Comments

1. Cathleen Kaveny 03/26/2011 - 11:59 am  contributor

   Is this Pope Benedict’s version of World Youth Day?

   Or something more / other than that?

2. Joseph A. Komonchak 03/26/2011 - 12:16 pm  contributor

   It seems to me to be quite different from the WYDs. I don’t know what events took place in connection with the encounter in Paris, but to judge from the remarks that the Pope sent, it would seem that he expected it to be of quite a different character than those “Catholic Woodstocks,” as critics have called Pope John Paul II’s gatherings.

3. Cathleen Kaveny 03/26/2011 - 12:32 pm  contributor

   Yes, Pope Benedict is very different in temperament and style than Pope John Paul II. I guess I wonder if this sort of event really reflects his personality –and way of engaging youth, in the way that JPII’s WYD’s did his personality. I have often wondered whether B16 carries forward WYDs more out of a sense of loyalty, and continuity, rather than real enjoyment of them.

4. Ann Olivier 03/26/2011 - 1:12 pm  subscriber

   According to reports of the occasion which I read weeks ago, the Courts of the Gentiles won’t be only for young people. There will be meetings of intellectuals too. In Paris some of the Sorbonne faculty is scheduled to participate in discussions with some Catholic intellectuals.

   The whole thing seems an excellent idea, going as it does, beyond Woodstock and including adults. Also, the preparations I read about don’t indicate that the gatherings will be huge, as were Woodstock, and JP II’s gatherings, gatherings in which there were no discussions.

   Benedict’s speech is Benedict at his very best, i think. No “infidels” for him, but “people with different convictions”. His concern for the young people is palpable! I wonder, however, how the skeptics will react to the efforts. given the mistakes he made and the general indifference to children in the Vatican. That can’t help.

   But the Holy Spirit is always with us, so maybe some minds will be opened, and this could bear fruit. French intellectuals pride themselves on their willingness to consider ideas on their merits and not their sources, but I wonder what will happen in England, if any Courts are scheduled there.

5. Robert Imbelli 03/26/2011 - 1:25 pm  subscriber

   I believe the gathering of the young people at Notre Dame (in which the Taizé Community played a large role) was preceded by events at UNESCO, the Sorbonne, and the Institut de France. These events included representatives of the cultural, intellectual, and political worlds, including, for example, the philosopher Jean-Luc Marion, the psychoanalyst, Julia Kristeva, and the founder of L’Arche, Jean Vanier.

   Similar events will take place in Stockholm, Prague, and Barcelona. The initiative, proposed by Pope Benedict, is being guided by Cardinal Ravasi, the President of the Pontifical council for Culture, and is clearly different from the World Youth Days. Its purpose is to promote dialogue between believers and unbelievers on questions of ultimate import and commitment. At the end of his talk the Pope does invite young people to gather with him this summer in Madrid for the next World Youth Day.

6. Nicholas Clifford 03/26/2011 - 2:53 pm  subscriber

   Very interesting to see this sort of thing going on. I note it’s headed for other venues in Europe, though not (so far) any Anglophone countries (or, for that matter, in any German-speaking countries). Any prospects there? If so, I hope that whoever is drawing up these messages will take into account the voices of different cultures and different histories. in order to make them as effective as possible, particularly to those who are not used to Vaticanese. The statement as reported by Magister seems to do pretty well — not perfectly — in that regard, though since French is hardly my native tongue, I couldn’t possibly tell.

   Speaking of the French, perhaps someone who understands that culture better than I could explain how one comes up with 23 as a surname, like the Parisian archbishop.

7. Ann Olivier 03/26/2011 - 3:07 pm  subscriber

   Maybe the family fortune was established with the proceeds from a roulette bet on 23? Maybe grand-pere had twenty-three kids and the twenty-third answered to “23″?

8. Patrick Molloy 03/26/2011 - 4:19 pm  subscriber

   I associate the number 23 with Julius Caesar. That was the number of stab wounds he suffered when he did not Beware the Ides of March.

   The advice I got was that it’s a lucky number for those playing the lottery in Rome. If that doesn’t work you can try climbing the steps of Ara Coeli on your knees. And if that fails, pray to St. Jude.

9. Ann Olivier 03/26/2011 - 4:55 pm  subscriber

   Here’s an article from the Loving the Church blog about a Court of the Gentiles that was held way back in 2009 in Bologna. I wonder if that meeting was a trial run and proved successful so it turned into a whole program. There are some interesting quotes from Benedict here about doubt in both atheists and believers. He certainly doesn’t sound like your typical CDF theologian.

   http://lovingthechurch.com/?p=697

   I also read an article recently about Cardinal Ravasi, the organizer who is apparently an extremely learned and a highly pastoral man. He seems to be behind the movement.

10. Robert Imbelli 03/26/2011 - 5:09 pm  subscriber

    Ann,

    The Pope first broached the idea of “the Court of the Gentiles” in his end of the year address to the Curia in 2009. The Bologna gathering took place this year.

    The quotes from Joseph Ratzinger you refer to are from his classic “Introduction to Christianity,” delivered as lectures to German students in 1967.

    It will be interesting to see if Ravasi is made Archbishop of Milan; and then …?

