There’s a new slogan percolating in the Vatican: “teologia rapida.”
Jesuit priest and author Antonio Spadaro, who is undersecretary for the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and the former editor-in-chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, is pushing this new concept, which he thinks is needed because of the Church’s “increasingly radical synodality.” As best as I can grasp it–and it seems to be a concept in the making—“teologia rapida” means “rapid theological thinking.”
What exactly does that mean?
It seems to mean responding rapid changes in a rapidly changing world. Spadaro notes that the pace of change in today’s world has increased over prior ages and appears to want the Church to keep pace.
His essay—”In this time of whirlwind changes, a ‘rapid” theology is needed'”—takes us on an etymological tour of “rapid.” Not only is change “rapid” but, like the rapids of a river, it can shake things up, something both dangerous and exhilarating, and pose special challenges demanding fast response.
My reactions are mixed.
Yes, the Church needs to respond more quickly to the signs, and especially the anti-signs of the times. A hoary adage says that “the Church thinks in centuries.” Traditionally, it seemed the Church could clearly can relate to the claim–I don’t know if it’s apocryphal or not—that, when Nixon asked then-Communist Chinese Premier Zhou En-Lai what he thought of the French Revolution, he answered, “it’s too early to tell.”
Yes, there have been times that the Church has been behind the curve in addressing modern changes in a timely fashion. Because we all know that a favorite refuge of innovators is the claim that, if their “reform” is not immediately uprooted, then “we can’t turn the clock back.”
At the same time, a responsible institution like the Church should not make precipitous and rushed declarations. The Church is not a politician’s press spokesman, expected to react to the news of the moment–a news cycle ever more “rapid”–just to get on to CNN.
I honestly fear the temptations of the latter. Good moral theology insists that Catholic social teaching largely provides general principles, the framework within which individual policy decisions are made. But between general principles and individual policies a large number of steps intervene and, as St. Thomas Aquinas was wont to note, the degree of certainty (and, therefore, of error) between general principle and individual application can increase.
That’s why, in general, Catholic social teaching at least has been content to reiterate the general principles that should guide matters (e.g., principles of human and national rights) while leaving individual applications (e.g., country X’s proper immigration policies) to Catholic policy-makers with informed consciences. That’s not just a bulwark against clericalism, as “Father Smith does not always know best,” but also for subsidiarity, because Father Smith does not always know best because he is not an expert in or probably even familiar with contingent questions which prudence demands inform a policy decision.
If the Church succumbs to the temptation of opining on concrete policy in contingent political matters in which sincere Catholics can disagree, it risks diluting her moral authority to become just another lobby or non-governmental organization. And she will be seen–especially outside the Church–as pushing its “interests” on the public square. That would be the defeat of any value to “teologia rapida.”
Spadaro recognizes the need for more nimble theological response by the Church and correctly identifies what is needed to do that: a certain connaturality, a certain innate “sense” of theological truth that facilitates application of truthful conclusions to changed circumstances.
But such connaturality requires theological stability, a “hermeneutic of continuity” that recognizes what is settled and then builds with confidence on that foundation. The problem, however, is that this pontificate, for which Spadaro is regularly an apologist, has in practice (if not theory) led the Church in precisely the opposite direction. It has unsettled theological certainty, lauded “making a mess” of theological stability, caricaturing those who insisted on its value as yoke-imposing doctors in the chair of Moses.
You can’t have it both ways.
What happens, in fact, is that you run the very real danger of a caricature of “connaturality” that has nothing to do with that concept. It is one which imagines good intentions and some sort of intuited feelings–perhaps accompanied by a momentary “conversation of the Spirit”–to supply what previously long and cultivated theological inquiry arrived at carefully. Grace builds on nature but, without the careful cultivation of that nature, it is somewhat presumptuous to expect God to replace the negligence by inspired intuitions.
Spadaro himself speaks of this “rapid theology” as a process that combines ‘[t]he memory of the Church … with instinct to transform it into “intuition”, which is the ability to sense, discern and quickly evaluate a situation as it develops.” Pardon me if I reject what I should have learned from my Jesuit teachers, but I want that process to lead to concepts that are rationally intelligible and prudentially tested, not intuitions that are “discerned.”
Spadaro’s flight from such rationality seems evident in his argument that “rapid theology” ought to be characterized by “running, without complaining that it has no time to reason, to plan.”
