ULRICH ENGEL

speech, [...] find general resonance"42. Where an appropriate translation takes place,
almost forgotten elements of tradition can be salvaged.43 Habermas sums up: ({A secularization
which doesn't destroy is carried out through the mode of translation."44
As Theologians in the Tradition of Dominican preaching of the Word of God45 we have to
focus our scientific research programs as well as our teaching programs to outline
({preaching as translation"46. I am sure that in European late-modern secular society as
well people are potentially receptive for the absolute-transcendent-because ({God is
recognizable primarily in that which is human"47.
CONCLUSION
According to Vatican 11 I expire with a summary of four particular theological tasks for
Dominicans in Europe today:
1. doing Local European Theologies in a context of a polycentric universal Church,
2. doing Theology as 'intellectus am oris' in a framework of unjust realities ,
3. doing a Gender-adequate Theology, particularly within the Dominican Family,
4. doing Theology of Preaching as Translation in a (post-)secular society.
All these four theologies are based in the one Dominican Theology of Incarnation.
Thank you very much for your attention!
***
42 Ibid., p. 29 [Insertion: U.E.].
43 The Habermas sentence which most baffled his hearers reads as follows in its entirety:
"MoralischeEmpfindungen, die bisher nur in religioser Sprache einen hinreichend differenzierten Ausdruck
besitzen, konnen allgemeine Resonanz finden, sobald sich fiir ein fast schon Vergessenes, aber
implizit Vermisstes eine rettende Formulierung einstellt." (Moral perceptions, which until now only
possessed a sufficiently differentiated expression in religious language, can find general resonance, as
soon as a salvaging wording is introduced for something almost forgotten, but implicitly missed.); ibid.
44 Ibid.
45 Cf. Edward Schillebeeckx, Dominican Preaching, in: Dominicana 52 (1967), p. 102-109.
46 Cf. Ulrich Engel, Preaching as Translation. Listening and Communicating God's Word in a postsecularized
Society. Assessment of the Dominican Position, in: Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas 84
(2008), No. 865 (March-April), p. 245-271.
47 Philip Kennedy, Deus Humaissimus. The Knowability of God in the Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx
(Okumenische Beihefte vol. 22), Fribourg Switzerland 1993, p. 24 Annotation 104.