I want to begin by thanking Dr. Matthew Minerd for his generous and thoughtful response to my recent article on who it is that controls the narrative of modern Catholicism. Dr. Minerd and I have been in dialogue on these issues for about a year now and I think that we have gotten to know the theological views of one another quite well.
Therefore, I would like to offer a “response to his response” in the interest of continuing this very important conversation, doing so with the same charitable spirit that characterized his response to my original essay.
Let me start with where Dr. Minerd and I agree. First, there is the sad fact that currently we are witnessing a resurgence of progressive theology in the Church (including many important prelates of high rank appointed by Pope Francis) and that this theology is, in many significant ways, strikingly similar in tone, language, and substantive content to the progressive theology that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the Council. On the surface, of course, it would seem that the contemporary iteration of progressive theology is different from the older version since the issues are somewhat different. For example, the LGBTQ juggernaut had not yet emerged in the Sixties and the Seventies as a strong ideological movement within the Church.
But these differences are ultimately negligible since the root issues are all the same and are grounded in baptizing the secular Zeitgeist of the West as expressive of a real movement of the Holy Spirit. And this is especially true with regard to the moral and spiritual values inherent in the sexual revolution.
Dr. Minerd and I agree, therefore, that the resurgence of this progressive brand of theology poses the greatest threat to the contemporary life of the Church. We further agree this demonstrates that the kind of Catholic progressivism we saw in the post-conciliar era never really went away, as it remained the dominant theological mode of thought in the Catholic theological guild. And it remained in control for several reasons, most of which I think are cultural, since it is indeed difficult to swim against the current of contemporary opinion.
But, for our purposes here, suffice to say that a major contributing factor to the persistence of these deeply revisionist progressive theologies is the feud between differing versions of Catholic “traditionalism”. The internecine debates between Thomistic and Communio theologians, often engaged in with highly specialized theological arguments, thwarted any attempt to present a united theological front against these prevailing winds of cultural appeasement and accommodation.
Thus, while the progressives were speaking in the language of contemporary culture with a manner that was easily understood by average Catholics, the Thomist and Communio thinkers were often splitting hairs, and often each other’s heads, over the proper interpretation of some important (actually, very important) points of theology that were above the heads of the average Catholic—a category that includes many priests as well and not a few bishops.
Therefore, both Dr. Minerd and I agree that it is important for Thomists, Communio theologians, and other allied Catholic intellectuals to come together and create a new theological movement to respond to this challenge. This movement would retain the distinctive elements of the various theologies in play, but would now orient those elements more toward the threat posed by contemporary culture and its progressive theological acolytes rather than focusing on the more in-house debates amongst those who think in more tradition-minded ways.
I cannot speak for Dr. Minerd, but I hope he agrees that this new coalition would include not just the Thomists and Communio theologians. It should also include neo-con Catholics of the First Things variety, as well as post-liberal Catholics like Patrick Deneen, William Cavanaugh and the “New polity” thinkers. There are also the radical Catholics in a paleo-conservative register as we see in many of the younger Catholic Workers. And (dare I say it?) we should include in this list the saner voices within what has come to be known as radical traditionalism.
This would be a hard coalition to hold together since there are sharp and legitimate differences between them. For instance, I have little time for, or sympathy with, the neo-con thinkers or the radical traditionalists. But there is a common denominator that binds all of these disparate theologies together (with the exception of the neo-cons) and that is the realization that liberal modernity presents the Church with one of the gravest crises, if not the gravest crisis, she has ever faced. But even the neo-cons understand that if liberalism is to be salvaged for any kind of Christian political enterprise that it must be radically transformed from within and moved away from its secular “First Things” and toward foundational principles that are constitutively Christian.
This latter point is illustrative of some of the debates that have hurt our cause. Was America deeply flawed at its very origins (my view) or was it derailed later by cultural forces that caused it to deviate from its Christian roots? This is a legitimate conversation to have, but is it really the determinative one? Should we not instead focus on the fact that, regardless of its origins over two centuries ago now, that the current cultural and political situation is deeply toxic to the Faith? The question of origins has a bearing on how we retrieve the American project and, therefore, how we are to move forward, but the cultural moment we face transcends the American situation and is now global in its impact. Therefore, endless debates about whether America’s founding was crypto-Christian, or even crypto-Catholic, seem strangely anachronistic, if not irrelevant, at this point.
