The new documentation, released online Wednesday by the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, appeared to defend the pope against claims that as head of the Vatican's doctrinal office he was part of a culture of inaction and delay that failed to swiftly discipline priests who had abused minors.
The heart of the office, though, was its doctrinal section.
"It's in part a P.R. exercise, a dramatic way to say to critics, 'The pope gets it now,' " said John Allen, who covers the Vatican for The National Catholic Reporter and wrote a biography of one of the officials who will be leading the meetings, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, director of the Vatican's doctrinal office.
Doctrinal issues have been in the forefront during the papacy of Benedict XVI, who was in charge of the Vatican's doctrinal office before he became pope.
These dates are confirmed by what we find in the Dionysian corpus: a knowledge of Athenian Neoplatonism of the time, an appeal to doctrinal formulas and parts of the Christian liturgy (e.g., the Creed) current in the late fifth century, and an adaptation of late fifth-century Neoplatonic religious rites, particularly theurgy, as we shall see below.
While linguistic, political, and cultural factors certainly played a part, irreducibly doctrinal matters were also involved.
Part 2 -- Doctrinal Dishonesties" -- argues that recent popes have turned Leninist: they have cared more about retaining their grip on authority than about the needs of those whom they claim to serve.
Many 20th-century readers experienced a feeling of remoteness in this kind of doctrinal writing, which stemmed in part from a lack of vital interest in the beliefs it embodies and from a coolness toward religious dogmatism or fanaticism.
Part of Obama's anti-doctrinal doctrine is that it insists on the recognition of differences in a way that Bush's fixed ideas did not.
Evangelical churches and organizations have experienced remarkable growth — owing, in large part, evangelicals say, to the doctrinal latitude and character of moderation established by Graham and the New Evangelicals.
