The Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian
I have been a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America for 35 years now; and though I have not attended each and every convention over those years, I have attended well over half of them.
The Convention which ended today, as many know, had as its theme “Generations.” The experience was for me, both poignant and hopeful.
The poignancy consisted in remembering those senior colleagues who had died in the past year, theologians of renown like Walter Burghardt and George Tavard. In addition there were a number of other colleagues present, but visibly more enfeebled than just a year or two ago.
But there was also a good deal of hope. Not only because of the enthusiastic participation of a younger generation and their full involvement in both plenary sessions and seminars; but because of what I perceive to be a renewed sense of their ecclesial vocation. Let me give one salient instance.
When I first joined the Society the prevalent wisdom was often expressed as: “we’re doing theology, not catechetics.” While, perhaps understandable as an attempt to vindicate the particular nature of the discipline, especially as it moved toward the founding of doctoral programs in theology, it also ran the risk of divorcing the theological enterprise from the life of the Church, and the theologian from responsibility for that life.
The “audience” to which the theologian addressed himself or herself risked becoming narrowed to the academy and his or her accountability limited to the guild of fellow practitioners.
Happily the CTSA has always had salutary limits to this tendency and instituionalized safeguards against it. Thus, for example, the local Ordinary has always been invited to address the opening session; and the celebration of the convention Eucharist has always been a high point.
But what particularly struck me in this just concluded convention is the number of younger theologians who are questioning the received wisdom that separates theology and religious education. Given the wide-spread religious and theological illiteracy we face at the undergraduate level, so simplistic a separation is not only theoretically questionable; it verges on the pastorally irresponsible.
I do understand the frustration of college theology instructors who stand before students who lack a foundation, and who must therefore spend class time going over what they should have learned in junior high school.
I suppose the most expedient solution is to do what English departments do: teach them the equivalent of Freshman Composition in the first semester of their freshman year, so they can then tackle the real coursework going forward?
Freshman composition is not a good analogy, since it is not about filling in basic ignorance but rather about skills.
As a teacher of literature rather than theology I find that it does not matter if students are more or less ignorant, since both they and I are equals before the text, and their untutored perspective may produce insights as valuable as professorial ones.
Teaching theology, however, must be a nightmare. Every single term used in theology has a sophisticated, historically-layer sense or senses, whereas students at best will bring some summary catechism notion that may be resistant to critique and development, or else will bring no notion at all and so have no idea what the function of the theological term is.
The solution I recommend is NOT package deals where you rush the student through potted catechesis, but study of single classical texts such as Athanasius on the Incarnation or a Pauline epistle. As the background and implications of such texts are exegeted the lineaments of the great science of Theology will begin to come into view.
But I know that American theological students HATE texts and just want hot air discussion.
I think Joesph is spot-on–and unlike to make anyone happy, liberal or conservative, if the guiding idea is education within a tradition, not indoctrination.
Having taught both, I can say that introducing students to theology is not that different from introducing them to law. They’ve both lived within the framework for years without entirely understanding it. Some of them think they know more than they do.
On the one hand, you have students who want completely indeterminate hot air discussion (in both fields)- “who needs law when you have love” (or deep commitment to social justice). On the other hand, you have students who want the BOOK OF LAW –the self-interpreting, self applying book that answers all questions. Found in the ruins of the temple –or courthouse. Why read the caselaw when you have the Second Restatement on Contracts? Why read the social ncyclicals when you’ve got the Compendium of Social Doctrine–so they think.
The remedy: careful reading of primary texts -case law, encyclicals, classic articles, classic books. Socratic questioning. It’s harder on the teacher too. Taking a student through a Cardozo opinon(Jacobs and Young v. Kent)
But it’s our job.
I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with F. O’Leary and Prof. Kaveny. And I think Athanasius would be a very good place to start.
Having spent my college years reading and discussing the great books, however, I’m dubious about the merits of the Socratic method. Questioning can easily become a more intractable form of indoctrination, such as we see Socrates practicing on Theaetetus and in the famous passage of the diagonal line in the Meno.
Socratic questioning in the wrong hands can lead straight to thoroughgoing relativism (the opposite of the direction where Socrates led), and then the student, who now trusts the teacher who stole his brain, can be made to think whatever you like.
Kathy, anything in the wrong hands can go bad.
Including Christian doctrine==1 Cor. 13.
But I do agree that you probably wouldn’t find law school to your tastes.
If you’re interested in quantum mechanics, or cosmology, or string theory, there are any number of books written for the interested nonscientist, many of them by scientists who have made important contributions to their fields. Are there writers who attempt to describe for interested nontheologians what is going on in contemporary theology?
