7. Summary and Conclusions

7.1 For the VC, the times we live in are perhaps more a time of sowing, of patiently waiting, than of great harvest. It is a case of preparing our own ground for the Gospels through critical dialogue with the modern and postmodern world, not of total confrontation with it.

7.2 The "modern" era was determined by its "dominion over nature and lebensraum (living space)", by the subjection and exploitation of nature, by the pride of place given to the economy, by mechanical thought, patriarchal structures, nationalism and by thinking on military lines. The "postmodern" era would like to revise the modern age and introduce the themes and examples of ecology, the peace movement, feminism and other emancipatory processes.

7.3 It is not fair to raise a hue and cry and paint pictures of catastrophe. The postmodern epoch offers numerous starting points for the inculturation of the Gospels and the sequela (the longing to find a meaning, for meaningful relationships, for fellowship and for wholeness).

7.4 The VC must set the prophetic signs of fraternal "communio", of a hospitable place to be, of a clear (but not fundamentalist) Christian character and of dialogue, against the ambivalent phenomena of the postmodern era - e.g. individualism, rampant pluralism, avoiding the question of truth, "The Crisis of the Subject and the Crisis of Truth" (John Paul II).

7.5 One important criteria for the evaluation of candidates for the VC is their capacity for an integral spirituality: they should try to unite passion for God, for contemplation, the contemplative nature and prayer with a passionate commitment to the poor and to enforcing human rights. Against the background of the esoteric and other kinds of so-called "spirituality", the VC must clearly demonstrate that its spirituality it not purely inward-looking, but liberating and "transformatory".

Let us return to the theme of my contribution: Is everything this really possible? Is nothing really certain? No, there is no reason to be so skeptical and pessimistic as that statement may lead us to think. The VC has the fundamental certainty, the conviction, that God’s creation, the incarnation of His Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit are not one-off events, but processes that have lasted throughout history, dwell within every individual, and will endure beyond the year 2000. The Church and the Christian community, which have deep sources to draw from, can impart to our world a profound certainty that no single person can have alone: that history has by no means come to an end, that God is still creating, that He calls men and women in new ways and that the future of the VC - despite all the prophets of doom - can and will be a good thing.