies between the churches. One of the most significant results is the “Common Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran churches that was solemnly signed in 1999. Ecumenical collaboration between the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC has so far been based on the conviction that there is only “one ecumenical movement” that embraces all Christian churches and traditions. This is reflected also in the Decree on Ecumenism, which in the headline of its first chapter speaks of “Catholic Principles of Ecumenism,” instead of “Principles of Catholic Ecumenism” as was initially proposed. However, after fifty years there are increasing doubts whether we are still dealing with one and the same ecumenical movement, or whether competitive understandings of ecumenism and its ultimate goal have emerged in the meantime. The ecclesiological self-understanding of the Roman Catholic Church as articulated in the official interpretation of the teachings of the 2nd VC places the Roman Catholic Church with its universal structure and its hierarchical understanding of authority and its exercise into the centre of the search for Christian unity. This cannot easily be reconciled with the understanding of ecclesial unity in conciliar fellowship that has developed in the course of serious dialogue within the fellowship of churches in the WCC. The fact that it has not been possible so far to give visible and structured expression to the “real though imperfect” communion based on the common baptism indicates that there are still differences of rather basic character. The recent Vatican statements referred to above strengthen this impression, precisely where they interpret the teachings of the council. It is evident that the declarations of the 2nd VC, including the Decree on Ecumenism, were the result of controversial discussions among the council fathers trying to hold together widely divergent positions and convictions. Thus, they allow for different interpretations and show signs of internal tension or even contradictions. It should therefore not come as a surprise that the process of renewal that was initiated by the council has not yet reached its full clarity. However, that raises the question whether the changes in ecumenical relationships that were initiated by the council, and particularly by the Decree on Ecumenism, can be regarded as an open process in the sense that the ecumenical reception and discussion of the teachings of the council can make a contribution to clarifying the remaining questions and tensions, or whether the Decree on Ecumenism has to be regarded as the final word of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the challenges of the ecumenical movement. While the papal encyclical Ut Unum Sint has in many respects been received as a source of encouragement, there was disappointment among many ecumenical partners that Pope John Paul II did not go beyond repeating and re-affirming the teachings of the Decree on Ecumenism and did not appear to adequately recognize and honour the insights and clarifications that have been reached in the course of fifty years of intensive ecumenical dialogue, not least in the context of bilateral conversations. The use of this expression, which indicates the full identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church, does not change the doctrine on the Church. Rather, it comes from and brings out more clearly the fact that there are ‘numerous elements of sanctification and of truth’ which are found outside her structure, but which “as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards Catholic Unity”.9 In a lecture 2004, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Decree on Ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper as President of the Pontifical Council on Promoting Christian Unity already dealt extensively with this same issue and stated that the formulation “subsists in” “contains in nuce the whole ecumenical problem.”10 The Cardinal felt that thanks to this formulation, which replaced the simple “is,” the council was able to take a decisive step forward. “It wished to do justice to the fact that there are found outside of the Catholic Church not only individual Christians but also ‘elements of the church’, indeed churches and ecclesial communities which, although not in full communion, rightly belong to the one church and possess salvatory significance for their members.” The concept “subsistit in”, according to the intention of the Theological Commission of the Council, means: the church of Christ Jesus has its concrete location in the Catholic Church… It is not a purely Platonic entity or a prospective future reality, it exists in a concrete historical form, it is located in the Catholic Church. Understood in this sense “subsistit in” encompasses the essential thrust of the “est.” But it no longer formulates the self-concept [self-image] of the Catholic Church in “splendid isolation”, but also takes account of churches and ecclesial communities in which the one church of Jesus Christ is effectively present, but which are not in full communion with it. In formulating its own identity, the Catholic Church at the same time establishes a relationship of dialogue with these churches and ecclesial communities. Accordingly it is a misunderstanding of “subsistit in” to make it the basis of an ecclesiological pluralism or relativism which implies that the one church of Christ Jesus subsists in many and thus the Catholic Church is one among many other churches . . . The Catholic Church continues to as it to be the true church of Christ in which the of the of are present, but it now sees itself in a context of dialogue with the other churches and ecclesial communities. It does not any new doctrine but establishes a new and formulates its self-concept in a concrete one could even The Council is that the church is on a through towards a concrete historical of what its most profound This interpretation is but it is not clear how this position can as a basis of further ecumenical dialogues on ecclesiology. the theological dialogue will But the reception of their results difficulties in all because the new and common that has been developed through these dialogues cannot easily be reconciled with the doctrinal of the churches. a towards the affirmation of a communion” will not be possible without a of the ecclesiological by the teachings of the council. The papal encyclical Ut Unum Sint also has not been able to open a way forward. An of a new ecumenical might be in the response from the Vatican to the of the WCC document Towards a Common and a Common of the WCC This response the “common or basis of ecumenism” by repeating the conviction that is a true and real, even imperfect, koinonia between the Catholic Church and other Churches and But it then “It is a real sacramental koinonia the churches a true baptism by which one is into the of explicitly the of the which already exists between the churches by of their common this statement recognizes the ecclesiological quality of these ecumenical relationships. It once again that this “real but imperfect communion” is to any to form of it even is to that understanding the WCC has ecclesiological believe that a further development of the of a as in these statements could the ecumenical dialogue about the understanding of the church and its unity from the present, and open future It is that the Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC has a study on the and Ecumenical of a Common was the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, from through

