Communion Ecclesiology: Vision and Versions

In this penetrating new study Dennis Doyle notes that scholars as diverse as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Edward Schillebeeckx have been quoted as saying that "communion ecclesiology" is the most basic way to characterize the nature of the church. Yet the term has often been caught up in the divide between left and right in a polarized church. Doyle shows that the notion of communiom among God's people and between them and the triune God is a doctrine that allows for both solid, this-worldly community and a fundamental sense that the Church is essentially rooted in and convoked by God.