Translation of Grundlegung der Pastoraltheologie als praktische Theologie.

Bibliography: p. 135-139.

General Introduction to Series -- Preface -- The Church: Basis of Pastoral Action -- Fundamental Nature of the Church -- The Church as Presence of God's Truth and Love -- Mystery -- Primal Sacrament -- New Law of Gospel -- Eschatological Presence -- Ever New Actual Presence -- Reconcilation of the Permanent and the Historical -- Differentiation i the Church: Laity and Hierarchy -- The Whole Church -- Each Member of the Church -- Office and Charism -- The Church's One Office -- The Bishop and the Diocese -- The Presbyterium and the Individual Piest -- The Parish -- The Diaconate and the Deacon -- The Pope and the Roman Central Goverment -- The Pope -- The Curia

The pragmatism of Americans is a commonplace, but perhaps it is not so well known that the theologians of Eurpe, taking this penchant for practical creativity more seriously than Americans sometimes do, look to the English-speaking world and especially to America herself for viable development in contemporary pastoral theology. The collaboration of Karl Rahner, the great German theologian, and Daniel Morrissey, a young American theologian, in Theology of Pastoral Action points this hope up well–as does the fact that theirs is the first book in a series intended speciafically to stimulate the development of imaginative pastoral theology in the American and British Churches. Theology of Pastoral Action is at once theoretical and concrete, foundational and projective– a book in which the author's analysis of the nature and purposes of a genuine pastoral theology is complemented by their practical prescriptions for its application in such controverted areas as the structure of the episcopacy, the problems of ecclesiastical bureaucracy, the need for redefinition and reorganization of central agencies of the Church, and the possibilities for well functioning collegiality. Above all it is a book consistenly conscious that the changed pincture of the world has made it imperative for pastoral theology to offer something other than collections of practical directives for pariesh priest. Pastoral theology must rather be a practical theology, with all the implicationsof both those words– a theology that embraces the entire activity of the Church in the world , and re-develops the ability to provide constant substructure for the response of Christians to that world.