Christian Life Communities (CLC) in the Church: What ecclesiology?

Abstract

In the New Testament, there are a variety of ecclesiological models that have inspired different approaches and ecclesiologies throughout history. Each community has updated its following of Jesus in different ways, according to its own circumstances, needs, and contexts. Vatican II reflects many of these theological currents but seeks to update them and develop a new synthesis. It has offered a new ecclesiological perspective that differs substantially from the previous tradition, in which the communal dimension of the Church gave way to the institutional. It defines the Church as the people of God, places community before hierarchical and ministerial structures, and proposes the missionary context as essential to ecclesiology. In this context, the author analyzes the ecclesiology of the Christian Life Communities (CVX), which must reinterpret their founding charism, even though this raises the necessary tension between the theology of the Counter-Reformation, typical of the Ignatian circumstance, and that of Vatican II, which stems from a new ecclesial sensibility. This implies a new meditation on “feeling with the Church.”