Community and Communion: A Necessary Distinction

Abstract

The concepts of community and communion are often superimposed in a communitarian semantics that is increasingly difficult to realize because postmodern culture makes it inconceivable. Christian theology retains a communitarian semantics but fails to translate it into concrete practices. Why ? The reason is that, if it is true that no one can fulfill themselves as a person without relationships of communion, on the other hand we must see and address the otherness (as difference) that exists in communion and community. How can we bridge the gap between the needs of communion and the ability to organize stable and fruitful communities ? The fact is that the differentiation between the bonds of communion and those of community has grown. The former are spiritual relationships of mutual giving that have no boundaries, while the community has boundaries, however permeable, and can only be generated when the subjects manage to create a common world through relational otherness.