Étienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain were the leading Catholic public intellectuals of the middle decades of the twentieth century. Major figures in the Thomistic revival within Catholic intellectual life, they were also ambassadors to the non-Catholic world through their articulation of distinctly Catholic defense of democracy in response to the rise of fascist and communist totalitarianism.
Of these two great figures, Maritain is by far the better known in America. Standard histories of American Catholicism link Maritain to the American Jesuit John Courtney Murray as the driving forces behind Dignitatis Humanae, the Vatican II document in which the Church finally made its peace with modern democracy and religious pluralism. Gilson, by contrast, appears largely forgotten. Those who wish to explore the life and work of this significant modern Catholic thinker may, with much profit, turn to Florian Michel’s recently translated study, Étienne Gilson: An Intellectual Biography.
A timely figure
Gilson remains a timely figure as Catholics continue to struggle with how to engage the modern world while still remaining faithful to a Catholic worldview. The half century or so since the Second Vatican Council has bequeathed ample evidence of the perils of such engagement, particularly through the tendency of Catholics to subordinate theological principles to political priorities. Michel’s biography of Gilson makes clear that this is not simply a post-Vatican II problem. American Catholics in particular will benefit from familiarity with how these issues have played out in countries other than America.
Gilson was born in Paris, France in 1884. He came of age in a time of tremendous religious-political conflict. The stridently secular Third Republic (1870-1940) that governed France during Gilson’s youth saw the Catholic Church as its sworn enemy. Many French Catholics, particularly in the hierarchy, refused to accept the legitimacy of the Republic and insisted that France could only be France with a Catholic monarchy. Pope Leo XIII advised Catholics to seek a compromise with the more moderate elements in republican circles. His efforts failed in the wake of the crisis of the Dreyfus Affair, in which royalist sympathizers accused the staunchly republican, Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus of passing military secrets to Germany. This controversy tore France apart and drew the sharpest possible dividing line between the secular, pro-republican defenders of Dreyfus, and his largely Catholic, royalist, and even antisemitic enemies. The subsequent investigation revealed that Dreyfus had been falsely accused based on forged documents. The Church suffered the penalty of being on the losing side of this fight. Despite the increasing secularism of France, the Catholic Church had remained the established Church of the republic. In 1905, the Third Republic passed a law disestablishing the Church and formalizing the principle of separation of Church and State. This period also saw a harsh suppression of religious orders resulting in the expulsion of some thirty thousand male and female religious.
Despite these sharp divisions, Gilson grew up in a household that was at once faithfully Catholic and firmly republican. His family’s politics reflected in part their socio-economic standing as members of the urban petit bourgeoise and found confirmation in the moderate republicanism that Leo XIII had encouraged in the early 1890s. Under Pius X, this moderation became increasingly difficult to maintain: in 1914, Pius condemned Le Sillon, the leading movement among those seeking to forge a Catholic compromise with republicanism. Though not formal members of Le Sillon, Gilson and his family were shocked by the condemnation; they continued to insist on the compatibility of Catholic faith and republican politics.
Action Française, tensions, and “integral humanism”
A different sort of political challenge emerged after World War I: Action Française. This movement was the brainchild of Charles Maurras, an avowed royalist, anti-modernist and neo-pagan. Maurras looked to the ancient Roman empire as a model of political order and admired the Catholic Church as a living institutional connection to this glorious pagan past. Though despising Christianity in the manner of Nietzsche, he admired the Church as a principle of order and enlisted Catholic royalists in this effort to recreate the Roman empire in modern France. Proto-fascist and profoundly anti-Christian, the movement nonetheless gained support from many Catholic bishops and some leading French Catholic intellectuals, most notably Jacques Maritain. Gilson was, for his part, appalled by Action Française and nearly left the Church in protest against the overwhelming support it received from Catholics. Pius XI spared Gilson this fateful move by condemning the movement in 1926. Maritain, the movement’s most significant intellectual recruit, dutifully put faith before politics and renounced his affiliation with the movement.