I think the same can be said for the endless debates over the theology of nature and grace in Thomas Aquinas. Did de Lubac get Aquinas right or wrong? Did the neo-scholastics get Aquinas right or wrong? But as important as Aquinas is, and therefore as important as this question is, it remains true that Aquinas, regardless of his views on the matter, could be wrong. In fact, it seems to me that Aquinas can be read in both ways, which is why the debate seems intractable at this point. I think de Lubac is correct about Aquinas, but I think that way because I antecedently agree with de Lubac’s theology of nature and grace in general and do not think his exegesis of Aquinas is central to that adjudication.
Therefore, as we move forward, the deeper question is, “What is the proper theology of nature and grace regardless of what Aquinas held?” And, even if the members of my fictitious coalition cannot fully agree on the answer to that question, perhaps they can at least agree that nature and grace are so deeply related to one another that in the order of salvation nature “needs” grace in order to be most properly itself as God intended it. And, while retaining our theological differences on the finer nuances of that, we then make common cause against progressive Catholicism’s extreme naturalization of grace that robs it of its Christological and eschatological provocation as in irruption from above.
As I said, I cannot speak for Dr. Minerd on these points, but I do think he would at least agree with the broad outlines of what I am saying here. And, to be clear, I am not saying that our theological differences do not matter because that, ironically, would be to confirm the view of the progressives that ultimately theology is far less important than sociology and psychology and the politics of the moment. Ideas have consequences, and my own thinking, grounded in Communio analysis, is that it is precisely the neo-scholastic view of nature and grace that has led to the “secularizing” of nature and the eventual naturalization of grace.
Nevertheless, even if that is, in my view, a logical entailment of neo-scholastic theology, I freely acknowledge that it is an entailment rejected by the modern Thomistic thinkers with whom I am familiar. I know that their ultimate commitments are to Christ and his Church beyond all others. And those are the ties that bind. Those are the ties that link us all as brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, insofar as progressive Catholicism presents us with a Gospel message that is little more than a Rorschach Inkblot into which we can read all manner of modern mythologies of “progress”, the task before us comes into sharp relief and focus. Dr. Minerd’s love for some of the lost treasures of scholasticism and his efforts at their retrieval are therefore not only commendable, but part of this necessary focus. Otherwise, it is nothing more than antiquarianism with a quaint nostalgia for a lost form of discourse, which I think certain forms of traditionalism are guilty of.
But likewise, as Minerd notes, neither should Communio theologians continue to kick the dead corpse of scholasticism as if this is still 1955 and the Holy Office is still weaponizing scholasticism in oppressive ways. There are indeed lost scholastic treasures that need retrieving and I am glad that Dr. Minerd is engaging in this. And I know of many Communio theologians who have indeed utilized many of the insights from some of the scholastic thinkers who have largely been forgotten. The names of saintly scholastic theologians like Matthias Scheeben and Charles Journet come to mind as thinkers greatly appreciated by Communio theologians. Hans Urs von Balthasar quoted Thomas Aquinas more than any other author, and the entire structure of his theological trilogy is predicated upon a reinterpretation of the Thomistic ordering of the transcendental properties of Being (The True, Good, and the Beautiful).
Therefore—and here is my only criticism—I think Dr. Minerd exaggerates the alleged triumphalism of Communio thinkers who thump their chests in “victory” over the defeated scholastic dragon. I know of very few Communio theologians who think or speak in this manner, and so I think this is a bit of an exaggerated straw man pressed into service as a justification for his project of retrieving lost scholastic thinkers. In other words, I think his frequent complaints on this score are a bit thin-skinned and also tend to paper over the nasty atmosphere of ecclesial oppression created in the past by the total hegemony of neo-scholastic thought in the Church and its weaponization against any deviations from the approved theology.
There is a reason why Catholic thinkers of that era, in overwhelming numbers, chaffed against the Church of forbidden books, oaths against modernism, and “syllabus of errors” theologizing that were reactive and sclerotic. And it was precisely many of the scholastic theologians who were complicit in the construction of these intellectual straitjackets, a fact which led to the reaction against them.
