The Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes says that the Church has the duty of responding to “the perennial questions which men ask about this present life and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the other,” in “language intelligible to each generation.” So too, one often hears that the Church should be “in dialogue” with the modern world. This is not the same as “accompanying” people, which presupposes no disagreement. In dialogue, the parties can disagree in hopes of coming to a better understanding of one another.
So, let’s accept for the moment the notion that it is good that the Church sets itself the goal of entering into a dialogue with this generation. But a dialogue with whom? And what language would be intelligible to them? “Modernity” is not a monolithic entity. The Church does not have merely one dialogue partner, but a host of them, each with its own presuppositions and its own “language.” So the Church must learn to speak in multiple languages to different audiences. To be effective, the approach they must take will differ depending on the group they are addressing.
Some of the Church’s dialogue partners,
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