Maritain and Gilson would find common cause articulating a path forward for Catholics and modern politics through a broad intellectual vision Maritain labeled “integral humanism.” Though both Gilson and Maritain freely spoke of a “new Christendom,” theirs was not a call for a return to the Middle Ages. Distinguishing between passing political forms and enduring principles, Gilson sought to re-imagine modern democracy as grounded in the primacy of the human person. The term has since become central to post-Vatican II Catholic thought and pro-life politics, though Michel’s account of Gilson’s understanding of the politics of the human person shows the distance between Gilson’s world and ours. In his admittedly unsystematic account of the politics of the human person, Gilson begins with a defense of the family “as a natural fact.” He then proceeds to “the socialization of certain natural resources or of certain means of production and distribution” and support for “trade-unionism,” grouping all three principles under the general term “social democracy,” which he envisioned as an alternative to both communism and capitalism. In this, Gilson was firmly in the mainstream of mid-twentieth century European Catholic social thought, with New Deal liberalism standing in as a rough American equivalent.
Gilson’s Cold War politics proved more controversial. Gilson shared the hope of lay Catholic statesmen such as Conrad Adenauer, Chancellor of West Germany, that Catholic social teaching could provide the guiding framework for the postwar reconstruction of Europe. Well aware of the threat posed by the Soviet Union, both Gilson and Adenauer also feared the loss of political and cultural independence that would come by entering into a military alliance with the United States. The responsibilities of public office and geographic proximity to the Soviet Union led Adenauer to accept NATO as a political necessity, but Gilson, the intellectual, insisted that Europe re-arm and adopt a position of non-alignment. History proved both figures half-right: NATO kept Europe free from Soviet domination, but dependence on the United States saw Gilson’s dream of a Catholic Europe fall before the onslaught of American consumer culture. Gilson’s opposition to NATO no doubt undermined his reputation in the United States. Patriotic Catholics looking for an international Catholic intellectual to sing the praises of the Pax Americana turned to Jacques Maritain, whose Reflections on America (1958) virtually baptized the United States as the real historical embodiment of the new Christendom envisioned in his Integral Humanism.
Varieties of Thomism before and after the Council
Western politics has changed so dramatically over the last seventy years as to render these political debates of perhaps historical interest only. Gilson’s work as an intellectual, particularly his role in promoting a certain kind of Thomism, remains more relevant for Catholics today. Gilson was shocked by the wholesale abandonment of Thomism that followed the Second Vatican Council. He believed that only the Thomistic tradition had the intellectual heft to guide the proper implementation of the Council. Many Catholics dismayed by the legacy of the Council continue to share his sentiments. That does not, however, mean that they share his Thomism. Michel’s book is helpful in revealing the varieties of Thomism at play in the half-century prior to the Council. Gilson distinguished himself by taking a historical approach to the study of St. Thomas. Part of this involved understanding Thomas in terms of his sources and in the larger context of his time. This approach earned Gilson the respect of secular scholars in the emerging field of medieval studies.
The mainstream, secular academia of Gilson’s time was generally suspicious of intellectuals who professed the Catholic faith. Gilson nonetheless earned the respect of secular philosophers at leading institutions such as the Sorbonne and Harvard. The latter offered him a permanent position to teach the history of medieval philosophy. He turned down Harvard’s offer to work with the Basilian Fathers at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto, where he established the Institute of Medieval Studies. Gilson chose St. Michael’s over Harvard because he wished to teach in an environment where he could more openly integrate his faith with his scholarship. He remained committed to the highest standards of scholarship and to producing work that would be acknowledged by non-Catholic scholars.
Gilson’s commitment to developing a historical understanding of St. Thomas that could speak to the contemporary world put him at odds with others who were content to develop Thomism as a language and a system insulated and isolated from the errors of the modernity. This contrast appeared most clearly in an exchange between Gilson and the “sacred monster” of fortress Thomism, the Dominican Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. The two attended a set of meetings at Rome in 1950, occasioned by the publication of the encyclical Humani Generis, which warned of “modern opinions and errors threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine”. Historical relativism lurked behind much of what the Church identified as modern errors, and Gilson was well aware that most Thomists were inclined to “despise and mistrust” history. Humani Generis appeared as a victory for those, such as Garrigou-Lagrange, who understood Catholic thought, and Thomism in particular, as a closed system; though sometimes understood as a rebuke to the use of history by ressourcement thinkers such as Henri De Lubac, the encyclical could easily be used as a cudgel against a Thomist such as Gilson, who had spent much of his applying the historical-critical method to the writings of St. Thomas.