We used to have a common introductory course entitled “The Christian Difference”. Among ourselves, we called it “Remedial Catholicism.”
There is also a series from Paulist Press, with the somewhat hokey title “What are they saying about. . . [fill in the blank]. If your goal is to get some idea of where some of the contemporary theological conversation is, and some basic orientation to the secondary literature, on a particular topic, you might look there. It’s written by specialsts for non=specialists.
David,
The series Cathleen mentions is always a good place to start. Let me mention three works that probe deeper, but are accessible: Gerard O’Collins, “Jesus our Redeemer: A Christian Approach to Salvation,” Elizabeth Johnson, “Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God” (with its generous dedication to Frank Oveis, longtime editor at Continuum), and Aidan Nichols, “The Thought of Benedict XVI.”
Happy reading. I’d be interested to hear how you find one or another of them.
I find more merit in Jim Pauwels’ analogy than Joseph O’Leary, who wrote, “As a teacher of literature rather than theology I find that it does not matter if students are more or less ignorant, since both they and I are equals before the text, and their untutored perspective may produce insights as valuable as professorial ones.”
I would argue that a professor of literature is not equal with the student before the text; if he is, why is the student paying hundreds of dollars for instruction? If you read for pleasure and therapy alone–Sam Johnson thought those were fine ends in themselves, so who am I to knock it?–you can join Oprah’s book club for free.
But a serious study of literature ought to (a) move students toward a deeper understanding of the text and by supplying historical context, contemporary notions of literary aesthetics, linguistic notes, and whatever biographical information about the author and his attitudes might be useful–and I would guess a theology professor does some of that–and (b) help students develop Hume’s “delicacy of taste” that allows them to acquire some literary judgment and discernment.
In theological realms, isn’t this the difference between being able to articulate “How God speaks to me” and understanding the tradition that has led the Church to its understanding of God thus far?
Despite many competent members, I have held for a long time that the CTSA is one of the most irrelevant, ineffective organizations in the church. And the reason is precisely that which Bob gives; they do not do, know how to do or are not willing to do catechetics. That is more than a shame. Catechetics is the art of making clear, conveying and translating the gospel.
I remember complaining about CTSA to the outstanding theologian, Elizabeth Johnson and she was not too happy. In our conversation, not necessarily related to my criticism, she noted how the parishes are in bad shape. Certainly that is largely the fault of the bishops. But what the heck is CTSA for? Despite the many outstanding theologians who belong, as a society it is simply dreadful.
Cathy, I agree with you on law but theology? The apostles would have flunked Athanasius’ class. What about the old adage that you really do not know your subject unless you can make an 8th grader understand it? This is beside the point that, in my opinion, Athanasius’ theology is fatally flawed.
I did the Athanasius, Tanqueray bit. A certain purgatory going nowhere, imnsho.
We do need more catechetics. Can we have better remedies?
Of course there is a theologian who wrote an outstanding book on catechetics. Some consider him the best of our times. “On Being A Christian” by Hans Kung
What future pope will apologize to him?
I’m not sure if I, like Jim Pauwels, “understand the frustration of college theology instructors who stand before students who lack a foundation…”. My academic discipline is chemistry, and I am a long-time member of the ACS, the professional society of chemists. The ACS has all sorts of programs to support pre-college chemistry education. We give shows for students, we offer training for teachers, we judge science fairs. Meanwhile, I am also a teacher in my parish’s religious ed program and my only contact with the discipline of theology is that some theologian was consulted in the writing of the book. The parents who step up to teach religious ed feel undereducated for it, but it’s an important job, and someone needs to do it. The discipline of chemical education is less prestigious than chemical research in universities, but it is broadly expected that scientists at all levels will do something to support chemical education. Because if we don’t, few people will understand or care about chemistry in the future. I hope theologians feel the same obligation to support the educational basics of theology. Because if they don’t, they have no right to feel frustrated later.
You can be a saint without reading a word of theology. You can be a law abiding citizen without reading the criminal code. The point of the language of “culture” –Catholic culture, American culture, is that it provides a whole set of ways of absorbing the norms. We’ve lost that in American Catholicism, but not so much in the American legal tradition.
At the same time, I think basic education requires high school students to absorb some familiarity with our constitutional system (tripartite forms of government), history, etc. So the basic education of Catholics should be analogous.
But training lawyers, and training theologians, is a different thing. They are expected to take responsibility for the tradition in a much more complicated and sophisticated way. Relativism, in law, at least is a stage. The first semester of law school: you want the rules. You get very upset when people like me systematically undermine yours sense of certainty, make you see how the cases should be read for what they don’t say as well as what they do, look at how arguments hit or miss one another. Second semester; that takes. Then you have to build them back up. They need to see that while there may not be a perfect argument, there are bad ones. That everything is not all up for grabs, although everything is not settled either. They might not be able to walk, but they can still swim, and there are good criteria for telling what that looks like.