11. Jimmy Mac 03/26/2011 - 5:10 pm  subscriber

    (Un)fortunately I know a few garden-variety US atheists. When I introduced them to this action on the part of the church, their response was singularly of the “who gives a #$%& ?” variety. This initiative may have an appeal to some intellectuals and academics of the atheist/agnostic/secular humanist persuasions but I suspect to the people in the street it will have little to no effect whatsoever, except for the usual sarcastic vilifications with which they greet any activities of religionists of any stripe. Of course, my friends are Americans of a certain age and leftist (sans one) political persuasion. Half were raised Catholic.

12. David Nickol 03/26/2011 - 5:20 pm  subscriber

    I love the idea, and my proper place would seem to be in the Court of the Gentiles (or, to use another first-century analogy, among the God-fearers). But I am afraid I didn’t find anything inspiring in the pope’s speech.

13. Ann Olivier 03/26/2011 - 5:42 pm  subscriber

    Thanks for the correction, Fr. I. That’ll teach me to run through an article.

    Bob N. –

    It seems to me that Benedict’s willingness to admit the strength of the atheists’ arguments is a big plus. I get the impression that he himself has experienced some very serious doubts and so empathizes with the non-believers quite acutely. He certainly doesn’t subscribe to the common stereotype of atheists as arrogant, pig=headed hedonists with no morals.

    What he says about God as mystery is quite powerful, and should serve as a corrective to Catholics and other Christians who think that as such they’re qualified to explain what the will of God is in all instances.

    Further, and perhaps most important, he sees that the atheists who appreciate reasoning have a lot to contribute to believers who have little respect for logic and the life of the mind. We sometimes don’t see the necessity for accepting that yoke — I mean the necessity to submit own thinking to the laws logic. Yes, the laws of logic are *also* God’s laws, but I daresay that would be a strange idea to many Christians. Yes, those laws sometimes lead us to contradictions, but we need the humility that using reason forces on us, and I think the honorable atheists are ahead of us there. But that’s a whole different thread.

    Yes, I think Benedict has a way to go yet, but considering the arrogance in the hierarchy at least since Trent, I think he’s a major improvement on many, many even most recent popes.

14. Joseph A. Komonchak 03/26/2011 - 5:51 pm  contributor

    I was told that Cardinal Vingt-trois’ name comes from an ancestor who was left as an orphan at one of those convents with the revolving door where a woman could leave a child she couldn’t care for. He was the twenty-third child to be left, and the family kept the designation, perhaps as a perpetual reminder.

15. Cathleen Kaveny 03/26/2011 - 6:17 pm  contributor

    Maybe some time there could be a similar conversation with young Catholics about to leave the Church. The view about the importance of following one’s conscience given to those juridically within the fold by people like Apb Chaput, Cardinal George, and Cardinal Pell isn’t as . . . capacious.

16. Ann Olivier 03/26/2011 - 7:32 pm  subscriber

    One of my favorite people lost his faith as a graduate student at Duke. Good Catholic that he was, he first consulted with a priest. Fortunately for him Fr. Roland Murphy, the great Biblical scholar was visiting professor at Duke at the time, and he took time to talk with my friend, who wasn’t even one of his students. Fortunately, Fr, Murphy assured my friend that either way he must follow his conscience. My friend, an honest man, did leave, but without the bitterness against the Church one so often finds in ex-Catholics. Should he ever return to the fold, I’m sure the kindness of Fr. Murphy a long time ago will have something to do with it.

17. ed gleason 03/26/2011 - 8:05 pm

    I like the idea of a court of the Gentiles.. And since the SSPX don’t even want dialogue with those ‘other christians’ I like it even more that it may put more distance to SSPX hopes.

18. Charles Camosy 03/27/2011 - 12:41 am

    Cardinal Martini has been doing a version of this for years in Italy and it has been wildly successful. He called it a ‘chair for non-believers’:

    http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10803

19. Nancy Danielson 03/27/2011 - 8:28 am

    Compare and contrast with this statement:

    http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/552/Doctrinal_Commentary_on_Ad_Tuendam_Fidem_Joseph_Cardinal_Ratzinger.html

20. Mary 03/27/2011 - 9:39 am

    Nancy, what’s your point?

21. Susan Gannon 03/27/2011 - 12:49 pm  subscriber

    “Those of you who are non-believers challenge believers in a particular way to live in a way consistent with the faith they profess and by your rejection of any distortion of religion which would make it unworthy of man.” Surely, believers in some Dioceses might well evoke unhappy responses from their Bishops should they try to rise to the challenges the Pope points out. Hope he sends a copy of this message to the Congregation for Bishops.

22. mary 03/27/2011 - 1:47 pm

    Nicholas

    Cardinal Vingt trois is the descendant of an abandoned child. In France centuries ago children’s orphanages gave to the child as surname the number of the day when the child was found.

    mary from Italy

23. Nancy Danielson 03/27/2011 - 9:57 pm

    Mary, my point is, the statements are not consistent.

24. Mary 03/27/2011 - 10:27 pm

    @Nancy
    Are you suggesting the Pope’s welcome to the Court of the Gentiles event is inconsistent with his earlier Doctrinal Commentary, to which you linked? How so? The audiences and contexts are completely different. Are you suggesting there’s something inappropriate about the Court events?