Gilson, says Michel, had little sympathy for figures like De Lubac, but remained committed to the historical method. In an exchange with Garrigou-Lagrange, he affirmed: “The history of philosophy is not closed. . . . On the contrary, the narrative of so many adventures faced by thought, invites us to new ones, and perhaps the moment has come to attempt the most beautiful.” Garrigou-Lagrange responded: “Therefore, for you . . . metaphysics is an adventure, which is to say, an arbitrary story and made up as one wishes.” To remove any doubt about where he stood, the Dominican affirmed that yes, indeed, metaphysics is a closed system. Reflecting on this controversy, Michel judges that Gilson found himself caught between the warring camps of doctrinaire Thomism and the ressourcement turn away from philosophy toward scripture, liturgy and history.
The confusion following the Council left Gilson in this third camp. Dismayed by the initial interpretation and implementation of the Council, he neither defended the ressourcement foundations of the Council nor retreated to pre-conciliar certainties. He believed that St. Thomas remained a viable guide to the post-conciliar world, yet again insisted that Thomas needed to be liberated from the straightjacket of mainstream Thomism. Michel writes as one sympathetic to Gilson in general and to his interpretation of the Council in particular. He sees Gilson’s brand of Thomism as an inspiration for the two figures identified most with advancing an authentic interpretation of the Council: John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Michel persuasively argues for the importance of Gilson as a historical figure and the continued relevance of his historical approach in Catholic intellectual life. Still, the link to John Paul and Benedict is somewhat strained and misleading. Both figures no doubt knew and respected Gilson’s work, but neither worked out of the tradition of Gilsonian Thomism, or any Thomism, for that matter. The thought of St. Thomas remains an enduring strain within the larger Catholic intellectual tradition; Gilson rightly denounced its abrupt dismissal from Catholic education following the Council. Still, the Council documents owe most of their inspiration to the ressourcement movement that Gilson always kept at arm’s length. As a theologian Benedict XVI best expressed the intellectual renewal envisioned by the Council in his multi-volume Jesus of Nazareth, a work of biblical exegesis employing the historical-critical method with barely a mention of the philosophical issues that consumed pre-conciliar Thomists (and, sadly, many post-conciliar Thomists).
The doctrinal confusion following the Council has led those concerned with orthodoxy to forget the purpose of the Council: to announce the Gospel to the modern world in a language appropriate to the modern world. Even Gilson conceded the limits of Thomism with respect to evangelization: “Faith has converted more philosophers to Thomism than Thomist philosophy has converted philosophers to the faith”.
Gilson’s own reservations aside, Michel’s book shows how a certain kind of Thomism was able to speak to the world at a particular moment in time. In this way, Gilson’s life and work remain an inspiration, and a challenge, for Catholics today.
Étienne Gilson: An Intellectual Biography
By Florian Michel; Translated by James G. Colbert.
Catholic University of America Press, 2024
Paperback, 430 pages
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Mentioned at the end is BENEDICTS’s use of a carefully disciplined historical-critical method. Maybe more than a method, he explains that evangelization must base itself on the singular and “alarming event” within human history, namely the Incarnation.
The facticity of the Gospels as something more than an idea or a layering of former documents on Vatican letterhead. This is why, under his influence with Cardinal Frings, the Council’s Dei Verbum reads as it does.
And, speaking here only as a garden-variety layman, the question can be asked whether it’s really true that metaphysicians are entirely trapped in a closed system? Or, was the method of AQUINAS more that any questioning in history, pursued far enough, will lead back/forward to the same Truth? Might we point to his 13th-century anticipation of the centuries-later non-Ptolemaic universe of Galileo (as compared to, say, the fixistic and even synodalish consensus of Jesuit astronomers of his day)?:
“Reasoning is employed not as furnishing sufficient proof of a principle but as showing how the remaining effects are in harmony with an already posited principle; as in astronomy the theory of eccentrics and epicycles [the Ptolemaic universe with the sun and planets rotating around a stationary earth] is considered as established because thereby the sensible appearances of the heavenly movements can be explained; NOT however as if this proof were sufficient, since some other theory [Galileo’s findings] might explain them” (Summa Theologica, I, 32, I, ad 2; cited in L.M. Regis, Epistemology, 1959, p. 455).
And, a non-parliamentary vote here for historical-critical GILSON, who also said, famously, “philosophy always buries it’s undertakers.”
Aquinas remains a rich field of study that hasn’t been, either fully researched or fully comprehended. For example, his ethics was considered casuistic, leading from universal concepts down, rather than based on the singular principle, the act itself. When studying in Rome Dominicans and Jesuits were locked into this misinterpretation of Aquinas, a carryover of scholasticism.