I am not pointing all of this out in order to engage in polemics which, of course, would undermine the entire point of this essay. Rather, I mention these facts of history because I value Dr. Minerd’s project and I think it requires no justificatory narrative of a Communio triumphalism and stands on its own merits. Therefore, I hope Dr. Minerd takes his own irenic statements of cooperative theology seriously since a residual animosity toward Communio theologians as (in many ways) the villain in the narrative of scholasticism’s demise will only undermine his project. And it will undermine it by giving the impression that his ultimate goals are not cooperative but are in reality a simple and straightforward restorationism.
But I do not wish to end on that note. Rather, I want to commend Dr. Minerd on his project. I wish it well and I hope it can be an opening, however small, to an ongoing conversation about the crisis that is at hand and our response to it.
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The project is eminently worthy, since progressivism as defined is shredding the Church. That said, I find this rather funny:
“I am not pointing all of this out in order to engage in polemics which, of course, would undermine the entire point of this essay. Rather .. I hope Dr. Minerd takes his own irenic statements of cooperative theology seriously since a residual animosity toward Communio theologians as (in many ways) the villain in the narrative of scholasticism’s demise will only undermine his project.”
Promoting an essential work of collaboration after tossing out numerous barbs at each of the other schools of thought is an interesting method of rallying the troops. (“I’ve succinctly reiterated why I think you’re wrong on key issues, but let’s not bicker and argue—the barbarians are at the gate!”) Evidently there’s more than “residual animosity toward Communio theologians” at play here. Come Holy Spirit!
We read: “Therefore, insofar as progressive Catholicism presents us with a Gospel message that is little more than a Rorschach Inkblot into which we can read all manner of modern mythologies of “progress”, the task before us comes into sharp relief and focus.”
Three points:
FIRST, about the inkblot “Gospel message,” and to assist complicated alliance-building, maybe progressive cleverness is about how the term “Gospel message,” itself, is sometimes/often used as code language (!) for demolishing the Church?
Referring to the late Hans Kung (1928-2021) stand-up oracle for the “virtual” Council and the gnostic “spirit of Vatican II”—consider this critique of Kung’s book “Infallible, an Inquiry?” (1971):
“Yet theology can only be a science if it is a consistent discourse, of which, however, there is little in that book. Its author, four years after Vatican II, the correcting of Vatican I not in light of Vatican II but ‘in the light of the Gospel’. Curiously, that light did not include a new and careful look at those words which, according to the Gospel [!], Christ addressed to Peter ‘in the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi” (Rev. Stanley L. Jaki, OSB, “And on this Rock,” 1997). “And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18)?
SECOND, Jaki (1925-2009), in subsequent chapters, document the earlier rationalist trajectory in non- and anti-Catholic theology (Harnack, Renan, Bultmann, Schweitzer, etc.) which now, under Kung, very explicitly discards both the Church’s papal infallibility (the indwelling Holy Spirit) and its collegial dimension of Vatican II—in favor of a more free-standing and digestible “Gospel message”—or Gospel values.
Jaki quotes even Loisy (1910) on the theological cacophony of his time and of ours:
“One is certainly tempted to consider that contemporary theology–with the exception of Roman Catholics [and Kung!], for whom traditional orthodoxy has all the force of law–is a very Tower of Babel [Chapp’s apt “inkblot” label], in which the confusion of ideas is even greater than the diversity of tongues.”
THIRD, we might as well go back to teaching the historicity (!) of the Gospels!
As if the Incarnation and the Resurrection actually happened! As if something real actually happened at Caesarea Philippi! As if the “Gospel message” cannot be misappropriated as code language (!) for, say, big-tent synodality where a few red hats and red faces can even be found covering for the LGBTQ downside-up worldview.
Oh, wait, isn’t that what the “real” and discounted Vatican II and especially Dei Verbum was all about—ressourcement? Fidelity to the complete Scripture, including (inclusiveness!) the unfashionable witness of Matthew?
“Fidelity to the complete Scripture, including (inclusiveness!) the unfashionable witness of Matthew?”