25. Joseph S. O Leary 03/28/2011 - 7:21 am

    One reason why this initiative has been so successful in Paris (with full page articles in Le Figaro and Le Monde) is that the French study philosophy in school. The English-speaking world is full of philosophical ignoramuses whose ideas on God and God’s existence are very crude — nor are there any great philosophers who can raise them to a higher level in public instruction (no Russell or Copleston). The papal initiative must seem to come from outer space in the Anglosaxon context, whereas it fits the continental mindset. Winston Churchill’s nephew asked him, “Do you believe in God?” and recieved the reply, “My dear chap, what a very continental question.” The Gretchen-frage is even ruder in England than in Germany.

    It is interesting to see the gap between the chilly document quoted by Nancy and the warm approach taken on the parvis des gentils — I think that that chilly style, reminiscent of the centuries of the inquisition, is a counter-witness, inconsistent with the warmer biblical apologetic opened up by Vatican II.

26. Jean Raber 03/28/2011 - 10:01 am  subscriber

    Do we know how many gentiles actually attended this?

    In googling for news coverage, I could find only one non-Church news service that ran any story about the courtyard project–the Baltimore Sun. (I no longer have access to LexisNexis, but that would probably provide better search results).

    I have no criticism of the effort, but the method–holding this in Catholic venues and expecting the non-believers to pile on–strikes me as kind of misguided. But, then, maybe the Pope isn’t trying to attract lost causes like my mother.

27. lawrence cunningham 03/28/2011 - 10:03 am

    I think the Court of the Gentiles model is excellent. Last year at Notre Dame some groups sponsored a debate between Dinesh d’Souza and Christopner Hitchens on the God question. Those same groups are this year sponsoring the same dog & pony show featuring the very odd Sam Harris and some Evangelical “Christian” philosopher. I myself think this sort of thing is a huge waste of time and intellectually frivolous. How much better an honest exchange of the sort reported in the above post.

28. Nancy Danielson 03/28/2011 - 10:22 am

    Professor Cunningham, I am wondering why at Notre Dame you would need to go outside the University to answer the questions of the unbelievers. I have heard that they have a good Catholic Theology Department there. I hope I am not mistaken.

29. lawrence cunningham 03/28/2011 - 10:42 am

    Nancy:
    As a member of that department I must be humble and not say how good the department is. The department does not chip in $$$ for the “debates”.
    Jean:
    That the Paris event was organized by Taize would indicate that many of the participants were young seekers rather like those who flock to their Summer events. I do not have an exact profile of those who go but my impression speaking to those who do go are not always “orthodox” believers but open, idealistic, seekers who may not yet be able to name God but have not uttered a decisive NO either.

30. Cathleen Kaveny 03/28/2011 - 11:02 am  contributor

    Larry, I actually thought the DiSouza /Hitchens event was fun–and interesting–as a way of seeing how the issues are framed in the contemporary culture. It’s important to remember this was organized by the students themselves–this is what they wanted, not what their elders wanted them to have.

    As for frivolous, maybe, if your other viable choice is to read Augustine in Latin. But given the other options most people avail themselves of in South Bend on a Wednesday night in late winter, maybe not such a bad way to spend one’s time.

31. Jean Raber 03/28/2011 - 11:49 am  subscriber

    “That the Paris event was organized by Taize would indicate that many of the participants were young seekers rather like those who flock to their Summer events. I do not have an exact profile of those who go but my impression speaking to those who do go are not always ‘orthodox’ believers but open, idealistic, seekers who may not yet be able to name God but have not uttered a decisive NO either.”

    Lawrence Cunningham, thanks for the brain rattle; I wasn’t thinking hard enough about the fact that Taize was involved, and it makes perfect sense that they would be prime candidates for the court.

    Again, this is not a criticism of the court idea, but the indication that it’s not being widely reported to anyone outside of those who read Catholic publications is leads me to believe that this will largely play well with Catholics–”see how we are reaching out and being generous with our faith”–but not get much notice outside the Church.

    I think there’s a lot of blaming of “the media” for the kind of coverage it gives to the Church on this blog, so it would be interesting to hear David Gibson or other religion reporters talk–maybe on a different thread–about:

    1) Would it help the court idea to receive more mainstream, general news coverage? Or is the assumption that current coverage is just fine b/c general news reporters bollix up religion coverage?

    2) What would be the news value to general news readers? What angle would such a story likely take?

    I know these may seem like irrelevant questions (and I apologize to Fr. Komonchak in advance if they’re off topic of the thread) but as a semi-outsider who wasn’t raised Catholic, the whole court idea might be construed by outsiders as a holding pen for the unclean. (Thinking of the reaction of Jimmy Mac’s atheist friends, though, again, it doesn’t seem like they’re the ones the project is for).

32. Bernard Dauenhauer 03/28/2011 - 12:03 pm

    Let me focus again on Fr. Komonchak’s introduction to this thread. Among several interesting points, I was struck by the characterization of the pope’s initiative as a “proposal.” That term strikes me as exceedingly important for any dialogue among the believers and non-believers for whom this initiative was intended. It is also important to think in terms of “proposals’ whenever we talk about seeking to respond to questions and concerns among our fellow Catholics.
    Notice the difference between “proposing” something and “Imposing” something. I do not deny that there are times and situations that call for “impositions.” But, at least in exchanges among adults, “proposing” is always preferable, when feasible, to “imposing.” This is true not only when talking about religious matters but also in many other practical matters.
    For one application of the difference between proposing and imposing, I would suggest that all too often we find some American bishops and their lay and clerical allies engaging in impositions rather than offering proposals, proposals both about what to do and how to think about the practice of Catholicism. Proposing x to someone always acknowledges the need to pay attention to the concerns of those to whom the proposal is made. Impositions often show no such concern.
    I do hope that the pattern of discourse that was apparently in play in the Paris “court of the Gentiles” will come to be the predominant mode of discourse both among adult Catholics and among them and their non-Catholic counterparts.