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. Lo stato dell’arte - 3. Enti ecclesiastici e Ets - 4. Enti ecclesiastici e liberta d’impresa - 5. Coerenza fra gli obblighi imposti dalla legge italiana e quelli previsti dal diritto canonico - 6. La scelta di adeguarsi alle norme italiane. I singoli adempimenti necessari. a) il regolamento - b) il patrimonio destinato - c) le scritture contabili. Canon property law issues. Some thoughts around the obligations arising from the new Italian Third Sector law ABSTRACT: The new Italian law in the field of the Third Sector provides for some burden on civilly recognized religious bodies, among which there are also Catholic ecclesiastical bodies. This paper deals with the canonical consequences of these obligations related to the general principles of Church law, as they are stated in the Code of Canon Law and the particular Italian canon law. The fulfillment of these government obligations is obviously not mandatory, however in many cases it may be timely, especially for institutions that already enjoy tax benefits that they could lose if they did not comply with the deadlines established by this new Italian law. Nevertheless, the central question is to verify whether certain obligations are lawful according to the Canon law. The essay raises the question of the provision of an “earmarked stock” and “internal rules” additional to their canonical Statutes, and especially the canonic assessment of commercial activities. If it is true that one has the right to do anything, but not everything is beneficial or constructive, catholic religious bodies should mind some questions before deciding to follow this law.

For centuries the dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches has been marked by disputes and conflicts. It was impossible, and still remains troublesome, to clearly identify the reasons for this. Some tend to blame the Vatican for its excessively ‘obtrusive’ intention to establish its hierarchy in the East. Others tend to claim that it is the Russian Orthodox Church that has triggered conflicts in its pursuit to unify the Orthodox churches and ‘dethrone’ the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic and Orthodox denominations have mainly been clashing in Central and Eastern Europe, where new factors generating conflicts are constantly emerging, whether religious or – more frequently – political (e.g. the historical conflict between Catholic Poland and Lithuania and Orthodox Russia; or the establishment of Catholic dioceses in the Russian Federation, which the Moscow Patriarchate considers to be the canonical territory of the Eastern Church). Sometimes it may even seem that the dissenting denominations do not even try to communicate. The pontificate of John Paul II was ecumenical, but it did not produce the results the Vatican would consider desirable with respect to the Orthodox Church. At present we can observe slow changes in the behavior of religious leaders – Benedict XVI and the Patriarchs of Moscow (Alexii II, followed by Cyril I). The authors of the paper present selected issues in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue during the pontificate of John Paul II and the present Pope – Benedict XVI, and they attempt to answer the question of what changes have recently taken place in the mutual relations of the two denominations, and whether the steps taken stand a chance of resulting in a permanent conciliation.

In the Editorial, Giovanni Miccoli analyses the continuities and discontinuities in the passage from pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI. He identifies the trends and perspectives for the Roman Catholic under Ratzinger, who was a close and authoritative collaborator of Woytila. Ratzinger’s public affirmation, already before the Conclave, of the grave problems confronting the Church would seem to confirm his awareness of the need for an adjustment of the line of his predecessor.