At the end of the first year, they should be ‘thinking like a lawyer.” Moving through relativism=–yes, but beyond it as well.
The law is a profession having to do with man-made structures. Theology is the science of God, it’s received.
Between the two there is science. Pascal is famous for two things: his triangle and his theological arguments (the Pensees and the Letters). He is less well-known as a student of the physics of water. Water and vacuum in vertical tubes do not behave at all as one might expect, so in order to study it, one has to let go of preconceived ideas. After that process of learning, eureka!, the new perspective becomes second nature to the mind.
This putting on of a new mind was known to Aristotle as well:
Yet the acquisition of it must in a sense end in something which is the opposite of our original inquiries. For all men begin, as we said, by wondering that things are as they are, as they do about self-moving marionettes, or about the solstices or the incommensurability of the diagonal of a square with the side; for it seems wonderful to all who have not yet seen the reason, that there is a thing which cannot be measured even by the smallest unit. But we must end in the contrary and, according to the proverb, the better state, as is the case in these instances too when men learn the cause; for there is nothing which would surprise a geometer so much as if the diagonal turned out to be commensurable. (Meta 1.2)
The acquisition of a science involves a changing of the mind and a certain undermining of structures. But law, physics, geometry–none of these go straight to the heart of a human being, so I suggest that none is even close to theology in importance. And theological ignorance is a serious deficit for a Christian, if “This is eternal life: To know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Perhaps it is barely possible that a saint could emerge who has not read, or even heard, theology; however, that does not seem advisable! “Faith comes through hearing.” Scripture has theological content, and so does (or so should) the preaching. The metanoia, then, should be founded on the word of God.
Not on an ideology.
“Freshman composition is not a good analogy, since it is not about filling in basic ignorance but rather about skills.
“As a teacher of literature rather than theology I find that it does not matter if students are more or less ignorant, since both they and I are equals before the text, and their untutored perspective may produce insights as valuable as professorial ones.”
Where I went to college, Freshman composition didn’t really delve much into texts. It was more about learning to write with number agreement, tense agreement, person agreement, parallel construction – i.e. the basic building blocks of constructing a sentence, a paragraph, a paper. Things that once were taught in high school, and perhaps still are, but in which, as I understand it, many college professors find incoming freshmen to be deficient.
Jim,
Staying with your analogy — a colleague at Boston College says: “I want to speak in paragraphs; but often the students do not know the alphabet.”
Now clearly there is a range, even among undergraduates. I teach an advanced undergraduate seminar in which we read and discuss such classics as Augustine’s “Confessions,” Dante’s “Purgatorio,” and Teilhard’s “Divine Milieu.” And there is no question, but that I learn from students’ insights.
But to appreciate these classic texts, the students need more basic vocabulary (in the wide sense of the term) that only an introductory course — or prior catechesis — can provide.
A further thought: “catechetics” does not mean “indoctrination.” It seeks to present, respectfully and faithfully, the data of the tradition: liturgical practices, key persons and periods, doctrines. But that tradition is at its heart “mystagogic:” both distinctive and inexhaustible. The one presenting must be attuned both to its intellectual and its affective content.
One could go on; but let me stop there.
“The law is a profession having to do with man-made structures. Theology is the science of God, it’s received.”
Thomas Aquinas and the whole Catholic tradition, would not agree with you about your characterization of law, for it occludes the relationship of natural and positive law. Neither would the English common law tradition, which is, through Hooker, deeply related to the Thomistic tradition.
I’ll let someone else tackle your generalization about theology.
Thomas was a 13th century theorist, not a practitioner of law in present-day United States. It seems likely to me that the link between natural law and the profession of law in the United States is as tenuous, correct me if I’m wrong, as the link between Gregorian chant and Gather Us In.
Of course, if there are professors or faculties who make this link explicit and meaningful, that is of course praiseworthy.
This is a great thread! How the tradition is imparted – theologically and otherwise – in the absence of a unified Catholic culture – is extremely important (this comes from an impartee, not an imparter).
Does anybody know of work being done in the field of education in regards to pedagogy and undergraduate students? Does any of it concern religious education?
“The parents who step up to teach religious ed feel undereducated for it, but it’s an important job, and someone needs to do it.”