But, dear Peter, that looks like a lifelong work of hard personal spiritual growth. Can’t be God’s will, surely, for it could lead one to a place where everyone hates us, as in Matthew 10:22 & John 15:18!
‘Tis so much more fun and VERY much safer – isn’t it – to engage with all the other ever-so-clever ‘theologians’ as they chase each others tails? Perennially inconclusive, discombobulation is a mutually understood aim of these ‘theologians’, for otherwise their gambols would reach a conclusion & have to cease & an alternative career be needed.
True believers would rejoice: “At last our seminarians are free from their confusions!”
The fruitlessness of philosophy, science, psychology, politics, commerce, & politics when masquerading as theology (knowledge of God) has had many centuries to reveal it’s inanity; and, much worse, its toxic capacity to engender murderous hatred in its practitioners & acolytes, who all too often generate anti-Christ schisms enabling the world to declare: “The Father has not sent Jesus Christ!” (contra John 17:23)
We & they all would be well informed to recall: “Only ONE thing is needed!”; and: “I bless You, Father, LORD of heaven & of earth, for hiding these things from the learned & the clever and revealing them to mere children.” Matthew 11:25
The redeeming event of Thomas’ life: at the end he suddenly grasped this Apostolic Truth. If only his contemporary disciples could have the same Divine revelation!
Always in the love of King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty
Wow! Awesome reply Dr. Rice. What is continually made complicated is at it essence very simple. There are 2 trees. We are all gorging ourselves on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We need to eat only of the tree of life… and “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Progressive Catholicism is, in my mind, synonymous with sinful Catholicism. If Progressive Catholicism seeks accommodation with the dominant culture it certainly is accommodating itself to sin. Sin characterizes the dominant culture.
Now, if Thomistic Catholicism and Communio Catholicism are to act in concert, it should be toward the conversion of Progressive Catholics away from their sinful sympathies and advocacies.
You’re exactly right Deacon. I generally enjoy Mr. Chapp’s perspective, but I think he’s a bit off base in his emphasis here. Sin is the only thing that seperates us from God, not theological talent. What the average Catholic thinks about regarding Church doctrine deals entirely with morality, and not only is this not an obscure subject, our orthodox theologians provide a much more accessible path to the truth than the tortured sophistries of the progressives.
Even a sinner looking to rationalize their sins has a God-given innate sense that this is what they are trying to do. And it doesn’t take much to make clear the fallacies and phoniness of proportionalism and consequentialism in the service of relativism promoted by relativists claiming this “rethinking” of morality is what the Holy Spirit desires for “the concrete reality of today’s world”, as Francis the relativist has called it. The audacity to insult and abuse the Holy Spirit to validate relativism ever since VII has only increased.
I underwent a lengthy process of conversion from atheism to Catholicism because despite having been a pro-life atheist and wanting to ally myself with pro-life Catholics, and despite overcoming my atheism from my own discoveries of intelligent design in my work in physics, all I ever read in my copies of Time Magazine and the NY Times in the seventies were articles of dissident theologians trying to rationalize sin. What’s a bored, unholy cleric to do other that invent a sophistry? It took a long time before I learned that there were sane voices within the Church upholding its coherent teaching for truths that, because they reflect the mind of God, never change, a task now made difficult with a Pope who clearly and unambiguously rejects the very idea of immutable truth, not in one of his “confusing” statements.
Well said, Edward J. Baker.
God’s program is not about furthering sin but about overcoming it (e.g. 1 John 3:8).
As a fellow scientist, you must be saddened as I am, to see how the ‘theologians’ misuse our discoveries to support their shonky worldview, where sin is normalized. Many are in the habit of claiming that sexual immoralities are ‘nugatory’, i.e. trivial. The current pope’s TV fraternizing with a pornographer reveals the depth of this deception.
Let’s keep praying!
Ever in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
Thank you for the kind words. With all the heroic struggle Catholics have waged against the scourge of abortion for decades, you would think there would be a heightened sense of the connection between this holocaust and the ethos of the sex revolution among our prelates. I worry that their inability to figure out what is self-evident to an honest mind has become habituated. Perhaps necessitated as a means of continuing to repress their nagging consciences from having been cowards all this time. Until his political senses took hold, in the sense of realizing the developing disfavor among numerous Catholics, Francis trivialized concern for the greatest evil in history as “an obsession.” No one makes as much of a splash with the world press defending the faith as they do in undermining it.
