Browsing by Author "Zadykowicz, Tadeusz"

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    Between Realism and Idealization. Contemporary Controversies Surrounding the Ways of Fulfilling the Didactic Functions of Images of Saints from a Theological and Moral Perspective
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2023) Zadykowicz, Tadeusz; Kumór, Marek
    The purpose of this article is to provoke discussion on the worship of images depicting saints. However, it is not about defending this worship, since this issue has already been definitively settled by the Church. Instead, the article concerns a new problem – the controversies that arose in connection with some modern depictions of saints, mainly in painting. The mildest of these controversies involve paintings, often made on the basis of surviving photographs, showing saints during their ordinary everyday activities, e.g. while working or resting. A much sharper polarization of opinions occurs when the painting reveals the ethos of the saint with all realism, that is including also their imperfections, and even sin. Can such a saint be an object of veneration which, after all, inherently entails following them as role models? Is such veneration not an acceptance and promotion of flaws that contradict biblical morality? Can such images serve a didactic function? Instead, wouldn’t a certain idealization be advisable – the portrayal of a saint as someone perfect, excluding their flaws and weaknesses? The author takes a position on these controversies by formulating criteria for “good” images based on the theological and moral principles of their worship and an analysis of their functions.
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    Janusz Nagórny’s Interpretation of the Personalistic Category of Participation and Its Implementation in the Theological-Moral Reflection on Social Life
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2024) Zadykowicz, Tadeusz
    Moral theology, like any science, develops not only through the addition of new concepts but also through the explanation of phenomena with increasing accuracy and depth by applying adequate tools and methods, which can and should be improved. In describing the essence of social life and morally evaluating social attitudes, such a tool is provided by the personalistic category of participation. This category – extensively discussed by Karol Wojtyła in his book The Acting Person – was originally interpreted and applied to the theological-moral reflection on social life by Fr. Janusz Nagórny (1950–2006) – moral theologian from the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. What was his contribution to this implementation? What rendered his understanding of participation so original? What were the methodological and substantive consequences of such a reception? To answer these questions, the author analyses Nagórny’s publications, including those which so far – mainly due to their popular science and popularising character – have not been the subject of more in-depth study. The analysis presented here leads to the conclusion that Nagórny lent a theological character to a philosophical category by its biblification and, in such an interpretation, he applied it to detailed areas of social life. Furthermore, the use of elements of the historical method justifies the thesis that he was the initiator of this type of implementation and contributed to making it popular in Polish moral theology.