We certainly haven’t seen this Vatican doing that sprint in the case of ex-Jesuit Marko Rupnik.
As an editor and communications official, I understand and even sympathize with Spadaro’s wish for a more responsive Church. But, without the spadework that requires and in the current ecclesiastical climate, I fear what, in fact, that “rapid theology” may mean in practice.
And I dislike slogans. We already went through the “field hospital,” a paradigm that proved risible when, in the middle of a global pandemic when the Church’s presence was more necessary than ever, the ecclesiastical MASH globally struck tent, fled the battlefield, and locked church doors.
That’s why, aware of the inchoate nature of this concept aborning, I warn against a “teologia rapida” devolving into a “teologia stupida”.
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Yes, God knows and has alwaays known how “rapidly” we lie to ourselves when we’re gearing up to sin. So, in His infinite wisdom, He gave us the “theology” of the Ten Commandments. And surprisingly, they can be read rapidly, in under a minute, in the past as in the present. Rapid this might be, but enough to slow us down to think that maybe there are implications to their meaning that never cease to apply to so-called “new realities,” which we call new, only because we refuse to know what is old.
Thank you, Dr. Grondelski, for this very well reasoned analysis.
My very quick but nonetheless definitive view about Fr. Spardaro’s perceived need for “rapid theology” was reached early in your article. Specifically, when he explained the basis for this need was the Church’s “increasingly radical synodality.” There is no such phenomenon in the Church as properly defined. Only in the Vatican echo chamber does this meaningless synodality pablum prevail and will likely engender quick fire and inherently unreliable theology.
Grace builds on nature but, without the careful cultivation of that nature, it is somewhat presumptuous to expect God to replace the negligence by inspired intuitions. I want that process to lead to concepts that are rationally intelligible and prudentially tested, not intuitions that are discerned (Grondelski).
Grondelski’s evaluation of Fr Antonio Spadaro’s new Rapid Theology, a form of intuition of truth on the run, is on the mark. That such an approach absent of rational coherence to what preexists, primarily revelation, is fraught with danger. Intuition in Aquinas understood as the apprehension of truth, in effect prescient knowledge realized in the act of understanding [intellectus] is intended by God as a perennial faculty.
Whether AI, rapid advances is medical technology for example were to raise new questions there shouldn’t be need for a rapid fire response moral theology. We already possess the basic truth diagrams for analysis of moral content. Nor is time of the essence, rather correctness.
An example may be seen in the ‘New book provides encyclopedic and ecumenical treatment of deification’ and the theologically complex question of deification. A rapid response to Whether we can become like God? The answer is yes by God’s grace. Likeness to God by participation in his essence through a grace filled life is open to all. Although realization of God’s essence within us is impossible because God’s essence, identical to his existence, is specific to himself. We can only know God’s essence by revelation such as in the beatific vision. Although as the Apostle John says we become like him when we see him as he is. The key is likeness as in the image of. Our response is based on known principles as Grondelski suggests, not a rapid intuitive discernment.
Without denigrating the respect due to ecclesial offices, back in 2023 yours truly opined:
“By departing La Civiltà Cattolica and joining the Dicastery for Culture and Education, does Fr. Spadaro improve the magisterium average IQ of the former while depressing the magisterium average IQ of the latter? And, what will be the agreed dialect between this papal ‘mouthpiece’ and Fernandez as the papal ‘ghostwriter’?”
A fascinating duet…
With the ersatz “fiducia supplicans” still echoing within the perennial Catholic Church, we might ask about the irreducible difference between a “fast theology” that is still sound versus a theology that phonetically is only “half-fast”.
Mor(e)on the “rapid theology”….is this really only the swan song of the exaggerated “historical critical method.” Whereby the exegete first affirms the doctrinal truth, but then points to the outlier propositions, and then postures himself at the “center” as the fluid middle ground?
