Martyria, Above All: Reconfiguration of the Constitutive Elements Theory of the Church for the Synodal Pastoral Ministry of the Catholic Church

In 2005, in his inaugural encyclical letter, Pope Benedict XVI mentioned the so-called theory of the constitutive elements of the Church. This was an important shift in the discourse on this theory, which can be appropriately applied to the needs of the synodally conceived pastoral ministry of the Catholic Church. The theory has been used since shortly before the Second Vatican Council for normative and analytical approaches to pastoral theology and pastoral praxis. Such an application is also possible in the process of synodality. This article demonstrates, therefore, the applicability of the theory to the synodal church. The article summarises the discourse on this theory in European pastoral theology and situates it in contemporary pastoral theology and the synodal process in the universal Church. However, according to the author, it leads above all to a new reconfiguration of the theory.