Germain Grisez [including Finnis, McInerny], considered a Thomist, really gave us casuistic guidelines for determining moral questions, perhaps a good guide for identifying general ethical principles though lacking in decision making, the deliberation which Aquinas says in which all that’s required is knowledge of the conditions of the act.
Good men mentioned here who did their best to interpret Aquinas although fell short. Etienne Gilson, the best of the Catholic philosopher ethicists mentioned, a great cultural philosophical historian as well nevertheless lacked a complete understanding of Aquinas’ premise of evaluating all ethical issues from the ground up in accord with their conditions. For these reasons application of Aquinas with a measure of renewed application suggested by Gilson is valid and warranted. And in full agreement with Gilson, “Faith has converted more philosophers to Thomism than Thomist philosophy has converted philosophers to the faith”.
“For these reasons application of Aquinas with a measure of renewed application suggested by Gilson is valid and warranted.’
Might Veritatis Splendor satisfy this need? About the inborn natural law and human acts being subject to moral absolutes (versus the fundamental option, proportionalism and consequentialism): “The Church is no way the author or the arbiter of this norm” (n. 95).
Yes Peter. John Paul II beginning with his earlier Thomistic integration of existential phenomenological expression of reality, when as Karol Wojtyla in Osoba i Czyn, Person and Action 1969 added to Analecta Husserliana [compendium of existential phenomenology by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka] – sought what you suggest, and as seen in Veritatis Splendor in a more refined manner.
I will need to re-read this and think more carefully on it, but I am immediately puzzled by one thing: “dependence on the United States saw Gilson’s dream of a Catholic Europe fall before the onslaught of American consumer culture.” Given that NATO included many Protestants, how could this have been a realistic dream?
As I have previously mentioned, two 20th-century thinkers, Augusto Del Noce and Ernst Nolte, situate the beginning of contemporary history—the age of secularization—with the Russian Revolution. They divide this era into two distinct periods: the “sacral” phase, dominated by the “secular” and millenarian religions of communism and National Socialism—twin ideological siblings—and the “profane” phase, marked by the affluent society characterized by scientism, the overwhelming imperative of “convergent technologies” (the synergistic combination of nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies, and cognitive sciences), and the universal twin expansion of atheism, both Marxist and liberal, among the working classes.
Failing to recognize the connection between Marxism-Leninism and National Socialism, and the role of the proletariat replacing that of the nation or race, obstructs any genuine understanding of the past century, leaving one vulnerable to the propagandistic and ideological narratives crafted by the victors of the Second World War.
Del Noce discerned the identity of the new adversary of faith in the post-Marxist era, during the postwar reconstruction marked by the meeting of liberal and Christian forces. The new welfare society no longer required religious forces to oppose communism. The new West had found the means to prevail through the expansion of affluence. This society, dominated by instrumental reason, proved to be more irreligious than communist atheism, triumphing on materialism’s very grounds. The relativization of every ideal fused with a technocratic worldview.
The characteristics of this soulless society include the anesthetization of consumers, the lethargy induced by the manipulation of material needs, the assault on the family—the sole institution offering gratuitous and meaningful religious value—a pessimistic, Lutheran, Hobbesian, and individualistic conception of humanity and the state, now reduced to the regulator of the primary needs of a godless society.
The most evident symptom of this capitulation of truth, goodness, and beauty to utility and functionality is language itself, now enslaved to the power of consumption. Language has been transformed into a tool detached from concrete, austere, yet authentic realities, alienated from the soul of both people and individuals. It has become the Orwellian “newspeak” of corporations and ideologies devoid of flesh and blood. The digital world has emerged as the foremost agent of this “instrumentalization” of language, with the audiovisual medium embodying the spirit of the new power in its most tangible form.
(I recall that in the 1980s, Don Stefano Gobbi, a visionary priest, saw television antennas as manifestations of the beasts of the Apocalypse.)
Capitalism reveals itself most fully when understood as an anthropological and theological phenomenon, not merely as an economic one. For Italy in particular, the decisive turning point in capitalist culture occurred with the advent of mass consumption. As long as capitalism remained focused on enterprise and labor, the Catholic, communal, and Mediterranean spirit resisted its allure. However, when capitalism shifted its axis from production to consumption, it swiftly, irreversibly, and completely captivated Italy and other Catholic countries.
