Expressions of Spirituality. Morphological Future to Come

Abstract

In "the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium," the paragraph on the "Challenge to urban cultures," Pope Francis outlines a spirituality immersed in the transformative dynamics of contemporary cities and suggests processes of reconfiguration in the form of re-signification of physical spaces and communities. In the background of Bergoglio's programme are, on the one hand, projects for new parishes and, on the other, processes of decommissioning churches and complexes dedicated to consecrated life, a dichotomy representative of the anthropology and topography of the sacred today. Francis writes of an "urgent ecclesial renewal,” of a missionary choice where the parish, precisely because of its "plastic” character, can take on very different forms that require the docility and missionary creativity of the pastor and his community, in a transition scenario where, according to Bergoglio, parishes are one of the main actors on the stage. In order to reflect on what role those same parishes can play in the ChurchCity relationship, this article proposes as a key to interpretation the recourse to two categories, spirituality and plasticity, which, once put in relation, can prove useful in dispelling two possible drifts: the push to make the parish a "selfreferential community" or its perception as a "service centre." So, the article proposes a reinterpretation of the urban palimpsest of parishes and other spaces of spirituality (erected, already built and disused) no longer exclusively in relation to the theme of the otherness of these places, but in a performative dimension of spirituality that passes through a practice of care that can be activated through the action of inhabiting (rather than merely occupying) space.