Certainly part of the problem. Jean points out that after RCIA things fall apart. And the Catechesis has always been the parochial schools which meant the nuns were the heart of early Catholic education through high school. There would be much fewer Catholics without the parish schools. Public school Catholics were often educated by their Catholic school friends.
Catholic theology does need a lot more spirit. But not the “ex corde ecclesia” kind with its rigid orthodoxy and lifelessness directed by the CDF. Cardinal Montini has just come out noting how the Vatican needs reform. We need to be spared the elitism of the progressives and the rigidity of the orthodox. Somewhere in there the gospel of the Crucified Christ, the disgraced one, needs to be taught.
David,
Glad you asked :-)!
There was a panel at the Convention whose background was a book I edited, “Handing on the Faith” (Crossroad) and a book edited by Father James Heft, “Passing on the Faith” (Fordham University Press).
My book was divided into three general areas: “Context, Content, and Communication” with essays by sociologists, theologians, and religious educators. The focus was handing on the Catholic tradition.
Jim Heft’s book drew upon experiences of practitioners in passing on the faith in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions.
Two (much) younger colleagues were on the panel with Jim and me; and over 50 people attended the session. This experience and the lively exchange, in part, inspired my original post.
I hope that is of some use to you.
Although I have not taught theology, I think my colleague and fellow law-teacher Cathy Kaveny put it well, saying that “introducing students to theology is not that different from introducing them to law. They’ve both lived within the framework for years without entirely understanding it. Some of them think they know more than they do.” Many bright and able law-students come to their first-year classes ready to display and deploy a fairly crude form of legal realism — i.e., “c’mon, we all know that this case came out this way because the judge had eggs for breakfast” — because they have absorbed (from TV, the press, etc.) a lot of law-talk, untethered to how the study, practice, and art of law really works. (And, like Cathy says, the problem is made worse by the fact that even bright students often have negligible familiar with the basics of American history, civics, and the like.) I imagine this kind of thing happens to those who teach theology to bright undergraduates as well. To spot this problem / challenge is not to say that theology teachers should just do catechesis, or that law-teachers should teach A.P. History (though it would be fun!); it’s just to note the challenge, and — one hopes — start thinking about how to respond.
It seems to me that this discussion is about college students – many of whom [most of whom?] are ill prepared for the courses required. Just the other day, I mentioned Longfellow to a [bright, always reading] high school freshman. He’d never heard of him: no Hiawatha for him, nor Excelsior. He and a friend found classes in “genre literature” to be boring. “Genre literature” – reading taken by fiction, poetry, drama. Shakespeare was beyond the pale.
College is far too late to begin studying theology, just as it is far too late to be studying arithmetic or the elements of language [one's own, or a foreign language - dare I say perhaps Latin which was not a foreign language to generations of altar boys; or choir boys who could sing Salve Regina, or Stabat Mater].
Take the Baltimore Catechism. Memorize it. It will also serve as base for those whose interest is in theology.
“Why did God make us? God made us to love Him and serve Him in this world, and be happy with Him forever in the next”. Any suggestions for improvements on that?
Kathy, I’m so happy you asked for my advice on what to read! We can start a book club!
The efforts to appropriate Thomas in a political context today are legion. For two different approaches to how to appropriate Thomas in a contemporary political context , you might try John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980) and Aquinas: Oxford University Press, 1998). Finnis adopts a not uncontroversial account of reason, and Aquinas, but he’s a leading jurispurdential scholar at Oxford. But I’m sure you know that already.
Jean Porter has a new book out Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (Eerdmans, 2005) which attempts to connect natural law theory to contemporary questions, including questions of human rights. She’s more influenced, as am I, by Alasddair MacIntyre
And my own article, “Between Example and Doctrine, Contract Law and Common Morality,” Journal of Religious Ethics (2005) makes the connection between between the common law and a MacIntyrean account of tradition, virtue.
Now, if you want one account of one aspect of the relationship between theology and the common law, see James Whitman: The Origins of Reasonable Doubt: The Theological Roots of the Criminal Trial (Yale University Press, 2007).
More generally, through Hooker, the basic categories of the criminal law show strong reflection of Aquinas’s action theory. The distinction between the object of the act and its motive, for example, is still reflected in the mens rea of murder (although there is a tendency, in both American and English criminal law to reduce intention to foresight.)
Woops. .. almost forgot Harold Berman’s Law and Revolution (Harvard U.P.)
.
The Mormons have Institutes of Religion which they describe as:
“Institutes of religion provide weekday religious instruction for single and married postsecondary students. Young single adults of the appropriate age (generally 18-30) are also welcome to attend.”
They tend to use this approach rather than parochial schools. I suspect that the average Mormon young adult can run circles around their Catholic counterparts when it comes to religious knowledge …. catechetics, if you will.