Take, for example, the biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown who claimed as his middle ground the following propositions:
The stories of Christ’s birth are dubious history (Birth of the Messiah, pp. 32ff.);
…the virginal conception of Jesus is an unresolved historical problem (Virginal Conception, p. 66);
We must nuance any statement which would have the historical Jesus institute the Church or the priesthood at the Last Supper (Priest and Bishop, p. 19);
In the New Testament we are never told that the apostles presided at the eucharist (ibid., p. 41);
Nor that the eucharistic power was passed from the Twelve to missionary apostles to presbyter-bishops (ibid., p. 41);
Sacramental powers were given to the Christian community in the persons of the Twelve (ibid., pp. 54-55);
Vatican II was “biblically naive” when it called Catholic bishops successors to the apostles (ibid., p. 15);
Doctrinal differences and tensions, which existed between the early church of Peter and the church of the Beloved Disciple, is normal for the Church (The Community of the Beloved Disciple, pp. 162-64).
(Source: George A. Kelly, “The New Biblical Theorists: Raymond E. Brown and Beyond,” Servant Books, 1983).
All of this the precursor to bishops “primarily as facilitators” for diocesan “synods”? So, now, in the 21st Century, how might “rapid theology” drift “backwardist” even farther into the swamp of the 19th Century and the 1970s and 1980s?
What Brown was determined to ignore was the historical tradition that developed through the Apostles, given account in the Acts and the Letters [also within the Jerusalem community of Apostles and elders], specifically with the Apostle Paul and his ordination of Titus and Timothy as bishops, Paul’s and their ordination of presbyters and deacons assigned a way of life with specific tasks.
While it may be argued otherwise it can’t be denied that the early Church had to know and understand what Christ intended by the laying of hands and the commission given because that’s how it developed.
A Polish Jesuit criticized this essay in Jezuici.pl on the grounds that Spadoro is taking “historicity” seriously. Sorry, but I think they have this precisely backwards. Human nature does not change: HOW one sins may change with the times, but the underlying motivations (pride, lust, sloth, envy, avarice, anger, gluttony) are constant. On the other hand, historical circumstances DO change, which makes me concerned that this kind of “reactive” theology will undermine good theology… and for no clearly compelling reasons.
“teologia rapida”
I know I should be upset with these cretins, but I can’t stop seeing a bunch of Jesuits jogging around Rome with the Divine Office podcast playing on their iWatch at 2X speed. 🏃♂️
Rapid Sly Spadaro Synodaling
https://media.tenor.com/Hx67Jl6RmOgAAAAM/machine-gun-sylvester-stallone.gif
He hit the wrong key on the keyboard. Instead of “rapid” as applied to this pontificate, he meant to say “vapid.”
God works with slow theology – gradually unveiling Himself via the First Covenant and finally revealing His face in the person of the Second Covenant.
In contrast, let us consider the rapid decline of a herd of swine to the cliff top.
Good point. It took Noah 120 years to build the ark and 25 years for Abraham to receive the child of promise. Moses spent 40 years in the desert, and then another 40 years in the wilderness. It too David 15 years to become king after his anointing, and we’ve been waiting for Christ’s return for 2000 years. God operates at a totally different pace and schedule than we do. There is no rush!
From my worm’s eye view of the Church this has all of the appearances to institutionalize Liberation Theology, Catholic Social Justice Warrior ideologies within the Church.
The lack of self-awareness exhibited by Spadaro and his cabal is actually humorous. They are either completely clueless of the fact that no one – not your pedestrian atheist, agnostic or daily communicant provides an ounce of credence to the nest of the self-absorbed egoists inhabiting the Vatican, the Jesuits and their sycophants.
Now it might be thought that I am being unduly harsh, but a reasonable estimate of the ecclesial catastrophe we presently shoulder is that Spadaro and company are quite consciously and deliberately engaged in the deliberate deconstruction of the Faith gifted us by Jesus Christ and the consequent eradication of Roman Catholicism. Their “teologia rapida” has long been in place – at least since October 13, 1962 [there are no coincidences] with Cardinal Liénart ’s wretched intervention at the opening of the Second Vatican Council. “Teologia rapida” is an oxymoron. You have to believe in the content of the Faith in order to do theology and you have to do it in a profound awareness that you are in the presence of God. Nothing emerging from the boy’s club [and the proximate feminist powers] exhibits any awareness of God. “God” is merely a convenient vehicle upon which to promote their soft-Marxist globalism. At the right moment in the future that convenience will be publicly abandoned.
Real theology is being done in the cells of authentic monastics and devoted laity given to the life of prayer, not flying high in the middle of the ecclesiastical three ring circus.
Von Balthazar not that long ago reminded us that theology is an occupation of the knees, not the seat of the pants. The lads and lassies in the “teologia rapida” parade are merely blowing their own horns. Its deafening.
