Herdabrevens påverkan av sekularism och herdabrevspraxis.

Abstract

The pastoral letters` influence from secularism and pastoral letter praxis. An analysis of the archbishops` pastoral letters 1972-2014.

This essay describes the archbishops` pastoral letters 1972-2014. The ambition has been to describe and analyse those letters from a secularism point of view as well as from the pastoral letter praxis. My theory has been that the archbishops continuously have been more and more influenced by secularism and less influenced by the letter praxis which also has meant that the pastoral letters successively changed and adapted to a more secularistic thinking.

I have used Aggedal&Nilssons as well as Pleijers definitions for analysing the change of praxis concerning the pastoral letters.

Concerning secularism I have evaluated the letters from Sommervilles definition of secularism. His definition of secularism is splitted in five parts presenting a picture of Sweden as a secular state but at the same time that the swedes are more religious and spiritual today than 1970 although in another way than previously.

The analysis describes that all archbishops in different ways work to make the church visible in the society. There are differences between the archbishops in this respect and the closer we come to present time the more influenced are the letters of the secularism in terms of changing the way the letters are written and also the change in target groups the letters are aiming at. The praxis of writing a pastoral letter also seem to gradually have diminished in influence during this period.