33. David Nickol 03/28/2011 - 12:22 pm  subscriber

    It’s a trap! :P

34. Ann Olivier 03/28/2011 - 12:29 pm  subscriber

    Jean -

    The Notre Dame event was the last one. Other meetings were held at the Sorbonne, a UNESCO site and at the home of the Academie francaise. Other meeting will be held in the U. S., Canada, Spain, Russia, Finland among other places

    http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/article/2011/03/24/id/390683

    Maybe the reason so little attention has been given to the program in the anglophone press is because the we have such little tolerance for intellectual matters.

    Fortunately, Cardinal Ravasi who is in charge, says that the purpose is definitely not evangelization but to seek common ground. Maybe the media thought it was just another advertising ploy.

35. Joseph A. Komonchak 03/28/2011 - 12:30 pm  contributor

    There is a tendency at times to think that for “the Church” to construct “a court of the Gentiles” is for huge event to be staged in which it can be demonstrated that, see, the Catholic Church does take people who are still searching seriously, see how we’re willing to converse with them, etc. It’s as if we could say that, see, the Catholic Church does take young people seriously–look at all these big jamborees we have every couple of years or so–World Youth Day! Hundreds of thousands for the big Do!

    But the Church has a court of the Gentiles if the Churches have courts of the Gentiles, that is, if this Church here, and that Church there, and that other one there, engage searchers in conversation, if each of them admits that it is composed of searchers, or peregrini, who are not so much pilgrims on their way to a known shrine, but strangers, people on the way home, but certainly not there yet. The one Church doesn’t do this sort of thing, as if there is that one big thing (the “universal Church”) that does it. The one thing does it only if, and to the degree that, the many Churches do it.

    Do our parishes have courts of the Gentiles?

36. Ann Olivier 03/28/2011 - 12:49 pm  subscriber

    Jean –

    Here’s a Reuter’s report in the Chicago Tribune. You’t think the Boston Globe would have something, but doesn’t.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/sns-rt-life-us-vatican-athtre72n887-20110324,0,5317379.story

    The LA Times carried the same report.

    http://www.latimes.com/sns-rt-vatican-atheistsdilde72n1ld-20110324,0,325430.story

    Does that imply that Chicago and LA are more Catholic than Boston and New York?

37. Ann Olivier 03/28/2011 - 1:07 pm  subscriber

    JAK –

    I’ve never even heard of a local Church with an outreach program like this. For once I say: Bully for the Vatican!!

    In the U. S. even individual Catholics intellectuals seem to shun the public square. How many Catholic intellectuals are even recognized as such in the public square? Gary Wills? Alasdair MacIntyre? Who else? (Of course, there aren’t that many American intellectuals in the first place.)

    You don’t catch the Lonergans of our world out there dialoguing with the Searleses, much less slugging it out with the Hitchenses the way you could find Maritain, or Copleston or Dummett talking with their opposites in Europe.

38. Ann Olivier 03/28/2011 - 1:11 pm  subscriber

    Oips — I left out Charles Taylor (a Canadian). He’s a heavy-weight by any standard. But he obviously respects other traditions and is willing to engage with them.

39. Nancy Danielson 03/28/2011 - 1:55 pm

    No doubt, there is a difference between a Court of the Gentiles within The Catholic Church, and a Court of the Gentiles outside The Catholic Church, and I am sure Christ (and Pope Benedict) would agree that that difference makes all the difference. For this reason, I am wondering, what is going on in the Vatican?

    http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otc.cfm?id=790

40. David Nickol 03/28/2011 - 2:13 pm  subscriber

    and I am sure Christ (and Pope Benedict) would agree

    Nancy,

    It must be nice to be so confident of your opinions that you are sure Christ would agree with you.

    In any case, as best I can determine, you seem to be opposed to the Court of the Gentiles concept, and yet you link to an article that supports it.

41. Ann Olivier 03/28/2011 - 2:22 pm  subscriber

    Nancy ==

    I can’t speak for the Pope any more than you can speak for Christ, but what seems to be going on is that Pope Benedict recognizes that there are people outside of the Church who would be more open to the Gospel if they understood more about what believers and unbelievers share, plus — this must come as something astounding to you — unbelievers can have something to offer the Church in return.

    You think that because the Church has the word of God that individuals like you can understand all that those words mean — that development of dogma and criticism of old misunderstandings of dogma are not necessary or even that it’s possible to develop and criticize misunderstandings. But development and criticism are *both* not only possible, but over the course of time become actual.. Uuntil you recognize that you and your favorite popes can sometimes be quite wrong about the word of God you will not understand what Benedict and the others are about. No, he is not JOhn Paul II, but he is equally pope.

42. Jean Raber 03/28/2011 - 2:28 pm  subscriber

    “Does that imply that Chicago and LA are more Catholic than Boston and New York?”

    No, it probably implies that the Boston Globe either doesn’t subscribe to Reuters or relied on the local Catholic press to cover these events. Thanks for the info, Ann. I had no idea this was already wrapped up. So shame on me for not being better informed.

