True Schools of Virtue

“Ecclesial Movements and New Communities contribute to the life of the Church as authentic schools of virtue: useful for learning authority as service, and for aspiring to obedience as something wholesome and just.”

This is the conclusion of the study conducted by Philip Milligan, an official of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, and published under the title “Approaches to Authority and Obedience in the International Ecclesial Movements and New Communities”.

In the abstract, we read: “This study identifies three paradigmatic situations of autonomy within the Church, against which authority and obedience can be measured, and then applies these paradigms to the practice of authority and obedience inside eight international Ecclesial Movements. This test base is sufficiently broad to justify applying the same method to Ecclesial Movements in general.”