For a Catholic civilization rooted in a “culture of shame”—unlike the Protestant “culture of guilt”—and in the ostentation of wealth as something to be envied, the labor-intensive capitalism of factories and effort held little appeal. Yet, the capitalism of commodities and consumerism proved an irresistible temptation. It penetrated bodies and souls far more profoundly than the great “sacral” ideologies of fascism or communism, which only ever secured verbal allegiance. This marked the “anthropological shift” of consumerism, which is simultaneously a theological shift.
Consumers are now devoted worshipers of fetishes in a new empire that has united people and the bourgeoisie, the working and ruling classes, for the first time in human history. This religious capitalism, as Walter Benjamin observed, represents a new religion without metaphysics or dogma—a religion of pure ritual.
For Pavel Florensky, “The very theory of the sacred tells us that at the origin of both economy and ideology lies worship.” Similarly, Pier Paolo Pasolini emphasized the decisive role of worship: “Conformity to the [consumerist] model begins above all in lived experience, in existence—therefore, in the body and behavior.”
Today, it is clear that the extraordinary and unprecedented strength of consumer civilization lies in its nature as a daily, global cult—without Sabbath or Sunday—a continuous practice that permeates every dimension of individual and collective life, akin to the role Christianity once played in premodern Europe.
While critics of capitalism write books and hold conferences, and I myself indulge in the illusion of changing the world through writing, the priests of the new cult celebrate its liturgies incessantly, at every moment of every day.
Christianity has become a competitor to this homogenizing cultural phenomenon, this system of mass hedonism. As a competitor, the new power has sought to eliminate it. This new religion, utterly secular and without metaphysics, has brought together fascists and antifascists, Catholics and communists, believers and atheists, liberals and conservatives, as indistinguishable worshipers of the same totems.
As the Church, while fighting battles for family ethics, life, and against communism, we failed to notice that a new pagan empire was taking root in people’s hearts without encountering any ethical resistance.
Poets and prophets, by safeguarding language, safeguard our souls. They stand as sentinels at the gates of idol sanctuaries, striving to keep us from entering. Though aware of their likely failure, they remain faithful to their post, as does *CWR* in its mission. Thank you.
The 4 dicta in Evangelii Gaudium are no match for what you describe, whether they are as bad as you describe them, not so bad or will worsen. This assessment would be true whether you are an optimist, a realist or a pessimist and whether you are old, youthful or middle of the age. The 4 dicta are suggested not as defensive poetry but as prophetic measures and “paces” for the evangelical vision and “journey”. They are staged as apothegms. They may contain some kind of allure in poesis but it doesn’t make them Christian, rather, it courts irony.
Which is sinful.
In paragraph 225 of *Evangelii Gaudium*, Pope Francis reflects on the first principle, stating:
“The parable of the wheat and the weeds… describes an important aspect of evangelization, which consists in showing how the enemy can infiltrate the Kingdom and cause harm through the weeds, but is ultimately overcome by the goodness of the wheat, which reveals itself over time.”
Allow me to offer three reflections on what Albino Luciani—the future Blessed John Paul I—called the “most difficult parable” in the Gospel.
Where do the weeds come from? We are left with two choices: either we deny the reality of evil—an exercise in futility—or we confront the question of its origin.
In the parable, the farmers’ question—part interrogation, part subdued reproach—betrays more than surprise; it reflects disappointment and even anger. After all, if there were no owner of the field with a plan for its cultivation—if the universe were merely the result of chance—then, though we might still feel the sting of evil, we would have no right to complain or even to pose the question.
An authentic atheist, one who is consistent, is a truly unfortunate soul. Why? Because he robs himself of even the satisfaction of cursing the heavens. To be coherent, he must accept a silent, indifferent universe.
I, however, cannot do without a transcendent interlocutor. Certainly, I can discuss politics, inflation, or baseball standings with my fellow men. But when it comes to the deeper matters—good and evil, the enigmatic origin of suffering, the purpose of life—who am I to turn to if God is absent? Should I seek insight on life’s ultimate meaning from Elon Musk or Kamala Harris? Should I question Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris about my eternal destiny?
If the owner of the field had been a modernist post-conciliar, irenic type, he might have retreated into some soothing naturalistic explanation. To the question, “Where did the weeds come from?” he might have replied:
“Well, you know how it is—these things just happen. Weeds grow everywhere; there’s no need to make a fuss. Wind blows seeds around, birds drop them in the furrows. It’s all perfectly natural, even green.”