    Frankly, Fr. Komonchak is correct; I tend to see “court” events partly along the lines of World Youth Day. However, I think there are really a variety of ways to look a the notion of a “court” or “courts.”

    If the goal is to have a smaller, purer, church, it might be advantageous to have a large “vestibule of welcome” for those who are not eligible to receive, which would be less a place than an attitude of openness and charity on the part of the faithful.

    There are “seekers” programs in most parishes that tell people about Catholicism. I wonder if the the idea of a “court” might inspire those who run those programs to invite seekers into a deeper dialogue without necessarily trying to herd them into RCIA. Certainly inviting seekers to attend Mass even if they aren’t ready for RCIA would be nice.

    There are a lot of spouses of faithful Catholics who are welcomed awkwardly at first when they start attending Mass regularly. I think there is a “court” attitude toward them once the faithful realize that they’re not going to try to get in the communion line. I see a lot of informal sharing of ideas with those spouses when they happen to come to the local parish instead of their own church’s Sunday worship.

    An appointment calls, which spares the rest of you from my rambling, but as someone who clearly belongs in the court rather than at the table, I find the whole idea interesting and welcoming in a way I hadn’t really thought about before.

43. Nancy Danielson 03/28/2011 - 2:39 pm

    I linked to an article that is consistent with Pope Benedict’s initial proposal for a Courtyard of the Gentiles OUTSIDE The Catholic Church, not INSIDE The Catholic Church. (capital letters used for emphasis only)

44. Mary 03/28/2011 - 3:04 pm

    Don’t fret, Nancy, I’m sure the format could be adapted so that those who show up who are really lapsed Catholics are quietly herded around back to an auto-da-fe.

45. Joseph A. Komonchak 03/28/2011 - 3:05 pm  contributor

    Ann: A little snarky today? I am simply suggesting that big events like the one in Paris shouldn’t be considered to be the only, nor the best, way to carry out the metaphor of a “court of the Gentiles.”

46. Ann Olivier 03/28/2011 - 4:29 pm  subscriber

    JAK –

    No, VERY snarky today. What did I say at 1:07 that’s false? As I see the Church since the Enlightenment the Church has largely inhabited a self-imposed ghetto. Trent, and worse Vatican I, were disasters. This is the first official initiative I’ve seen of the official Church trying to break out of its self-constructed intellectual walls, except for its recent ecumenical overtures to Protestants and the Orthodox.

    No, it might not work. But at least it has been a very civil, welcoming sort of initiative, which is more than you can say for the previous 500 years. (OK, so I over-simplify. Call it super-snark.)

    True, “the court of the Gentiles” is only a metaphor, but I”m wondering if it shows that Benedict has realized that the loss of Catholic Europe has not been the fault only of the heirs of the Enlightenment, that the official Church has also been at fault.. He has certainly reversed himself recently on praying with Protestants, and now he seems to see that dialogue with the unchurched might be mutually helpful. That is a huge gain. I can’t imagine even John XXIII doing something like this. Who knows, he might even abandon his old notion of abandoning Europe to a Holy Roman Catholic cult.

    Yes, local dialogues would be fine. I just haven’t seen any.

    Oops — let me take that back — there was that recent joint conference on abortion at Princeton sponsored by a Catholic group. (Wasn’t our own Charles Camosy involved?) It even welcomed Peter Singer. That’s the sort of intellectual guts the Church needs. But, again, that wasn’t the official Church. Only a few Catholic intellectuals have been willing to engage unofficially — until Benedict and his court.
    .

47. Nancy Danielson 03/28/2011 - 4:33 pm

    Not to mention that if you desire to lead others to Christ, why would you be partnering with UNESCO, The Institut de France, and the Sorbonne? Why go outside The Catholic Church if The Truth Has revealed Himself to His Church? That being said, french is not my native tongue, but liberty, equality, and fraternity, sounds like french to me.

48. lawrence cunningham 03/28/2011 - 4:53 pm

    Nancy:
    The idea is to go and speak and engage where there is a forum – for an old example see: Acts of the Apostles 17: 16-34.

49. Joseph A. Komonchak 03/28/2011 - 4:59 pm  contributor

    Ann: I agree that Catholic theology in the modern era largely retreated into an intellectual ghetto–M.-D. Chenu, Henri de Lubac, Bernard Lonergan, Karl Rahner, Michael Buckley, et alii plurimi, have said it, and deplored it, long before you did today.

    Trent occurred before the Enlightenment and was perhaps the most successful reform-Council in Church history. And Vatican I’s statement of the relation between faith and reason remains one of the best official declarations.

    As for other initiatives: one could think of Vatican II itself, and then of the official Vatican offices and dialogues charged with dialogue with Marxists, non-believers, and members of other religions. Even official quarters have not been as silent as you seem to think.

    But I also have a more expanded notion of the Church than you appear to, and I regard as efforts of the Church to engage the modern intellectual and cultural challenges the work of people like Blondel, Maritain, Gilson, Chenu, Congar, Pieper, Przyvara, Dawson, de Lubac, Marrou, Couturier, Marcel, Vialatoux and Latreille, Mounier, Guardini, Balthasar, Rahner, Lonergan, J.C. Murray, McCabe, Copleston, Anscombe, to name only ones who come immediately to mind. These people did not inhabit ghettoes.

