ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers how Innovative Catholics consider divergent foundational concepts used to describe and understand the human condition. It analysis how catholics approach and move on from using the conventional notion of the "collective person", as implied or indicated in the rhetorics of recent Popes, to one that is more individuated. The book also considers how Innovative Catholics use hybridising processes to revise identities, moralities and structures. In the Church, strong identities, a fixed morality and autocratic structures are enforced to secure the "collective person" to community and hierarchy. In Western society, identity is individuated and thus weak, morality is constituted in the right of the individual to act autonomously, and these freedoms are enshrined in democracy. The book also examines how Innovative Catholics navigate a middle path between religious and social expectations to produce an alternative approach to boundary making.