The Unknown Pope: Benedict XV (1914-1922) and the Pursuit of Peace. By John E Pollard. (London: Geoffrey Chapman. 1999. Pp. xv, 240. L16.99 clothbound; L12.95 paperback.) Benedict XV (1854-1922), born Giacomo Della Chiesa, was probably one of the most capable and best prepared for his high office of all of the Roman pontiffs of the last two centuries. Yet of the ten popes who have held the papal office since Pius IX's election in 1846 we known much less about him than we do about all the others, except for John Paul I, who died shortly after his election in 1978. Benedict XV's pontificate was to be obscured by the great catastrophe of World War I and the widespread political disorders that followed it. Like Leo XIII (1878-1903) and Pius XII (1939-1958) Benedict XV came from an aristocratic and urban background and from an earlier career in diplomacy. Before leaving his native city of Genoa he took a doctorate in civil law at its university. He then went on to Rome to study for the priesthood and next to enter the Gregorian University, where he would take doctorates in theology and canon law. However, the turning point in his career would come when he met Msgr. Mariano Rampolla, who would soon serve as the papal nuncio to Spain (1881-1886) and then become the papal secretary of state in 1887. Rampolla brought the young priest with him to Madrid to serve as his secretary and later took Della Chiesa into the secretariat of state after he became its head. Della Chiesa eventually secured the position of under secretary in that department, an important position in it. However, Rampolla suffered a deep tragedy in his career and life when Cardinal Puzyna of Cracow in Austria cast a veto ballot against him in the papal election of 1903. Cardinal Puzyna had made use in the election of a right that the Holy See had conferred on the Habsburg dynasty several centuries earlier.1 Naturally enough, Della Chiesa's career also experienced a setback because of his patron's historic defeat. 1Many years ago while in Germany I came upon a statement by a prominent PolishGerman nobleman who knew much about German Catholic affairs before World War I. He said that Cardinal Puzyna had cast his veto against Rampolla because he had come under the influence of Cardinal Georg Kopp, the archbishop of Breslau, Germany. I later learned that Cardinal Kopp had enjoyed the confidence of the German chancellors and Emperor William H until Leo XIII and Cardinal Rampolla began to cultivate close relations between the papacy and France. The author is undoubtedly right in saying that the seemingly serious setback to Della Chiesa's career in 1903 actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Old foes eager to push him out of Rome were apparently responsible for his appointment as archbishop of Bologna in central Italy in 1907. It would give him experience in domestic church administration to put alongside of his experience in diplomacy. He took up his new duties with the utmost seriousness and determination. His archdiocese contained nearly 500 parishes of which 100 were in the mountains and could only be reached on horseback. By December, 1913, he had visited all but sixty-five of them. He was certainly a concerned and active ordinary. His biographer implies, however, that the new archbishop had basically old ideas in his approach to modern social problems. The region in which his archdiocese lay, earlier part of the old papal states, was still mainly agricultural. While the agrarian and mercantile upper classes were usually well off, the tenant peasants, sharecroppers, and landless laborers often lived in poor circumstances. Trying to counteract the Social Democratic call to the working classes that they should engage in class conflict, the Archbishop preached the doctrine that the class system was of divine making and could not be altered. Still he did also preach that employers had to be just to their workers, and he early said that workers had a right to form and join class organizations. …

<p>Traditionis Custodes is an Apostolic letter issued by Pope Francis in the form of a Motu Proprio, i.e. on his own initiative. The content of this letter is about the use of the Roman Liturgy prior to the Reform of 1970. The main object of focus is the celebration of Mass with the Missale Romanum 1962. The Motu Proprio of the two previous Popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, permitted the use of the Missale Romanun 1962. The aim was to make room for those who were still attached to earlier forms of liturgical celebration. The implication is that the Missale Romanum 1962 is permitted as an extraordinary form of liturgical celebration, while the Missale Romanum 1970 is the ordinary or normal form. Pope Francis, through Traditionis Custodes, abrogated all the norms, instructions, consensus and customs of the previous Motu Proprio. He established the Missale Romanum 1970 as the only lex orandi (prayer order of the Church) of the Roman rite. This decision caused turmoil in the Church,<br />especially strong criticism from users of the Missale Romanum 1962. This Motu Proprio was seen as a regression of the Church and a personal desire to abolish Church Tradition. Is this really the case? Why did Pope Francis<br />abrogate the norms of the previous Motu Proprio? What is different about the 1962 and 1970 Missale Romanum? This article attempts to answer these questions with a liturgical-ecclesiological overview of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.</p><p><br />Key words: Ecclesial communion; liturgical reform; Traditionis Custodes; Summorum Pontificum; Missale<br />Romanum 1962.</p>