From what I have seen over the years, most of the products of Catholic schools and CCD classes are a pitiful example of how the faith has been handed on. And, no, I’m not one of those neocons who hanker the old days of “rote and ruler” memorization of the Baltimore Catechism.
New approaches need to be tried. Theology on Tap is one approach, but I don’t think it can begin to deliver an informed Catholic who knows what and why (s)he believes. The CTSA should be on the forefront of instigating and supporting new approaches until a slate of approaches that actually will work can be developed and implemented.
Wow.
Knowledge does puff up.
Fr. Imbelli:
Thanks for those suggestions – they both look like exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.
Just out of curiosity, what is your position in regards to the “proper ecclesial vocation of a theologian”? I take it from your comments in the post that you think theologians should be working on incorporating theology (as an academic, specialized discipline) and teaching (as a method of passing on the faith) toward the end of staunching the religious illiteracy of my generation. Looking toward the book you edited (which I hope to find and read), maybe you can give some thoughts on how to merge these two, or put differently, how theologians and religion teachers can help “pass the tradition” on.
Of course, if anyone else has thoughts, please comment!
Fr. Imbelli:
I have been trying to compile my summer reading list. Thanks for the list!!!
I have studied theology and so am biased……but……..
I think that the study of theology differs from law, philosophy, or any other discipline. Heidegger argued that theology deserves a separate category than philosophy in that theology is the discipline of existing ‘faith-fully’. The subjective experience of faith, unlike any other discipline that does not require a particular interior disposition, is indispensable for the study of theology.
Secondly God is the subject not the object of theology. In the three great monotheistic traditions of the world, God is a subject who speaks. God speaks through a particular living tradition. Consequently, a theologian may never exist apart from the living tradition in and through which God’s revelation is received. In that sense, and in only that sense, would I agree that the vocation of the theologian in the Christian tradition cannot be separated from the ecclesial body (the carrier of tradition), the Church. As even the Mondernist theologian Tyrrell noted, the Church makes theologians, theologians do not make the Church. Every theologian desires to operate in medio ecclesia. Of course what the medio (to say nothing of the ecclesia) consists of is a difficult task for the theology.
I do not believe that theologian is obligated to support every construction of his or her confession. And I would take the unorthodox (?) position that the Roman Catholic church has become a confessional church since the Reformation, and arguably even before that with the great schism. I do not think a Catholic theologian should be required to accept any confessional statement, even if made dogmatically, post-schism. I think that they can demonstrate the reasonableness of such constructions, but should also be free to reject them if historical research indicates otherwise. As Schillebeeckx wrote’…a theologian does not have the right to impose censorship in advance of their own insights; the theologian is obliged to make public the results of their investigation’.
This kind of research and public declaration make the vocation of the theologian risky and perilous because the theologian is called to a task in the Church – yet it is a task that God (for those theo-centric like me) or Christ (for those Christo-centric) or the Holy Spirit (for those pneumatological folks) calls them.
I do think that Catholics have the benefit of being part of a long and rich tradition and for that I am grateful. I do think that we could do a much better job of living that tradition. As Pelican correctly observed ‘tradition is the living faith of the dead while traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.’ In trying to recapture our tradition which is very important, too many are falling prey to traditionalism. But which is which is a call for discernment, and theological study.
…bottom line the theologian has an ecclesial task.
I am not sure I understand the distinction being made between theology and catechesis. I expect a catechist to hand on the faith, and a theologian to analyze what has been handed on. Obviously there is overlap, but is it really a theologian’s task to transform students by handing on the tradition?
I’m late to this thread, but I’d like to make a few points:
-I think Bill was being somewhat snarky im his view of CTSA; I think, under some duress in their relations with the episcopacy, they’v eproduced not only a lot of useful material but strived to have some rapprochement with said hiereachy – no tsure how well it’s received.
Having formerly headed a professional association and been connected to a number, I find most of the real forward looking stuff in a field happens in such groups and beauracracy tends to resist or be slow to adopt.
=I am impressed by Cathy’s thoughts on the law and theology -she really brough ta lot to the table here.
-focusing on education of Catholic colege studebnts touches onlya small part, though, of what I read “generations” was about – lots of material on our highly complex, divided and changing American Church.
-I know it’s silly of me, butI think to reach our young Catholics ( in Catholic vollege, csecular college pr no college), the didactic (and I don’t mean to minimize its import) will not take unless they see the kind of poistive gospel BXVI spoke about when here and (I’m sad to say) which i see too little of in the divides that de facto exist and whose complexities “geerations “tried to make us look at in a more focused way.