“What’s a bored, unholy cleric to do other that invent a sophistry? “
Exactly.
Oddly, it doesn’t seem to occur to them to repent and return.
Dear Deacon. As I consumed this retort to Dr. Minerd’s article, the word “progressive:” appears many times in Dr. Chapp’s response. I was challenged by my ignorance of the, in context, word and how it seems to cause Catholic intellectuals a moral crisis. I was so intrigued that “progressive” appeared to reflect a broad negative connotation, I sought the Webster answer.
“Progressives were interested in establishing a more transparent and accountable government which would work to improve U.S. society. These reformers favored such policies as civil service reform, food safety laws, and increased political rights for women and U.S. workers. No apparent “WOKness”. A seemingly simple and placid and non-threatening view in today’s vernacular. As a “modern Catholic” the only supposed issue is the final term “increased political rights for women and U.S. workers.” Note that the expression for women is last. Women have not risen to their full potential. Women are societies “heavy lifters”. Yet, there is little “room for them at the Inn”. I have much concern how my Church has, and continues to view women as second-class citizens. Ex: When I was an altar server and lector I was allowed on the altar, my Mom, who was very active in parish activities and improvements, was not. Oh, I forgot she was allowed on the altar only to retrieve the altar linen for laundry.
“Alliances today and tomorrow” gives me pause. What happened to an alliances with the past? We can’t mold todays alliances without “building” from our mistakes of yesterday.
We must as for God’s grace as our Church moves through today’s dark times.
Women are NOT of second-class status in our Catholic Church. A woman is the ONLY human person God created free of sin. But, nice try anyway.
Progressives in the Church, if you but scratch gently below the surface, hardly adhere to ALL that the Catholic Church believes and teaches.
Dear Deacon. I may be wrong, except concerning my Mom. Moreover, I believe that the details are in the tea leaves.
Catholic evidence of fact and mythology of man’s misogyny toward women…
US Catholic: “Pope Francis said of women in the church “a labor of SERVITUDE and not of service.” It’s true that the Vatican prohibits women from ordination into the clerical hierarchy—though nuns take vows, they are not ordained, and so they are laypeople, not clerics.” Paul, (Gal. 3:28), “But scripture indicates that a lot of men of Paul’s generation viewed women negatively.”
CBE International: “Eve as made, not in God’s image, but rather in Adam’s. Additionally, that Eve was the one tricked by the serpent introduces the idea that women are intellectually INFERIOR, hence more readily deceived. And thus, the story of women as the weaker gender was born.”
WCU Catholic Campus Ministry: “Adam was formed first, then Eve. Further, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed. But she will be saved through motherhood, provided women persevere in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
My burnt offering.
Why would you place a blind trust in those who create the narratives presented in dictionaries or encyclopedias? It is ridiculous to believe “progressives” are all about virtue, which is a quality that does not involve anything new. In fact virtue, like truth, is eternal and unchanging. The evil of progressivism is predicated on the notion of revolution, that the human condition must be re-engineered in accord with how elitists say it should be re-created, no matter how many crimes against humanity they require to accomplish revolutionary change.
None of those reforms you list have anything at all to do with “progressivism” and everything to do with justice to the degree institutional abuses to justice did not accompany the actual reforms, which it almost always does, often making conditions worse with the “reforms” is spite of simplistic renderings of false history.
In ecclesial matters, it is a grave injustice to women to treat them as equivalent to men, which is why they should not serve in the identical capacities God has given to men.
Unfortunately, I am not as sanguine as Chapp in rallying those forces on the extreme right of the Church to battle against the so-called Progressive Catholics of the Church. This unholy alliance is built on politicizing the Church even more, something that Hans Urs von Balthasar looked on with horror. It is the old integralist temptation, the reduction of evangelization to the culture wars of this age.
