Religion, Church, and Public Space

Abstract

The present text is divided into three chapters and deals with the intrinsic religious dimension of man as being of communion from an ontological viewpoint and in relation with God, her Creator and Supporter in this mundane existence. This existence is open to eternity as a real personal and communitarian communion in the dynamics of spiritual growth. For Christians, the Church is the path of genuine and redeeming communion with God the Trinity as shown in the foundational biblical metanarrative, typologically interpreted by Christian theology, and spiritually experienced by practicing believers. Sacramentally, this happens through prayer, through the reading of the holy text, and the liturgical and Eucharistic gathering that celebrates the real sacrament of God's presence for us. The relation between the Church with the State in modern and postmodern times testifies to the change in mindset that has occurred by means of the ideological absolutisation of the state and the theoretical marginalization or atomization of religion. On the one hand, this shows the inconsistency of the project and on the other hand, the impossibility to fight with the religious soul of humanity, the religious dimension inherently and intrinsically structured in the ontological relationship between human and divine, in any mundane historical context.