Mbiribindi, Dieudonné. “Conflict and Reconciliation”: Towards a Paradigm of Contextual Dramatic Theology for the Great Lakes Region of Africa in Light of René Girard’s Mimetic Anthropology and Raymund Schwager’s Dramatic Theology.

Abstract

This dissertation in systematic-dogmatic theology was defended at the University of Innsbruck on October 3, 2023, by Dieudonné Mbiribindi Bahati, SJ, and supervised by em. Univ. Prof. Dr. Josef Niewiadomski. It connects René Girard’s anthropological theory, which has been intensively studied at the Faculty of Theology in Innsbruck, to Raymund Schwager’s dramatic theology. This connection is used to analyse the little-known but highly tragic and brutal wars that have plagued the Democratic Republic of the Congo for over
30 years, particularly affecting the eastern region of the country (401). Based on René Girard’s (1923-2015) mimetic theory and inspired by its systematic theological reception by Raymund Schwager, SJ (1935-2004), the dissertation studies how the Church in the DRC can be assisted in constructing a theory of peace and reconciliation (15).