Guest lecture by Dr Christian Kern on current forms of dissent in the Catholic Church

Within the life settings of the Catholic Church, it can be observed in recent years how new movements of criticism, protest and dissent are growing and appearing in the ecclesiastical and extra-ecclesiastical public sphere. These include the "Eckige Tisch e.V." in the context of clarifying the abuse complex within the Catholic Church, "Maria 2.0" with its focus on gender and justice issues within official church structures, networked with international movements such as "Voices of Faith" and their thematisation and criticism of faith-based structural violence. In these movements, criticism, protest and resistance are not only articulated in verbal, deliberative formats, but often also non-verbally in gestures, artistic forms of expression, choreographies, spatial arrangements and scenographies, combined with liturgies. Criticism is not only articulated verbally, but expressed physically. In this, a different form of theology takes place and takes shape, which functions less consensually-deliberatively than critically-performatively. Using a prayer of exhortation performed by Maria 2.0. during a protest week in May 2019 in front of Münster Cathedral as an example, the lecture presents an approach of performance-analytical theology and invites discussion of the theological implications of the reconstructed forms of protest. 

Dr. Christian Kern is a research associate at the Chair of Systematic Theology at the TU Dresden. After studying in Würzburg and Rome, he completed his doctorate on "Theology and Failure" at Paris Lodron University in Salzburg. He was then a postdoctoral researcher at the KU Leuven until 2020.

To participate, registration with Dominique-Marcel Kosack (email) is required by 13 December at the latest. After registration, the Webex access link will be sent.