Dear Sir(s) – all who love His Church must surely be glad to read this hopeful news of (truly) faithful intellectuals finally banding together to work to correct the many errors of the day which sadly flourish in His Own Church.
Not being a scholar myself, I am nonetheless a bit familiar with the Thomistic Personalism of JPII, his project, and it’s (seemingly obvious) conclusion, the primacy of the person all the while maintaining the necessary realities of objective truth.
I believe Vatican 2 was truly a gift from God, which was immediately hijacked and which has never been given a real chance to be fully lived/implemented/bear fruit.
The traditionalists response is understandable, but, to choose to remain in the past (for example, preaching in a Fraternity Mass is like going back to the 1500’s) and not engage with a super-incredible saint such as JPII, and not engage the errors in the present day world, is not a full “shepherdly” response.
The modern theologians who are seemingly “ok” with the diminishment of Our Lord Himself, His very Person, in the Mass, the Sacraments, and every other insane way, make it easy to also turn away from them.
JPII and B16 were and are…so very, very credible.
I hope and pray, as we all must, that you faithful intellectuals can follow His Holy Spirit together, and as a united group, correct fruitfully the worldly, shallow hirelings of His Church.
He must increase. We must decrease. Always. This is not the life of the Church today. It IS the life Vatican II pointed to. The primacy of Christ in the Mass, the Beginning and the End (with legitimate, slow, organic growth). And, the universal call to holiness, that every human being is called to be a saint, to deep union with Him (obviously pointing always TO the Mass and the Sacraments, primarily).
This is Vatican 2. This is JPII. This is B16. This is St Theresa of Calcutta. Mother Angelica (“We’re all called to be great saints”).
All you faithful theologians, please come together…in Him (and talk about Him more, not merely “theology)
“For example, the LGBTQ juggernaut had not yet emerged in the Sixties and the Seventies as a strong ideological movement within the Church.”
Anyone who believes that homosexual behavior isn’t a sin is a heretic. No heretic can be a Catholic. A Catholic heretic (i.e. heretic with regards to the Catholic faith) who identifies as Catholic is an oxymoron.
The question needs to be asked whether this alleged movement is organic grassroots or instigated/funded by TPTB. It doesn’t matter. Anyone who supports this and identifies as Catholic ought to be excommunicated.
“And this is especially true with regard to the moral and spiritual values inherent in the sexual revolution.”
What is moral about the sexual revolution? Nothing! And if there is anything spiritual about it, it is … sin.
“Dr. Minerd and I agree, therefore, that the resurgence of this progressive brand of theology poses the greatest threat to the contemporary life of the Church.”
It might pose a threat with regards to your church, but not the Catholic Church. Note that any person who attempted to push this evil would be excommunicated. Of course, any priest would be defrocked.
“And it remained in control for several reasons, most of which I think are cultural, since it is indeed difficult to swim against the current of contemporary opinion.”
This is a morality question. Those who are cowards will have difficulty standing for what is right. But their cowardice is immoral.
“This movement would retain the distinctive elements of the various theologies in play, but would now orient those elements more toward the threat posed by contemporary culture and its progressive theological acolytes rather than focusing on the more in-house debates amongst those who think in more tradition-minded ways.”
What threat? Again, excommunication is a solution. Also, if excommunication doesn’t work then it should be execution time.
“And (dare I say it?) we should include in this list the saner voices within what has come to be known as radical traditionalism.”
I don’t know whether this is a flattery attempt, but, if so, I disapprove.
Any moral “rad trad” would likely refuse to respond to offers of joining such a coalition. He would see it as any so-called “1950s Catholic” (i.e. Pope Pius XII) as similar to the “dialogue” that characterizes false ecumenism with Protestants.
In politics, my enemy CAN BE my temporary ally (i.e. legislation votes), but not in religion.
“This latter point is illustrative of some of the debates that have hurt our cause.”
Who is “our” here?
“Was America deeply flawed at its very origins (my view) or was it derailed later by cultural forces that caused it to deviate from its Christian roots?”
There weren’t any Christian roots. Protestants weren’t and aren’t Christians.
One can note that the USA is horrible with regards to its treatment of workers, but at least the FORMERLY Catholic (i.e. Christian) European countries approach and might realize justice. The same would likely be a refuge for “economic refugees” (e.g. avoid starvation) seeking asylum from the USA employment cesspool.
