A City that is set on a hill. Spirituality and the City in Ignacio Ellacuria’s Theological Writings
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It is thirty years now since seven Jesuits were murdered in El Salvador. Their leader, Ignacio Ellacuría (1930-1989), was a Jesuit priest with a distinct and profound spirituality. At the same time, he was a founding member of a school of philosophical and theological reflection. Following a trend also witnessed in other disciplines, this school came to increasingly appreciate how the dimension of spirituality was important for their work, not least, regarding how they were treating the theme of transcendence. In December 2019, a group of scholars gathered at Loyola Andalucía University as part of the symposium “Espiritualidad, Saberes y Universidad”, and explored this question of the role of spirituality in the thought of Ellacuría.
Explorations focused on how the spirituality of Ellacuría influenced his philosophical proposal, in view of a reordering of knowledge systems that may relate thought and praxis better. Fragments that I presented at that conference are included here. They limit themselves to commentating on sections included in Ellacuría’s written sources as presented in the essay collection, Escritos teológicos. This article studies Ellacuría’s pastoral explanation of the term “espiritualidad”, the semantic field employed to refer to “lo espiritual” (the spiritual thing); and the prominence in the thought of Ellacuría of the notions of realized history and liberating spirituality (historizada and liberadora).
The article relates Ellacuría’s spirituality to urban studies, given that cities have become a theological context. It notes that, although city life provided much of the context for Ellacuría’s reflection, however, he does not explicitly reckon with the spiritual characteristics of living in a city. He is oblivious of how might the theology and spirituality he proposes engage and benefit from the particular impact of urban reality and its possibilities. This contribution then attempts to explain this deficiency, in order that Ellacuría’s thought may be grounded in reference to urban life and become less abstract. In doing this, it finds some basis in the thought of Ellacuría: the use of some biblical passages, the use of Augustinian ideas concerning the city; and his theological and formal understanding of “charism”. Finally, the article invites researchers to recognize that Ellacuría’s work can form a basis, although limited, for further development on a variety of themes.
Ignacio Ellacuría (1930-1989), Escritos teológicos, Spirituality, Holy Spirit, Spirituality and the city, Charism, Pueblo, San Salvador (1960-1990)Ignacio Ellacuría (1930-1989), Escritos teológicos, espiritualidad, espíritu, espiritualidad y ciudad, carisma, pueblo, San Salvador (1960-1990)
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