90 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Eucharistic hospitality in the monastic communities of Taizé and Bose in order for them to be heard and engaged with in the broader theological debate. Unlike action research (including strands of TAR),226 this study is not primarily interested in transforming the practice it encounters. It is concerned with presenting insights that emerge while practicing Eucharistic hospitality to theology, which, eventually, may affect theological consensus on this point. Therefore, this research takes the practices of Taizé and Bose as a starting point and does not aim at transforming the liturgies of these particular communities or their arrangements with ecclesial authorities. Yet, like all practical theological research, it reflects on practice and theology in order to promote the life of the church. Only in this sense can it affect other ecclesial practices: the existence of the (extraordinary) practices of Taizé and Bose should not be considered as precedents in the canonical sense. However, theologically speaking, they can be looked to as examples in the sense of Swinton and Mowat’s “potentially transformative resonance” 227 introduced in section 2.3. The theological rationale embedded in the communities’ practice of Eucharistic hospitality can be conceived as unprecedented spiritual and theological insights, setting the stage for future theological reasoning and ecclesial practice – as Cardinal Kasper suggested. This study, by its methods and content, contributes to receptive ecumenism as developed by Paul Murray and others. In addition, this study addresses the issue in light of the research program ‘The Transformation of Religion in Late Modernity: The Case of New Catholicism’ at Tilburg University’s School of Catholic Theology, which focuses on the “transformation of Catholicism: the new ways in which the Catholic church is manifesting itself, the new forms of Catholic religiosity and spirituality.”228 Given that the Roman Catholic Church has only committed itself, irrevocably, to ecumenism in the past century, the process of the restoration of Christian unity is (or should be) a main theme in the transformation of Catholicism and the study thereof. Against this background, my research contributes to answering one question posed by the program: “What kinds of theology, what practices and what forms of spirituality are being advanced or should be advanced?”229 That question 226 Cf. Swinton and Mowat, Practical Theology and Qualitative Research, 261–63. 227 Swinton and Mowat, 47 (italics in original). Cf. the section Qualitative methods in section 2.3. 228 Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, “The Transformation of Religion in Late Modernity: The Case of New Catholicism,” Tilburg University website, accessed January 11, 2021, https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/theology/programs/remaking. 229 Tilburg School of Catholic Theology.
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