    While I think there may be some value in grand manifestations such as the one under discussion, the real work has to be undertaken by believers who read what’s there to be read, engage the contemporary cultural challenges, and do the often very hard and patient work of thinking necessary to respond intelligently and critically. One would like to think that there are people and groups already doing that, but not so splashily. In any case, if the task is not undertaken locally also, it won’t really be addressed.

50. Bernard Dauenhauer 03/28/2011 - 5:59 pm

    Note well Fr. Komonchak’s latest post. Take seriously his last sentence. “In any case, if the task is not undertaken locally also, it won’t really be addressed.” For my part, I have been and will continue to try for a local version here in the Allentown diocese. So far, the best I’ve been able to do is participate in the faculty seminars conducted by the Lehigh University philosophy faculty. I’ve been well received by them. This is only a slice, but the God question has had to come up with some frequency. We all contribute. There is no “bottom line,” no measurable outcome for these conversations. Just good, thoughtful and mutually respectful thinking.
    This may not count as much of a “vocation” or a bearing witness. But it’s still something worth doing.

51. Mary 03/28/2011 - 6:22 pm

    If “…good, thoughtful and mutually respectful thinking” doesn’t count as bearing witness, I don’t know what should.

52. Jean Raber 03/28/2011 - 6:29 pm  subscriber

    “So far, the best I’ve been able to do is participate in the faculty seminars conducted by the Lehigh University philosophy faculty.”

    This would be useful for intellectual communities (and I would be too stupid and antsy to sit through something like that), but is there some application at the parish level? As I noted above, a place for seekers to have a continuing conversation with the Church beyond the set six-weeks seekers program?

    I gather from what’s being posted that the notion is not to evangelize so much as to appear welcoming? (Sorry for being slow on the uptake here.) Not meaning to be impertinent, but the Church’s “coming home” outreach effort to lapsed Catholics has been a failure (lots of theories about this, but won’t delineate them here). But is the notion of a “gentiles’ court” going to fly if the gentiles feel that the Church won’t even accept its own back?

53. Mary 03/28/2011 - 7:42 pm

    Since the thread began I’ve been pestering my non-theist friends, hoping to get their take on the Court. Most of them grew up in some organized religion, a few with no more religious background than the background cultural Christianity of the U.S.

    FWIW, here’s what they’ve expressed:
    1) Great idea (some were struck by the Pope’s tone of welcome), to the extent it’s conducted in the spirit of openness–it’s a chance for the RCC to address thoughtful questions in an atmosphere of dialogue. In theory. However…
    2) They question the appropriateness of characterizing the Courts as dialogue, since there’s not much chance of the RCC changing its mind as a result of anything it hears from attendees.
    3) To the idea of local Courts, they all said they’d like to attend, but not if they were held at churches. They’re all aware of local evangelical Protestant groups holding what are advertised as plain old meet-your-neighbor suppers that then turn into the equivalent of time-share pitches–sit through a 30min shame session before you get some awful feast of starch. They like the idea of learning from their RCC neighbors, but would prefer those sessions happen on “neutral” ground and that they be run/moderated by folks who aren’t going to feel it’s a failure if the session ends without having signed people up for RCIA classes.
    4) Most were skeptical about local Courts and what one called “quality control.” In other words, they would want the Courts to feature Catholics who are not only open to dialogue but also well-educated in Scripture and RCC doctrine. It’s an unfortunate truth that these non-theists tend to know more about church history, the Bible, distinctions between Catholicism and Protestantism, etc, than most of the Catholics they know. They’re also well aware of survey data showing significant gaps in many a religionist’s basic knowledge. Said one (an ex-Baptist), “What’s the point of showing up to ask about the theology of transubstantiation if I can’t be assured that the Catholic I’m talking to even knows what the Real Presence is, much less believes it?”

    One last thing, I’ve noticed my non-theist friends are far more open to the idea of the Courts (both the big international and local versions), despite some practical misgivings, than my friends who are Catholics. The latter group either thinks the Courts seem like empty PR, or worry we’ve got a lot to do to get out own house in order before we should start inviting friends over to visit.

54. William FitzGerald 03/28/2011 - 8:12 pm

    I’ve heard the term “creepy treehouse” to describe events into which people are lured, like Hansel and Gretel, into something that seems coercive and, well, creepy. (What happens if we give our email?)

    At the same time, when we have company over, even if, like today, it’s just the plumber, we do a better job of getting the house in order. My guess is that if Catholic parishes had a stronger sense of hospitality to visitors, seekers, they would in time win over many of the ‘gentiles’ whatever the setting. At my Episcopal church the level of welcome in a non-creepy way is an amazing contrast with the reserve and atomism of the Catholic parish down the street.

55. Nancy Danielson 03/28/2011 - 10:09 pm

    With all due respect, Professor Cunningham, just as The Court of the Gentiles existed in Israel’s terms, so too, should the Court of the Gentiles as proposed initially by Pope Benedict, exist on The Catholic Church’s terms since it is in His Church that The Words of Eternal Life exist. What Pope Benedict proposed was not only to bring Christ into the culture, but to bring the culture to Christ through The Court of The Gentiles. Thus for Pope Benedict, the purpose of interreligious dialogue has never been to compromise The Truth but rather proclaim The Truth, so that others may come to Christ and believe.

56. Ann Olivier 03/28/2011 - 11:44 pm  subscriber

    “Trent occurred before the Enlightenment and was perhaps the most successful reform-Council in Church history. And Vatican I’s statement of the relation between faith and reason remains one of the best official declarations.”