“Why did God make us? God made us to love Him and serve Him in this world, and be happy with Him forever in the next”. Any suggestions for improvements on that?”
For openers, Gabriel, God demands we love our neighbor as ourselves, love our enemies, including Jews, Arabs, blacks and other persons of color. Build treasure in heaven, not 401ks. You, I’m sure can add.
Rick & Cathy,
Judges have made outrageous judgments like the O.J Jurors. I know of many instances where judges were told that they kiss their job goodbye if they did not rule such a way in a case. The Justice Department under the former disgraced attorney general blatantly avoided the law. The reason he was stopped because he sent up too many flags. So you have to address this practice in the law. Yes there are great processes in law. But how much is justice served rather than privilege and influence? It may not be eggs for breakfast but what about the gun to her head? How is the law even in this great country, not a tool for the rich and hammer to the disadvantaged? Is this a legitimate question?
George D.:
I think we are in agreement on a number of points: God as the subject of theology (I believe Aquinas speaks of theological knowledge as, in some sense (aliquo modo!) participating in the knowledge of the blessed.
I also like your focus on “the living tradition” which we receive and seek faithfully to hand on. This “handing on” (as your quote from Pelikan implies) need not be merely verbal repetition which, in a given context, could well be a distortion of the binding judgment of faith. Hence Lonergan’s differentiation of concept and judgment.
Finally, where we might have different emphases is in my concern that standing “in medio ecclesiae” means for the theologian to submit his/her insights to ecclesial discernment: certainly the discernment of peers, but also that of the magisterium. But here, as you say, we venture into issues of ecclesiology.
David B.:
So much could be said regarding your question — and others may yet join in. But a few words that come to mind are “witness” to the life-giving nature of the Tradition (which does not mean imposing it on others), respect and love for the students (manifest even in a classroom setting), and joy (Michael Himes has an essay in the book I edited in which he speaks of Augustinian “hilaritas” as essential in communicating the faith).
Jim McK.:
“Catechesis” at its best will be liturgically-rooted and related; and hence transformative practice will be much more to the fore
Yet even in a college class room I insist that the tradition (and not only Christianity) is a call to transformation. My mantra is that revelation is not for the sake of information but of transformation. And I draw on Newman’s distinction between “notional” and “real” to say that tradition becomes real by engaging in the practices it privileges.
Thanks to all for their comments. Candles in San Clemente!
“Finally, where we might have different emphases is in my concern that standing “in medio ecclesiae” means for the theologian to submit his/her insights to ecclesial discernment: certainly the discernment of peers, but also that of the magisterium. But here, as you say, we venture into issues of ecclesiology.”
Bob,
Is it possible for you to go into detail on this? I believe there is an important role for the magisterium. At the same time that magisterium has been wrong many times. Not only in doctrine but in discipline. Ted Hesburgh would have been censored by people in the Curia were it not for Paul VI’s continual intervention. The devil is in the details. Is it possible for you to get into them?
FR. IMBELLI “Finally, where we might have different emphases is in my concern that standing “in medio ecclesiae” means for the theologian to submit his/her insights to ecclesial discernment: certainly the discernment of peers, but also that of the magisterium”
Fr, Imbelli –
Pelikan has a little book whose name I forget which compares the tasks of Protestant theologians and Supreme Court justices. As I read him he is saying that constitutions and Protestant confessional statements (and creeds) are sets of axioms from which the theologians draw conclusions. This is the theologian-as-logician, the theologian who, like judges, looks for necessities.
However, as you tell us, discernment is called for. It seems to me that discernment includes more than drawing conclusions from axioms. Discernment is above all insight into what is *gratuitous*, what could not-be and what could be otherwise. Discernment includes, shall we say, artistic insights into possible goods and sets of goods. Most difficult of all, discernment is insight into the relative values of various possibilities, even of opposing possibilities all of which might be good. See the liturgical wars! Discernment also sees the *limits* of human possibilities — as Sartre put it, “We cannot be all we can be”.
But how to do this? How to be a theologian-as-artist?
IN an earlier thread on CTSA, Bill mentioned Cardinal Martini’s latest output and questions.In yesterday’s Baltimore Sun, O’Brien abd Cahill argue strenuously against Communion as a weapon -with a few words about Archbishop Chaput as well.
One of the outcomes of “generations” is the view that the catholicism to come will not be a nostalgic return to a past era bu tsomething new that cares for the tradition but views it both critically and lovingly.
My guess is that the success of reaching outr yoing Catholics will depend on how well we continue to reshape the message to their understandings/cultures and needs.