“This is a legitimate conversation to have, but is it really the determinative one?”
It is if it has political consequences. The goal should be the conversion of the world to the Catholic Church.
“But likewise, as Minerd notes, neither should Communio theologians continue to kick the dead corpse of scholasticism as if this is still 1955 and the Holy Office is still weaponizing scholasticism in oppressive ways.”
Scholasticism is about truth. Truth can’t be absent in judicial forums.
“In other words, I think his frequent complaints on this score are a bit thin-skinned and also tend to paper over the nasty atmosphere of ecclesial oppression created in the past by the total hegemony of neo-scholastic thought in the Church and its weaponization against any deviations from the approved theology.”
The Dominicans were founded to combat heresy and error. Heretics ought to be punished. It is true that not every disagreement with “approved theology” is heresy, but the fact is that either a statement is true or false. We ought to promote truth and combat error.
“There is a reason why Catholic thinkers of that era, in overwhelming numbers, chaffed against the Church of …”
I would need hard proof of this. If it is true, Church history since the reign of Pope Pius XII isn’t hard to explain. Those who were secret heretics were traitors.
“What threat? Again, excommunication is a solution. Also, if excommunication doesn’t work then it should be execution time.”
Take a moment to step back and think about this statement. You claim to be a Christian but you advocate executing people who don’t measure up to your arbitrary standards. That’s demonic thinking.
“Nature needs grace in order to be most properly itself as God intended it” (Chapp).
With that as a premise it follows that nature requires grace for consistency in practice of the natural law within. Aquinas holds that grace doesn’t change nature.
Since the Fall from grace and the passion of Christ Man requires a superlative gift of grace of the holy Spirit to adhere to moral principles that exceed anything inherent in human nature [see De Veritate]. For example, taking up the cross of suffering, laying own our life for our brothers repeated by John, Paul, and other Apostles. I’m confident most Thomists, Communio persons would not take issue with this interpretation. On de Lubac.
“Our natural desire for God entails a renunciation both of self-sufficiency and of demand. To want a gratuitous friendship is also to want to be surprised, and so to refuse to know in advance the actual shape of that gratuity” (de Lubac).
De Lubac in this comment presupposes a Christian already touched by grace. While ‘natural desire’ for a deeper commitment, to wit renunciation of self is the motivation of grace, not entirely a natural desire. Human nature is not changed, rather our natural desires are motivated by grace for that which surpasses our natural desires.
You raise a valid point here. What I meant to say, but did not unfortunately, was that in our sinful fallen condition nature needs grace in order to be most properly itself as God intended it. Because you are correct that as the statement stands now it is really a Lubacian view.
Legolas: You will have my bow.
Gimli: And my Ax!
Feel free to join this fellowship with your prayers, keyboards, etc.
I hate to be a nay-sayer but I have a very strong sense that the situation is basically hopeless. All these theological arguments will make no difference; they will not stop the “progressive” juggernaught which is hell-bent on putting man in God’s place, making us “gods” without God. The Church must pass through this final trial, where false prophets will offer mankind a seeming solution to its problems by apostasy from the truth. That is happening now. A small remnant will learn to depend on God and the seed will begin to grow again.
Unfortunately, I think you are correct. The progressives have the flow of modern culture on their side. Things will probably need to bottom out in the Church before they get better. Theology has a role to play but it will be swimming against this current. Nevertheless, it is still of vital importance for theologians to rally together and fight with what they have. Because even if the short term practical results are not great, they will be laying a foundation for the faithful remnant.
Onward, Christian soldier, Larry. My prayers are for the success of what you’ve proposed here.
Great work, dear Larry.
A very timely article; a little bit rushed but full of keen observations.
Some amazingly pertinent comments from seriously committed Catholics. God bless them.
Just a thought: could someone do a summary article on the evolution of ‘progressivism’? Pre-VII, intra-VII, & post-VII. This would help so we don’t talk at crossed purposes. Common terminology & clear conceptualization would help many of us.
