KATHOLIZISMUS. ZUR GESCHICHTE, GEGENWART UND ZUKUNFT SEINES MODERNEN BEGRIFFS.

With a view to the Europe-wide phase of tension and crisis affecting Christian churches in general and the Catholic Church in particular, the article reflects on the notion and content of 'Catholicism.' These reflections take two main directions. First, they argue for a differentiated understanding of the notion of Catholicism, its many variations, and the historical phenomena that it is applied to in their own specific historical contexts. Second, they aim to reformulate the term 'Catholicism' in order to do justice both to the historical variety and the recent processes of change, while also making it possible to describe and investigate the lasting importance - both for the Church and society at large - of a Catholicism that is worldly and internally pluralistic. What is critical is to comprehend analytically the difference between the institutionalized Church and Catholicism in a pluralistic sense (this is especially true for liberal societies). In this way, the Church can be saved from an overextension of its religious or clerical authority, let alone the temptations of fundamentalism and anti-modernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]