Here’s a link to the Baltimore Sun op-ed: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.communion09jun09,0,7586458.story
Suppose I accept the notion that whenever a bishop states that a politician cannot/should not/may not receive communion, the bishop is really acting from an ulterior political motive.
But … if I accept that notion, then whenever someone denounces said bishop for the alleged politicking, why shouldn’t I suppose that the denouncer is acting from an equal and opposite ulterior political motive? Is there something about bishops that makes them inherently or circumstantially less reliable or trustworthy than newspaper columnists, bloggers, or anyone else who comments publicly?
For that matter, I suppose nobody reading this has any reason to accept what I’m about to say at face value, either, but here goes: I don’t ask this to call into question the integrity or motives of anyone who posts here. But I’d really like to know how a person should judge motives and hearts in cases like these. I suppose the cynical answer is that everything is political, and don’t accept anything at face value. But I’d like to cling to my hopeless naivety a bit longer :-)
Jim,
We should take the criticism of bishops and those who criticize bishops in the context of a person’s actions. So when Cardinal O’Connor criticized G Ferraro for being pro-choice and not Catholics Pataki and Giuliani who are pro-choice, you know it is political and shameless. One must criticize any bishop who does that. Etc.
Ignorance is not bliss and never replaces responsibility. Ditto for naivete.
First, I cited O”Brien and Cahill to react to some of the notion of how catechesis should proceed and was the use of “communion as a weapon” an effective such use?
I don’t think that criticizing the criticizers (an often used debate technique) advances theat discussion.
I would add that Wilkins” articles in the current issue on The Bishops as Altar Boys” underscores the problem of the how to proceed.
But there’s more …
Bill’s after 10 post of the 10th raises the issue of magisterium and catechesis, especially since therei s a hardly a univocal view of magisterium (with no distinctions) as source of faith among the faithful.
Respecting tradition,searching it more deeply, but also being able to criticize and question and how they ionterplay in dialogue deeply influences the effectiveness of what’s proposed.
Underlyng that is the notion, again put forward by BXVI the other day, that truth is not imposed.
The recent adventures of Robinson/Martini show how difficult it is to look at what is in place, say, for example, on critical issues such as the role of women or of human sexuality.
I noted that Common Ground (in its conference on “Movements” stayed away fro “neuralgic” issues; it struck me as being a bit removed from Msgr. Murnion’s last missive to Church leadership here..
Going way back to the Davidson thread, I agree with him that something new is coming.
I also think how good our young’s participation in the Church will be in that something will depend on not only better pedagogy in content but in manner as well.
Bob Nunz tells us: “herei s a hardly a univocal view of magisterium (with no distinctions) as source of faith among the faithful.”
Indeed, indeed, Ann O. replies, nodding her head wearily. It seems to me that this is one of the most divisive issues, if not *the* most divisive issue within the Church today: what *is* “the magisterium”?
Then there are the epistemological questions: how do you get to the magisterium and how do you know it when you find it? Only when they are answered can the *real* theological questions be considered. Or should some theological questions be asked even *before* answering the questions above? (And what do I mean by “theological:? Rellgious????) But all of that’s another thread. Or another library.
Oy, oy, oy. I just don’t see how the rifts can be healed untill we all have a better understanding of these issues that seem to haunt the Church..
Bob Nunz tells us: “herei s a hardly a univocal view of magisterium (with no distinctions) as source of faith among the faithful.”
Indeed, indeed, Ann O. replies, nodding her head wearily. It seems to me that this is one of the most divisive issues, if not *the* most divisive issue within the Church today: what *is* “the magisterium”?
Then there are the epistemological questions: how do you get to the magisterium and how do you know it when you find it? Only when they are answered can the *real* theological questions be considered. Or should some theological questions be asked even *before* answering the questions above? (And what do I mean by “theological:? Rellgious????) But all of that’s another thread. Or another library.
Oy, oy, oy. I just don’t see how the rifts can be healed untill we all have a better understanding of these issues that seem to haunt the Church..
Bob Nunz tells us: “herei s a hardly a univocal view of magisterium (with no distinctions) as source of faith among the faithful.”
Indeed, indeed, Ann O. replies, nodding her head wearily. It seems to me that this is one of the most divisive issues, if not *the* most divisive issue within the Church today: what *is* “the magisterium”?
Then there are the epistemological questions: how do you get to the magisterium and how do you know it when you find it? Only when they are answered can the *real* theological questions be considered. Or should some theological questions be asked even *before* answering the questions above? (And what do I mean by “theological:? Rellgious????) But all of that’s another thread. Or another library.
Oy, oy, oy. I just don’t see how the rifts can be healed untill we all have a better understanding of these issues that seem to haunt the Church..