Ever in the love of The Eternally Victorious Lamb; blessings from marty
“A nice pickle we have landed ourselves in, Mr. Frodo!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
Amen, Larry. We are in agreement very profoundly and I personally prefer a Church where I am in clear union with men like you instead of the circular firing squad that is such a terrible waste of the opportunities of grace.
Thank you for this wonderful response.
St. Alphonsus de Liguori, a Doctor of the Church, claimed that he had never preached a sermon that the simplest person in his congregation could not understand, and many people in his congregation were illiterate.
St. Francis de Sales, another Doctor of the Church, when asked why he was converting Protestants when he never mentioned Protestantism, replied “If I preach with love I am preaching against the heretics.”
What did they have that we don’t?
A key question for today, dear Sr Gabriella of the Incarnation, O.C.D.
The answer that comes to my mind is that too many have forgotten that Jesus Christ, the Living One, MUST be the ruling KING of our hearts (e.g. II Corinthians 13:5):
“Examine yourself to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves! Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? – Unless indeed you fail to meet the test.”
Ever in the amazingly patient love of The Lord; blessings from marty
The debate among Thomists, Communio and other basically faithful Catholic groups is way above my theological pay grade. But because Larry Chapp, whose views I have come to respect greatly, urges collaboration among all these theological disciplines to fight effectively the real demon of progressive theologians and their ultra light catholic mush, I will pray for such collaboration.
My response to the progressives is fairly prosaic: if we follow your lead and surrender to the satanic secular culture, then who needs you people and the meaningless church you promote?
Amen!
Amen!
Seconding Genevieve. I also find it funny that Dr. Chapp disclaims “alleged” triumphalism of Communion / Ressourcement thinkers against neo-Thomists / neo-Scholastics, when some examples of that can be found in some of Dr. Chapp’s own interviews on his YouTube channel. In a comment on Dr. Minerd’s last article, I mentioned one such howler, in which Fr. Ayre dismisses neo-Thomists as “failed Kantians”. This remark was met with nothing more than a nod and a smile.
But if someone on Dr. Chapp’s podcast were to repeat the radical traditionalist claim that Ratzinger was “merely a Hegelian”, you betcha that would not have gone unchallenged!
So, strawmen are definitely being constructed on both sides.
It seems common ground should be sought mostly in the end, not in the means. What is the end of each school? Why does it exist? If the Church exists to bring humanity into union with God, then that, necessarily, must be the end of these schools of thought. For them, then, the question is what is union with God and how do we bring it about. It is not a question, necessarily, about differences. Focus on the end, the super-ordinate goal of the Church and many of the differences will not be important.
The end of the Church, the ONLY reason She exists, is to bring man into union with God. This is often termed holiness. The Holy Spirit, through the Council, gave us this reminder:
“[A]ll the faithful, whatever their condition or state, are called by the Lord, each in his own way, to that perfect holiness whereby the Father Himself is perfect” (Lumen Gentium, 11).
What is this perfection of holiness? The Catechism reminds us holiness is love:
“And holiness is measured according to the ‘great mystery’ in which the Bride responds with the gift of love to the gift of the Bridegroom” (n. 773).
Our holiness is our degree of love for God (and for each other), i.e., our gift of self back to God just as the Father gifts himself in begetting the Son and the Son gifts himself to us in his Incarnation, Passion, Crucifixion, Resurrection and the Church.
If we don’t get this part right, if we don’t think with the Church on what her purpose is and what ours is, then there is no common ground. We can have differences on the means, but not the end.
In his Summa Contra Gentiles Thomas makes the point that knowledge of God is not our end. Neither is wealth, pleasure , power or honor. Neither is the virtuous life. Our end, both on earth and in Heaven, is union with the communion of love that the Trinity is; this mutual gift of self of the three persons of the Trinity.
Was not this love of God and neighbor the most startling facet of the early Church? Was it not this love that converted the pagan world. While the Fathers were disputing theological points, they and the People of God were living love. The great theological controversies of the Patristic age did not inhibit the Church from living her purpose. The minor controversies of today have stopped the Church dead in her tracks. We first have to each be striving for intimate union with God, and pastors must order the Church’s life in this direction. Until we do this the controversies and internecine wars will continue.