But the owner in the parable doesn’t hesitate to assign the problem a personal and malevolent cause. “An enemy has done this,” he declares. And the parable’s narrator confirms that his conclusion is accurate. The events unfolded exactly as described: “While everyone was asleep, his enemy came, sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.”
This enemy, operating under the cover of night, leaves no trace, deceiving many—even the farmhands hired to tend the fields. Some no longer believe in his existence. Others doubt the very presence of the weeds. Still others, astonishingly, act as if they no longer believe in the existence of the field itself.
The enemy’s deceptions fool everyone—everyone, that is, except the owner of the field.
Perhaps it is time we paid closer attention to the divine Farmer’s wisdom. Only by doing so can our inquiry into the wheat and the weeds avoid becoming futile from the start.
You are using a nom de plume paolo interlocutor transcendent! Pope Francis did not make right inquiries and consequently the 4 dicta can’t distinguish wheat or cockle as the Lord prescribed. Worse! where I live the same 4 dicta are distillations used by the lodge boys to impart their ways with Scripture OT and NT, that parable and every other parable, event and teaching; impart their philosophy of life; and instruct their manner of naturalistic existence and engagement. Paying due attention …… to whom, you say?
Pay closer attention to what …… would be the warning.
Why be stubborn from the start.
Dear nom de plume paolo translucent, Pope Francis himself has created this problem of these anti-Christ insertions by which he MAY NOT lead souls and the Lodge.
We do not presume to solve it for him you know. Do you suppose this is not painful for the faithful?
Two questions I have which seem to arise legitimately, are, how long he carried in his breast, the plan to organize these “principles” for the Church; and, with whom has he shared such ideas and “commitment”.
‘ Prayer opens our hearts to the Lord, and the Holy Spirit changes our lives when He enters. We should therefore pray, so that our hearts are opened to make space for the Spirit. ‘ (Pope Francis on X, today)
https://x.com/Pontifex/status/1858487822531088542
Transferent paolo feather in your cap!
The so-called 4 principles also are found as constituent clairvoyant methods and that of occult apart from the Lodge while some have intersections in the Lodge! The 4 that are named are but the tip of the iceberg!
The Gospel is not for dialoguing and communing and transconveying with or through such things!
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-11/pope-francis-general-audience-20-november-2024.html
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/11/16/honoring-the-saints-next-door-pope-francis-calls-for-annual-celebration-of-local-holy-men-and-women/
Elias Galy,
You ask: “Two questions I have which seem to arise legitimately, are, how long he carried in his breast, the plan to organize these ‘principles’ for the Church; and, with whom has he shared such ideas and ‘commitment’.”
I have long wondered whether Pope Francis less-than-systematic stream of consciousness (yes?) can be traced back to how his untimely and heavy administrative assignments interrupted his (still incomplete) doctoral dissertation on Romano Guardini. Had Francis more fully resolved scholarly inquiries in his own mind, would he have seen that his four dicta, possibly proposed in his dissertation work (?), were incompatible with Guardini’s sound contributions to Catholic thought?
Or, very hypothetically, is it that Francis’ four dicta were deemed unacceptable by his dissertation committee? And, his drafts rejected or discouraged? If this were ever shown to be actually true, then beginning with the same four dicta (?) in Evangelii Gaudium—the photo-ops and subtle signaling, and overlays and footnotes in this and subsequent Vatican paperwork, etc., could be classified as partly a most disruptive case of upstaging as if still dialoguing in academia. We all have soles, but also feet of clay…
About Pope Francis’ theological breadth and then the time-consuming administrative assignments, this: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/37989/the-theological-formation-of-pope-francis
Thank you, Fr. Morello: attention to the concrete act from the ground up as a starting point conjures up two synodalish questions, I think…
FIRST, what is to be said about any facile focus on the concrete by posturing a false dichotomy between the concrete and the abstract? Such that the intrinsic evil of some actions then can be papered over with tracts like Fiducia Supplicans that voice-over Veritatis Splendor:
Veritatis Splendor: “The relationship between faith and morality shines forth with all its brilliance in the unconditional respect due to the insistent demands of the personal dignity of every man [italics], demands protected by those moral norms which prohibit without exception [!] actions which are intrinsically evil” [!] (n. 90). “The Church is no way [!] the author or the arbiter of this [‘moral’] norm” (n. 95).