Sorry about that triple entry!!! (How did that happen?) (Maybe the Holy Spirit REALLY wants those questions to be asked?)
Hi, Ann and Bob, I suppose the church’s answer to most of your questions would be found in Lumen Gentium chapter 3. I know that sounds flippant, and it’s not my intention to come across that way, but it is an exposition of answers to questions like, “who possesses teaching authority”, and “how are we to recognize those with teaching authority”. Am I misunderstanding the questions?
Folks have no problem understanding the possession of teacuing authority insofar as the poe and bishops are involved though some issue on how much they need to work together,.
Then there’s the matter of curial rulings (e.g.CDF)
There’s lots of views on the force and accuracy of what’s taught (beyond the problem of how.)
Moons ago, we use to hav e”thological notes” on the force, but now a guy like Robinsonn (and I think Gaillardetz -hope I spelled that right -) agreed on ABC that there’s this “creeping infallibility” problem in the examples I cited above.
I guess for some folks there’s a continuing problem of circularity into how one talks about the force,
Seems to me we’ve got lots more to do about the issue of magisterium, roles of teachers (really important ecumenically) and lots more to figure out on respect and critique – sorry for being repititous (I’ll try not to hit this three times.)
I would agree with Bob about the value of ecclesial discernment and he is correct that we venture into ecclesiology.
I think, however, the issue is how to involve the whole Church (laity and bishop) in the process of discernment. Afterall, there is no question that there needs to be body that serve the purpose of discerning theological findings and their adherence to tradition. Otherwise we risk venturing into uncritical enthusiasms on the one hand or rigid fundamentalisms on the other.
I thought this interview with Ladislas Orsy is on point, particularly with regard to discernment. I have pasted some of the conversation below.
http://www.mepkinabbey.org/ChapterVerse/chapter_crisis.htm
“You speak about “restoring the universal people of God in their God-intended dignity;” why “restoring” it? What is the “official” status of the laity — as it is now? ”
I have to speak of a paradox, or of an irony of history. No council has ever described the “people of God” (laity, in more than 99 percent) in such glowing terms as Vatican Council II did; yet, the role of the laity has never been so restricted in the church as in these post conciliar decades. Admittedly some new avenues opened up for the cooperation of the laity with the hierarchy, but the laity has been excluded — as a matter of principle — from decision making processes.
Our ancient traditions were never that absolute. In the first millennium ecumenical councils were called by emperors and empresses — lay persons, for sure. In earlier centuries, the laity played a share in the selection of bishops. In the second millennium, persons not in sacred orders participated in ecumenical councils.
“Why these new restrictions? Is it all a new form of clericalism?”
It may well be. From time to time we hear an official “justification” of the practice: it asserts that the task of the laity is to sanctify the secular world. Nothing wrong with that, but if it is meant exclusively, that is, if it implies that lay persons must not have any share in the sacred activities and decision making processes of the church, it is surely false.
For a better view, please, listen to the Council; to make its declaration more intelligible, I break up a unified paragraph and add some comments — as it were in brackets. Bear with me: the matter is of capital importance for the future of the church. “The whole body of the faithful who have received an anointing which comes from the holy one … cannot be mistaken in belief.”
[Notice: the whole body is infallible!]
“It shows this characteristic through the entire people’s supernatural sense of the faith, when, “from the bishops to the last of the faithful” [a quote from St. Augustine], it manifests a universal consensus in matters of faith and morals.”
[This supernatural sense of faith that leads to infallibility is not the exclusive privilege of the pope and of the bishops in council: it resides in the whole people — there is the foundation of the hierarchy’s duty of consultation.]
“By this sense of faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, the people of God, guided by the sacred magisterium which it faithfully obeys, receives not the word of human beings but truly the word of God (see 1 Th 2:13), ‘the faith once for all delivered to the saints’” (Jude 1:3).
[Both are sacred, the people — they are called saints — and the magisterium. They together receive, and are in common possession of, the word of God. The first virtue for both, people and magisterium, is to obey this word. Then, the magisterium has a privileged role: that of guiding the people in the acceptance and interpretation of the word. This privilege — right and duty — has been spelled out with some details by the two Vatican Councils; their determinations are integral part of our Catholic faith.]
“The people unfailingly adhere to this faith, penetrate it more deeply through right judgment, and apply it more fully in daily life.” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 12)
[This sentence refers to the gift of prudence: the people are capable of applying the principles of faith to the practical demands of the daily life. When the laity is, in fact, excluded from decisions-making processes, 99 percent of the people — blessed with prudence — are excluded.]
No more needs to be said; the council said it all and well.