Be still and know that I AM GOD. Psalm 46:10
This is an important insight: theology is a contemplative discipline, which makes it run up against Francis’s “pastoral” pasteurization of the subject.
About the tension between the contemplative versus the pastoral—and which has priority—in 1899 a former pope responded to the ambiguities of alleged Americanism: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/la/letters/documents/hf_l-xiii_let_18990122_testem-benevolentiae.html
Today, do we again have the tension and even inversion between what is dogmatic (contemplative?) and what is pastoral (active?). A possible topic for a post-synodal Study Group might be this Jesuit (!) proposal for self-examination:
“…Americanist tendencies asserted (1) the superiority of ‘natural’ over ‘supernatural’ reality, (2) the superiority of “active” over ‘passive’ virtues (prayer), and (3) reduced the faith to the surrounding culture. It was also recommended that the Church should relax as far as possible the rigor of her requirements for converts, emphasize only what Catholics held in common with other Christians and minimize point of difference” (John A. Hardon, S.J., “Christianity in the Twentieth Century,” Image 1972, 193).
SUMMARY: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Painfully informative! There is nothing new under the sun.
James above and below – rapidly painful!
Over-sensitive!
Graci…but where is the awareness in the Catholic theological academy? The episcopate and the academicians appear drunk and anxious to be provided some sort of credence by secularists. It is pitiful to behold.
Pascalization?
We need Elon Musk to take over as Pope and break the Vatican.
Could you imagine what would be discovered under Curial rocks?
We had an influx of Venezuelans middle and lover class fleeing Maduro the great part during the past 10 years or so; the Spanish word rapidamente -quickly- then becoming popularized. Not sure, I think it has come to mean, here, among locals, something “hard and fast” like, among other things, a local employer telling a Venezuelan employee not to dilly-dally and get going but in an ironic sense.
Whereas the Venezuelans likely had it among themselves in a protective sense, don’t linger about and become unnecessarily obvious.
I am afraid to express anything about “rapid theology”; for fear of making things worse. It is noticeable how some minds “rapidly penetrate” concepts and deliberately inflate them, exploding them so as to then have all the pieces in a suspension that has (supposedly) to matter individually and together in degrees. But if you voice concerns on it, analysis is made that you may be lacking in love and sensitivity or are resistful and “turned away” from goodness.
Goodness gracious!
The endless need to reinvent theology exceeds simple boredom. To use one of the silly shorthands of the day: neophilia = faithlessness.
It could also be that rapid theology = making things up as you go along.
Perhaps we should just all go back and re-read the Gospels.
“Rapid theology”? Sounds like “fast-food Catholicism” and is, I’d imagine, equally nutritious. All brought to you by the Church of What’s Happening Now.
Here is a stark reminder how how a synod was once VERY RAPIDLY placed into a captivity of procedures and mental conditioning insisting on strict obedience while outside “rigidity” and “ideology” were being utterly reviled.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2014/10/10/lack-of-confidence-in-the-family-is-the-first-cause-of-the-crisis-of-the-family/
If it is coming from a modern Jesuit, it is not in the best interest of the faithful or in total alignment with the teachings of the Church. They have ruined the Church by their involvement in leftist social issues and not the salvation of souls.
God’s message is timeless and never changing. He did not simply plop Our Lord Jesus down into the midst of Jerusalem and “rapidly” have the crucifixion take place. God spent centuries preparing for Jesus’ coming. Even as Jesus grew, John was preparing the way. Jesus spent his entire public life preparing for His death and resurrection, teaching his disciples and apostles, spreading His message all while not rapidly giving in to the Jewish idea of who and what the Messiah should be. Our current society is nothing BUT fast paced and fast tracking its way along the easy path. In 2025 Jesus’ teaching are as applicable as they ever were. It is not Mother Church that needs to speed up it’s ecclesiastical process in order to meet society’s ideals, rather it is society that needs to slow back down, find its way back to Our Blessed Lord and learn to meet God in the stillness. There can be no compromise on God’s teachings or our Catechism. It is not right to remold the Church to align with the worldly.
“Blitzkrieg” is the German word for “rapid theology.”
Hey, it worked against France in 1940.
It will work against what’s left of orthodoxy.
sounds like situation ethics/theology. Good thing to have had during 1054 schism.