    JAK –

    Yes, Trent reformed the corrupt papacy. But it didn’t reach out to the Protestant Reformers, unless you call defining dogmas a kind of reaching out. Nor did it reach out to the fast becoming alienated Humanists who were laying the groundwork for the Enlightenment.

    I don’t know about Vatican I’s statement on faith and reason. Did it improve on what Aquinas had to say? Or did it just declare Thomas’ view to be official?

    You seem to think that *declarations* build bridges between believers and non-believers. I don’t think they work that way. They just instantiate Rome’s assumption that all it has to do is declare stuff and the non-believer will be persuaded. I think that Benedict finally sees that this doesn’t work.

    You also say, “As for other initiatives: one could think of Vatican II itself, and then of the official Vatican offices and dialogues charged with dialogue with Marxists, non-believers, and members of other religions. Even official quarters have not been as silent as you seem to think.”

    I ask: have there actually been dialogues? With members of other religions, yes, many. But the others?

    You add: “But I also have a more expanded notion of the Church than you appear to, and I regard as efforts of the Church to engage the modern intellectual and cultural challenges the work of people like Blondel, Maritain, Gilson, Chenu, Congar, Pieper, Przyvara, Dawson, de Lubac, Marrou, Couturier, Marcel, Vialatoux and Latreille, Mounier, Guardini, Balthasar, Rahner, Lonergan, J.C. Murray, McCabe, Copleston, Anscombe, to name only ones who come immediately to mind. These people did not inhabit ghettoes.”

    I answer: Only six of those thinkers were philosophers, and four of them (Maritain, Marcel, Copleston and Anscombe) were converts to Catholicism. In other words, the wider Church has not itself producing much in the way of highly competent defenders of Catholic philosophy. Further, how many of those theologians you mention engaged with the intellectual world well enough to even be *known* to that world? Yes, I”m sure they talked to other theologians. But how many engaged with the nonbelievers?

    Further, most of the theologians you mention were French. What were the rest of the Catholic theologians doing the first half of the 20th century.

    Yes, more snark.

57. Joseph A. Komonchak 03/29/2011 - 9:44 am  contributor

    Ann: We agree that Catholic theologians, and even philosophers, lived in an intellectual ghetto for most of the modern era. Up until the 20th century, except for Pascal and Newman, there is hardly a single name, apart from those of historians, that would come up in a history of western thought. The 18th century, when Enlightenment ideas spread like a brush fire, Catholic thought was somnolent. In the nineteenth century, every effort at engagement with contemporary thought–and there were some (e.g., Rosmini, Guenther, Hermes, Newman)–was either condemned or suspected by Rome. The Church was largely incapable of meeting the twin challenges of German idealism and modern critical history, and efforts to do so were brutally suppressed in the anti-Modernist crackdown. So I don’t have to be persuaded, and what I’ve just written was part of my course on modern theology. Our differences are in details.

    The Council of Trent had hardly anything to say about the papacy. Its reform-decrees are even longer than its doctrinal decrees and affected a reform at almost all levels of Church life. Vatican I preserved the healthy Catholic both-and of respect for reason and for faith alike. Yes, it was very Thomist. I certainly don’t believe that “declarations” accomplish great things by themselves, but you called the two Councils “disasters,” and they weren’t.

    Yes, there have been dialogues.

    You seem to desire to leave theologians out of your history, while I include them. What do you suppose attracted people like the four philosophers you mention to the Church? Did they think they were sacrificing their intellectual integrity by becoming Catholics? They must have seen something in the Church. Would they have become Catholic if things were as utterly bleak as you say?

    All the philosophers and theologians I mentioned did engage contemporary thought and thinkers. They weren’t just reading other theologians. Yes, eleven of the twenty men I mentioned were French, the cultural area I know best.

    How well these Catholic thinkers were known outside the Church is a good question. Maritain, e.g., was known, but Gilson reports coming out of one of his lectures with a colleague at the Sorbonne who said, “The man is mad!” But when one thinks of how provincial some circles of philosophers are–they who like to think of themselves as open to all thought, coming from anywhere–one shouldn’t necessarily be surprised that Catholic thinkers, whether philosophers or theologians, are not taken seriously. (The British analysts don’t read the Continentals, and vice-versa.) And, to end where I began, so poor was Catholic intellectual achievement well into the 20th century, that it was widely considered to be unnecessary to look to see what Catholics have to say–Catholica non legenda sunt.

58. Jimmy Mac 03/29/2011 - 4:42 pm  subscriber

    “According to the latest American Religious Identification Survey (http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/reports/highlights.html) of more than 54,000 adults, between 2001 and 2008 the number willing to identify themselves as atheist and agnostic has gone from under 2 million to 3.6 million. Small numbers compared to the whole, of course, but most notably it’s a rise of 85% of those willing to describe themselves as living without God during the years of our most overtly religious presidency!

    Even more newsworthy, when the widely-scorned labels “atheist” and “agnostic” are replaced with specifics about beliefs (“There is no such thing” as God, “There is no way to know,” or “I’m not sure,” and added to those who refused to answer) it turns out that over eighteen percent of Americans do not profess belief in a God or a higher power.
    According to ARIS, then, there could be as many as 40 million adult nonbelievers in the United States!”

    http://www.alternet.org/rights/139788/40_million_nonbelievers_in_america_the_secret_is_almost_out/

    These are the people in the public square for whom the Vatican’s efforts are most likely unknown and, when discovered, irrelevant. A handful of academics meeting in a rarified atmosphere and any reports issued therefrom can hardly be expected to cause anything other than a minor ripple of interest or concern in the increasing landscape of possibly 40 millions just here in the US. And the stats for Europe? I suspect that they could be much higher than 40%, depending on which country is being surveyed.

