This paper has an ambitious aim: to predict the future of the Church. How can anyone undertake such an enterprise since the one thing we know for certain about history is omnia aliter, that is, everything will be different than we once imagined. However, such a project is not as unfeasible as it seems. In the footsteps of literary critics, economists, historians, political scientists, philosophers, and theologians, we sketch some of the most likely shifts in the light of already-observable trends using the finest hermeneutics available. First, we interpret the most significant global trend today: secularization (sections 1). Second, we present and evaluate current models for the future of the Church, paying particular attention to the Magisterium of Pope Francis (sections 2). Finally, we predict likely developments in the area of spirituality (sections 3). In setting out to write academically about futuristic topics, we are aware that one looks to the future not so much to predict it accurately, as to shape it.

The aim of the article is to show the inculturation of faith and the popular religiosity as the context in which Pope Francis’ Marian spirituality and Mariology have been shaped. Inculturation of faith began in South America with Mary’s apparition in Guadalupe in 1531, however, the theological reflection on the importance of evangelization of culture and popular piety developed in South America only after the Second Vatican Council. The milestones in its development are two Conferences of CELAM: in Puebla in 1979 and in Aparecida in 2007. Moreover, the emergence of Argentinean theology of the people in the 1970s played also an important role in its development. Pope Francis, in his programmatic apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium emphasized Mary’s place in popular piety and her role in preaching the Gospel.

The issue of tenderness has never been the major topic of moral theology. It is enough to have a quick look at the most popular dictionaries of moral theology to see the total absence, or only a marginal presence, of this issue both in the doctrinal teaching and the catalogue of virtues. The article presents specific 20th-century philosophical and theological attempts to tackle the issue of tenderness that were introductory to the theology of tenderness suggested by Pope Francis. The article presents different approaches to tenderness in Pope’s theology and its existing examples. Pope Francis seems to understand tenderness as a mode of existence and relations with other people that correlates with the mode of being a Christian in the world, because this is the way of showing God to the world. This way of life is characterized by empathic closeness, life focused on the gift of self, a real participation in the life of other people with their joys and sufferings, and, last but not least, paternal and maternal care. If we assume that the goal of moral theology is to show authentic human existence in specific places of human life, it has to be said that, following Pope Francis’ teaching, it is impossible to contribute to moral theology and ignore tenderness as the central virtue vital for living the Christian calling.

Pope Francis often speaks about the new evangelization. He notices areas that need a special care of the Church. One of them is the problem of poverty. The Pope encou-rages all the faithful to engage in the transformation of this situation . It can be called a “throwaway culture” and a sign of real poverty of the whole society when people remain indifferent to the cause of the poor. It is one of the negative consequences of the culture of prosperity. The Pope also calls it a “globalisation of indifference” and calls on all people of the three states in the Church to care for those who are poor and abandoned and to act against poverty. In a particular way Francis addresses his appeal to the consecrated persons, encouraging them to contemplate the poor Jesus, to the consecration of their lives through a faithful fulfilment of their vow of poverty and to the apostolate among the poor and the marginalized . By means of such an attitude of men and women religious they would contribute to their own sanctification, to bearing witness to love to the poor before the world and at least partly they will help those in need among whom they live and serve.

The Catholic image of Martin Luther in the course of the centuries evolved from the literally negative one during the time of the Reformation and the centuries that followed, through the theological attempts and historically in-depth analyses inspired by the ecumenical movement up to contemporary acceptance of several theological postulates. Contemporary movements of Roman-Catholic thinking of Luther well summarize historically vulnerable and dogmatically deepened opinions of the recent popes: John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. Following the agreement texts of the Lutheran-Catholic Commission at the world forum, ecumenically open popes can find out in Martin Luther a profoundly religious man, the witness of the Gospel whose theological thought is still relevant and a challenge for the presently secularized world.