Pluriformità nell’unità: una forma della Chiesa di oggi. Una proposta per rinnovare la parrocchia

Abstract

The Church must continually ask herself how to be a witness of the Gospel to the world in which she lives. In her work of evangelization even today, therefore, the Church must deal with the socio-cultural context that she faces, characterized by an increasingly plural society and by continuous changes that have affected the institution, gestures and tools of the Christian tradition. It is therefore urgent that the Church make a critical reflection on her identity and her pastoral activity and, attentive to the signs of the times, try to review and renew her form and structures, beginning with the parish, a privileged place for the construction of the christian community and her mission. Since the parish is traditionally considered the «home of all», it is the place where the differences that animate the Church are most evident; therefore, it is called to enhance all the ecclesial experiences that arise from the different charisms. The parish and all the associations and groups present in it represent various forms in which the Church is realized. With this article I want to demonstrate that pluriformity in unity can be the form of the Church today, because the more plural and complex the society is, the more the Churchʼs proposal must be pluriform if she wants Christ to reach everyone. Pluriformity shows different forms of the Christian experience that express the unity of the Church. It is therefore an expression of the Churchʼs liveliness and catholicity. It also recalls that the subject of the Churchʼs mission is never the individual, but a community, a reflection of the communio that the Church lives in every part of the world.