59. Ann Olivier 03/29/2011 - 9:20 pm  subscriber

    JAK –

    Our main disagreements seem to be over the value of Trent and Vatican I and over the standing of 20th century theologians relative to the wider intellectual world.

    You say that those councils accomplished a lot, and yet you also admit that the Church suppressed any original development of doctrine after those events. So I just don’t see how you can think of such a suppressing event as a successful one. The Index of Trent alone set the Church behind several hundred years in its intellectual development. It was the work of the devil, so fr as I can see. And the claim of infallibility of Vat I and its cementing of papal authority *has* been disastrous. It has diminished the Church unnecessarily in the eyes not only of non-Catholics, but in the eyes of many of the faithful as well.

    I don’t doubt that Guardini, Rahner, de Lubac and others developed the official definition of “the Church” as the people of God, but I can’t forget that Erasmus said the same thing back in the 15th century (and all his works were placed on the Index! Yes, I’ll admit they had their hands full fighting the Vatican, but so far as I can see, they made no major outreach to the non-believers. That’s why I think this initiative of Benedict towards the non-believers is so surprising and hopefully historically important.

    As for the Maritain, I daresay it could be said of most French philosophers that “He is mad” if all one knew of him is what one happened to overhear as one passed by their classroom. (Sorry, Claire :-) Actually, that was what my dissertation was about — the schizoid elements in Maritain’s epistemology. But he had a lot of other stuff of value to say. Maritain was going to kill himself out of despair but he read Aquinas and that brought him to the Church.

    Anscombe is one of the analytic Thomists, not analytic Lonerganians. (Snar, snark.) Dawson, the convert-historian — unlike the other historians of his day — specifically defended the medieval intellectual accomplishments of the Church. Did that help turn them Catholic? I don’t know, but I would be surprised if it didn’t help.

    I don’t know what appealed to Marcel and Copleston about the Church.

    It’s; not the lack of major philosophers that gets to me about the post-medieval Church. That could possibly have been just a quirk of history. Its the suppression of thinking by the official Church — based on an obviously obsessive fear of evidence and reasoning — that to me shows a *lack* of faith, not a strength of faith. As such it’s scandalous, and it’s why I turn very snarky when I think of it.

60. Ann Olivier 03/30/2011 - 5:40 am  subscriber

    “A handful of academics meeting in a rarified atmosphere and any reports issued therefrom can hardly be expected to cause anything other than a minor ripple of interest or concern in the increasing landscape of possibly 40 millions just here in the US.”

    immy Mac –

    If our beliefs about the nature of the cosmos, humanity, politics, etc., don’t come from the intellectuals, then where do they come from? Like it or not, we’re dependent on them. No, the Vatican intellectual aren’t the only ones, thank God. But we ARE dependent on the professional thinkers og one sort or another.

    Yes, initially what the academics think is quite foreign to the general public, and even within academe itself it takes a while for radically new ideas to take hold or even be understood. But the ideas of those in the ivory towers of universities and the “small” journals (small in numbers of subscribers, anyway) have a way of seeping into the general culture, whether the general culture knows it or like it or not.

    ISTM that in our contemporary world the main conduits for the ideas of academe and the journals are the media — the print and TV tournalists, the pundits of TV and the magazines, both high and low=brown, and the literary arts which adopt the arguments, values and attitudes which the literary artists learned in college. If we don’t get new ideas from the original thinkers of our culture (who are mainly academics), then tell me why we don’t grow up thinking like Buddhists or Muslims or animists or whatever? My point is that the ivory tower is much nearer to the ground than Americans seem to assume. Ideas come from someplace, and in our culture academe is the main source

    ISTM to me that, roughly, the radically new ideas used to take at least 75 years to make their way into the vocabulary and thought of the general population. Now the time frame is much shorter, but still not within one generation — unless problems of the masses clearly indicate that new ideas are needed, and then the assimilation of new ideas is much quicker. (By the way, I’m firmly convinced that the average person is quite capable of highly abstract and complex thinking when his survival and/or good life depends on it. Motivation works educatioal wonders.)

    I think that new ideas about economics and morality are urgently needed today and so the average person would probably be willing to listen to intellectuals who make sense to them. In the past, for instance, Marx certainly captured the minds of hundreds of millions of ordinary people. But there’s the problem: who are the academics/intellectuals who make the most sense?

    The Church, with its rich intellectual history, should be able to help the average person make intelligent, informed decisions about the new moral problems which confront us. But that means both using the wisdom of the past and incorporating the insights of contemporary thinkers. Not an easy task, but necessary.

61. Joseph A. Komonchak 03/30/2011 - 9:01 am  contributor

    Ann: I guess it’s my interest in history that leads me to avoid sweeping judgments–such as “disasters” and “suppressing events”–about complex historical moments such as the Councils of Trent and Vatican I. And I’ll be content with your qualifying clause, “so far as I can see,” when it comes to judgments about the great figures in the Catholic theological revival of the 20th century and their engagement with contemporary culture

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