Can Transcendence be Organized? The Catholic Church Between Universalism and Establishment

Free and open to the public. Cosponsored by the Committee on Social Thought and the Theology Club.

If a religion differentiates itself from the culture of specific peoples, states, or empires and represents the ideal of moral universalism and an understanding of transcendence, it cannot evade the problem of self-organization. While this is true of all “post-axial” religions, this lecture restricts itself to the Christian Church and other forms of the social organization of Christians (sect, denomination etc.). A comparison between the Catholic Church and these other forms and an understanding of their interaction in the history of Christianity is instructive with regard to the current debates about reforms in the Catholic Church.