One of the crucial features of transition countries is the insufficiency of funds necessary to start and operate different nonprofit oriented projects. In order to realize their projects, nonprofit organizations in transition countries have to rely mostly on foreign sources, i.e. on donors from the developed countries. The Internet as one of the visually strongest means of global communication is an obvious and reasonable way to achieve transparency of nonprofit projects. A Web portal, which would present projects to potential donors in an interesting and visually attractive way, needs to be developed systematically. Given that the Web is a global information space, when creating project presentation systems, it is necessary to approach data modeling on the basis of the defined information requirements in the function of finding donors

Joseph Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict XVI – has a rich body of political writings that has gone largely unnoticed by political scientists. A renowned theologian, even outside the Catholic Church, he has sensitively explored the impact of secularism and religion on liberal democracy. In public and in print, he even debated the philosopher Jürgen Habermas on these topics. This article explores his novel contribution to the study of the liberal state: a secularised, religious foundation for the state will balance autonomy for the citizens with a needed moral orientation for the political realm.

The Roman Catholic Church’s approach to child safeguarding reveals a complex and diverse landscape across the globe. While universal requirements and structural conditions exist, regional concepts, policies, and cultures vary significantly. This paper examines the Church’s response to clerical child abuse, highlighting key developments such as Pope John Paul II’s condemnation of abuse and subsequent directives from Pope Benedict XVI and Holy See offices. It also discusses the reforms initiated by Pope Francis, including measures to hold bishops accountable and the abolition of pontifical secrecy in abuse cases. Despite these efforts, the Church faces challenges in implementation and varying levels of commitment across different regions. The paper further explores case studies from 15 countries, illustrating the diversity in responses and the ongoing struggle to ensure child protection within the Church.

A lack of effective fund reconciliation strategies to improve financial accountability can negatively impact nonprofit (NP) organizations. Using a qualitative, single-case study, the financial management of a northeastern NP museum was explored to identify fraud prevention strategies. The study was needed based on known issues regarding fraud in NP organizations, and was grounded in Greenleaf’s servant leadership and Cressey’s fraud triangle theories. Four nonprofit financial managers of a large NP museum in the northeast United States were interviewed. Their management strategies and the organization’s procedural documentation were explored to answer one central research question: How do NP leaders improve financial accountability and maintain effectiveness in their museum? Using Yin’s 5-step thematic analysis process and NVivo’s powerful data analysis tools, four themes emerged regarding how successful NP financial managers avoid fraud. These themes included that successful NP financial managers (a) use a collaborative and growth-oriented approach, enhancing an ethical and trusting environment; (b) monitor financial transactions consistently and have established effective internal and external control systems in their departments and organizations; (c) communicate and enforce nonprofit and federal policies, procedures, and regulations; and (d) use training and development methods to equip and engage staff. A key recommendation was for NPO leaders to establish the implementation of high ethical values. The implications for positive social change included the potential for better fiscal management of donations and federal funds, resulting in improved educational and scientific programs.

Résumé Questionner Jésus de Nazareth , l’œuvre pour le moment bipartite de Benoît XVI-Joseph Ratzinger, c’est aussi chercher à identifier le genre littéraire de cet objet théologique dont l’auteur doit assumer à la fois le théologien qu’il reste, toujours sujet et objet de critique, et le pape qu’il est devenu, en charge du magistère doctrinal dans l’Église catholique. S’il y a bien une différence entre les deux, que Benoît XVI affirme savoir distinguer, il y a également une unité profonde de l’auteur, qui est aussi celle du Jésus qu’il veut présenter. Le narrateur se met sur le chemin de Celui dont il veut déployer toute la puissance d’être et, ce faisant, avoue ce qu’il doit au Seigneur de Guardini. Le genre littéraire du Jésus de Nazareth de Benoît XVI se présente alors comme une apologie évangélique narrative, raisonnée, de Jésus de Nazareth, Christ et Seigneur. En filigrane, l’auteur raconte aussi son histoire, celle d’une relation profonde au Christ qui l’a fait devenir le prêtre et le théologien Ratzinger, puis Benoît XVI, le pape.