SECOND, what more about mention of Maritain’s “integral humanism”—by which Maritain meant “at once human and divine–in which alone lies the possibility of a free and worthy life”? In some ways a possibly intermediate term is “integral human development,” meaning “each person and all persons.” Intermediate?…
Having overstated my concern in past remarks on this site, the squinty-eyed question still lingers whether apparently merging (?) the distinction between “human ecology” and the interrelated “natural ecology” (in John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus, 1991) into the term “integral ecology” (Laudato Si, 2015) is too capable of misrepresentation? In the minds of some clerics in high places—and in terms of things one chooses to no longer mention—do we detect a tilt away from the “rigid” moral absolutes of Veritatis Splendor in favor of the fundamental option, consequentialism, and proportionalism?
…A neologism signaling but still not solving the tension between the revealed and non-ideological faith and the latest worldview of ideological modernity? Not successful, if only a reductionist harmonization of so-called polarities.
Likewise thank you Peter for expanding this discussion on moral decision making which is so vital in midst of ambiguity. Deliberation of the act itself in context of its on the ground conditions to determine its morality is the definition of the virtue Prudence. What we do, the object of the act, determines morality, not the intent however good.
Gabriel Marcel respects the abstract albeit it follows out of the concrete which first engages investigation. Pope Francis seems to downgrade the abstract tout court.
Notwithstanding his existentialist bias, Marcel worked within metaphysics keeping it to intelligible boundaries. (I might have said “sensible boundaries” but it could create a confusion in the context.)
In contrast would be a “more Catholic” tendency to artificially drive philosophy into “mission” considerations and pragmatics that do not yield satisfactory answers either way. Something like Marcel’s “Moirans” character.
Emphasis on the abstract seems to be missing from Gilson’s consideration of Aquinas. More than that, Aquinas himself is the teacher par excellence of the potency and fructiveness of the abstract; and his own mentor and superior Albert the Great was the first to acknowledge the originality, authenticity, productiveness and ascendancy of his student. His own student perfected his method.
It is sad where we have reached with this, in the 21st Century. We are a disgrace to our forebears such as we see in these men, Aquinas foremost among them. I hang my head in horror; for O! we are a disgrace to ourselves in front of them and coming after them! The cause of it all at root is envy and pride.
In metaphysics the abstract itself is a concrete, awaiting discovery!
In philosophy every dimensionality belongs with its Maker and is attained through Him!
To complement my comment, Human Acts, the determinants of moral judgment find their verification in human nature and the natural law within, the law written on the hearts of men. These truths, the rules for human behavior are known intuitively, that is, possessing their own intelligibility are self evident, generally apprehended by the intellect following deliberation. They are first principles described as such by Aquinas as the singular or the particular, the acts to be done. Reason, therefore, rather than being their rule, is their measure. When as taught by Gregory Nazianzen they are scrutinized in measure to the universal principles of the good.
There are other human acts that exceed human nature and the natural law within. These are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, knowledge of acts of charity required for our salvation. Accordingly by nature of the gift of grace they are revealed, and as such known directly by the intellect.
The implementation of Vatican II has been going on for 50 years now.
There’s not going to be a “do over.”
What’s done is done.
Francis is pope now.
The interpretations of Vatican II by John Paul II and Benedict XVI did not control the future.
Pope Francis’ writings, speeches, conversations, and actions cannot be erased from the history of the Church.
In 2023, the Roman Catholic Church began officially authorizing the priestly blessing of the couple-hood-ness of homosexual married couples. Such priestly blessings are occurring in Roman Catholic church sanctuaries, right in front of the altar, all around the world, right now.
This historic fact cannot be unwritten. Attempted reinterpretations of this, to try to make it innocuous, will never convince the thinking class.
The center did not hold.
Suit yourself pilgrim!
The Church gives us Aquinas as the exemplary teacher in doctrine and philosophy. His method is most true -we have to learn that and from that. This requires its own honesty, understanding and discipline; and of course, grace. AND we have to have that due respect of him and his gifted-ness, profundity and high place. I would say, awe, since it comes from the Incarnate Wisdom.
I submit that little summary as a right frame of our subject and also as a concise diagnosis of the rejection of Aquinas and the muddling up of Aquinas.
Aquinas is NOT kept from us.
‘ Gilson distinguished himself by taking a historical approach to the study of St. Thomas. Part of this involved understanding Thomas in terms of his sources and in the larger context of his time. This approach earned Gilson the respect of secular scholars in the emerging field of medieval studies. ‘ – per Dr. Shannon