Notion of “charisma” in German Catholic thought in the second half of the 20th century

Abstract

The paper examines the main lines of debate on the role of “charisma” in the Church structure, basing on German Catholic thought in the second half of the 20th century. Looking into the history of the concept gives grounds to assert that its meaning originates as the result of juxtaposition of “charisma” and “office”. Moreover, the Catholic discussion on the role of “charisma” appears to be predetermined by the Protestant debate around the said opposition, which intensified in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and revolved around using “charisma” as a means to criticize the Church. Catholic thought suggests several ways to solve the problem of correlation between “charisma” and “office”, some of which seem rather radical. Analyzing German Catholic discourse brings out three basic attitudes towards the role of charisma in the life of the Church: the simultaneous existence and equivalence of the charismatic and the institutional structures (based on the works of K. Rahner and H. U. von Balthasar); the precedence of the charismatic structure over the institutional (based on the works of H. Küng and G. Hasenhüttl); perceiving the institutional structure as the final form of incarnation of the Holy Spirit in the world (represented by H. Schürmann and J. Ratzinger).