Społeczna misja Kościoła w aspekcie teologii politycznej

Abstract

The issue of political theology has been already undertaken in the first half of the twentieth century by Carl Schmitt ‒ a German theorist of state and law, and an intellectual promoter of the idea of a powerful stale leader. This concept has been developed by Johann Baptist Metz, born in 1928, a professor at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Münster, as well as a lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. In the mid-sixties of the last century he has proposed the so-called, new political theology. It seems that on the theology of Metz we have to speak in the past tense, because its creator, moving into his retirement, looked at his own concept with undisguised reserve. The material presented in this article includes an attempt to define what is a political theology, and in particular, what is the new political theology. Trying at the same time to look at this concept from the perspective of Catholic social teaching. It also undertakes a reflection on the possibility of functioning of this theology in the conditions of postmodernity.