This research project will be a case study of the strategic planning process. More specifically, the project will "pattern match" (Yin, 1989) the actual strategic planning process of a non-profit organization, Seniors Helping Others, with the theoretical framework outlined by Backoff and Nutt in A Process for Strategic Management with Specific Application for the Nonprofit Organization (1988). The project will be presented in the following chapters: Chapter 1 - Literature Review: This chapter will describe the existing literature on the strategic planning process, beginning with the definitions of strategic planning and proceeding to the future of this technique. The chapter concludes with a formulation of this project and how the project is justified in the context of the current literature. Chapter 2 - Theoretical Framework: This chapter will focus on a theoretical framework of strategic planning that is used to assess this project. Most of this chapter will be a detailed description of each step of the selected model, as well as a discussion on some of the planning techniques used in the process. In addition there will be a brief explanation of why this model was selected rather than other strategic planning models outlined previously in Chapter 1. Chapter 3 - Case Example: This chapter will examine the strategic planning process as experienced by the case-study, a non-profit organization. The chapter will begin with a description of the case-study, a nonprofit organization; its mission, goals and objectives; its clients; and its programs. The organizations rationale for undertaking the strategic planning process will next be discussed. Last, this chapter will detail the process that the organization undertook beginning with the decision to formulate a strategic plan through the completion of the process. Chapter 4 - Findings and Conclusions: This chapter will combine the findings of the case study example with the theoretical framework outlined by Backoff and Nutt (1988) and discussed in Chapter 2. The purpose of this is to assess how well the actual events fit the selected strategic planning model. The comparison between the case study example and the theoretical framework will be accomplished by employing a technique called pattern matching. The first part of this chapter will attempt to match Senior Helping Other's (SHO) process against the selected theoretical framework specifically looking for areas where SHO did not follow the model. The next section will address the issues that SHO encountered during the process that were not

This article presents some remarks about cultural services in Italy, and an attempt to establish criteria useful to assess costs and benefits when it is difficult to define individual and collective utility, and reconcile economic efficiency with education and intellectual satisfaction. The endowment of arts and sites inherited from the past, is an opportunity of economic development, and a means of human capital accumulation enhancing tourist activities and educational opportunities. However, as pointed out by several models of the literature, there are some problems in translating individual preferences into willingness to pay, solving conflicts due to the goal of a large diffusion of cultural services, while respecting budget constraints of the non profit organizations producing them. The authors discuss the qualitative enhancement of cultural activities for productivity growth and the best use of limited public resources. In these perspectives more managerial autonomy is needed, thanks to private contributions and law incentives to collect them.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is the core of enterprise that maintains an competitive advantage, to face knowledge economy. ERP is the system, which integrates resource from different departments, develops procedures of business, and reduces the cost, in order to achieve the goal of sharing sinews. However, different scales and attributes of organizations bring out diverse consequences while going along ERP system. For regular companies, ERP shall bring about numerous benefits and positive sides, and the value of the system could straightly be appraised objectively. Yet it is a different story when it comes to non-profit organizations.Without the concept of profit, non-profit organizations may confront several obstacles such as resource being cast away and even lost track of its goal by ignoring the management and achievement after the lead-in of ERP. It is therefore important to equip a standard achievement scale system for non-profit organizations. Current ERP researches concern mostly about estimating achievement in enterprises but not in non-profit organizations.For this reason, this article is at the viewpoint of Balanced Scorecard, planning to treat if ERP-applied non-profit organizations could achieve its anticipation with improved performance through the integration of technology and information.

The manifestation of stress affects every aspect of the workplace. A plethora of research examines the sources and the effects of work-related-stress on employees' health and productivity. Occupational stress very often causes an imbalance and decrease in overall performance. Non-profit organisations are notoriously known to live in a precarious financial position. A review of the literature in the UK indicates that non- profit organisations are not immune to occupational stress and therefore managers have a duty of care to ensure that stress levels are mitigated to keep employees motivated.