Dialogue and Proclamation
I first taught theology in a Seminary where it sometimes seemed that the governing orientation was provided by the verse of chapter 16 of St. Matthew: “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.”
I then taught for a number of years in a School of Theology where the text of choice was from chapter 4 of St. Luke: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … to preach glad tidings to the poor.”
Both texts are important (though one may, indeed, debate their relative significance); both must be attended to since they form part of the authoritative canon of Scripture. But the danger arises for all of us when we, in effect, create a canon within the canon: selecting only texts which appeal, discarding those with which we do not “resonate.”
Analogously, one might say the same when appeal is made to the documents of Vatican II.
I tell my current students (those who hopefully will find their way beyond the polarized disputes of the post-Vatican II generation) that, in interpreting the Council, they must seek to do justice to the full range of the Council’s documents. And that they must pay special heed to the four “Constitutions” to discern the Council’s comprehensive, that is catholic, vision.
Of course, no one of us finite creatures can possibly say everything at once. Nor should one thwart individual concerns and charisms. But if teachers and preachers take their bearings exclusively from Gaudium et Spes or focus uniquely upon Sacrosanctum Concilium, without struggling to appropriate how one complements and completes the other, they risk paying insufficient justice to the Council’s integral vision.
So, I would contend, legitimate appeal to Nostra Aetate, when discussing the crucial issue of dialogue between Catholicism and the non-Christian religions, cannot abstract from the affirmations and perspectives provided by the four Constitutions. I refer in particular to the golden thread which unites them: the confession of the salvific uniqueness of Jesus Christ and of his paschal mystery.
Abstraction from context becomes even more egregious when one cites with approbation the following stirring declaration of Nostra Aetate:
The catholic church rejects nothing of those things which are true and holy in these religions. It regards with respect those ways of acting and living and those precepts and teachings which, though often at variance with what it holds and expounds, frequently reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens everyone.
This is certainly a striking and significant assertion of the Council. But the next sentence (too often omitted by proponents of dialogue) affirms:
Yet, without ceasing, it preaches, and is bound to preach, Christ who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14, 6), in whom people find the fulness of religious life and in whom God has reconciled all things to himself.
In sum, here as elsewhere, we must strive to hold in tension the Catholic “both/and:” both dialogue and proclamation, both respect and conviction.
Much truth in what you write, Robert. It may be more complicated, however. Matthew 16 became fashionable in the late fourth century when Damasus I’s followers left 140 bodies dead in the church. And Rome was virtually absent in Nicea.
On the other had “glad tidings to the poor” has never been absent , though some have underplayed it.
Secondly, as great as Vatican II was it was in so many of its documents a strained consensus. Certain features were overlooked as long as participants got in some of their own preferences. This is why it is possible to quote V2 against itself.
Nevertheless, the Council was an enormous success if one builds on it through discernment and prayer.
The poor have too often been marginalized by the official church, especially in Latin America. And Rome failed shamefully with Oscar Romero. For a pope who could not control the amount of saints he canonized, he missed a real one in Romero.
Union has become possible only since V2. Excesses toward unity are welcome given the violent history. Documents like Dominus Jesus are for the ungenerous.
Emphasis should always be on the Spirit. The bark of Peter has been more inclusive since V2. That emphasis should be preferred over any retrenchment.
Hi, Bob. Thanks for the post. I was wondering, if you had time, you could connect it to more specific comments on Peter Phan’s piece.
Or, as my good old ex-Mormon, ex-Episcopalian slightly evangelical pastor used to say:
Proof text
Out of context
Is pretext
There is something missing in abstract language like the following:
“The catholic church rejects nothing of those things which are true and holy in these religions. It regards with respect those ways of acting and living and those precepts and teachings which, though often at variance with what it holds and expounds, frequently reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens everyone.”
What is missing, I submit, is a few examples that in the opinion of the at least some of the Council Fathers would illustrate the above abstraction, as well as, perhaps, a few that would not satisfy the criteria expressed.