62 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION things to think about the church rather than orientated to the living, rather messy, confused and confusing body that the church actually is.”159 This study, indeed, starts from a messy and confusing reality in the life of the church. Section 2.1 introduces this reality by briefly characterizing the communities and practices involved in this research. Section 2.2 provides a methodological framework, using the lenses of contextual theology, practical ecclesiology, and the model of Four Voices of Theology to zoom in on this study’s research question. A description of the concrete methods is presented in section 2.3, with section 2.4 offering a detailed account of how the research was eventually executed. The chapter concludes by reiterating the aims, scope, and methods of this study. 2.1 STARTING POINT: THE OBJECT OF THIS STUDY From the very start, this study was intended as a response to Cardinal Kasper’s remark that Brother Roger’s personal charism, which he acknowledges to have radiated upon the community and far beyond, “is a discreet indication by the Holy Spirit for the future ecumenical path.”160 He arrives at this conclusion arguing that “the personal charism of the founders of orders or religious congregations is not just a private charism, but a charism that with the consent of the Church becomes foundational for their community and for the whole Church.”161 In response to this logic, the current study addresses questions that follow from my earlier research in which I have investigated the Eucharistic practice of the Taizé community.162 The central question of that research was how it is possible (canonically and theologically), in the first place, that the brothers are permitted to receive Communion together considering the conditions regulating the admission to Communion in ecumenical contexts. I concluded that the local bishops of Autun (the diocese in which Taizé is located), starting with Msgr. Le Bourgeois when the first Catholic joined the community in the early 1970s, have used the space offered by the 1967 Ecumenical Directory to distinguish which cases meet the requirements for 159 Healy, 3. 160 Kasper, “Mercy and the Ecumenical Journey of Brother Roger,” 294. 161 Kasper, 294. 162 Fokke Wouda, “Communion in Taizé: Theological Interpretation of a Eucharistic Practice in an Ecumenical Context,” Perspectief, no. 25 (2014): 3–42, http://www.oecumene.nl/files/Books/Perspectief/25/index.html.
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