“Communio” at 50: A conversation and an invitation

5 Comments

1. Thanks for the thoughtful video, a straightforward expose on Communio and its context with VATICAN II.

   I maintain that VATICAN II lays out a template TYPE for general apostolates. And it also is framed in such a way as to not to exclude new types. In this sense, then, the dichotomy that arose between “liberal-progressives” and “unchanging stalwarts”, was a complete misfire and remains (properly speaking) a scandal.

   Most of the “liberal-progressives” do many clearly wrong things.

   Many of the “stalwarts” have shown they are conformable to witness.

   Opus Dei, as it used to be before Ad charisma tuendum, is one of the new template types not specified in VATICAN II. What has befallen them lately, however, via said Ad charisma tuendum, is further manifestation of parts of the Church giving proof of 1. how confounded they are in the beliefs they maintain and 2. how determined they are to declare that, the truth.

   I gather that Communio is not a apostolic juridicaL Church body as is Opus Dei; it is a voluntary arrangement. As such would it then be that Communio is less likely to be considered a target for reform? Or will it become reformable after Benedict has passed?

   http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2022/09/14/on-opus-dei-francis-is-right-an-expert-tells-why/

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2. I believe Bishop Barron once pointed out that Communio was a breakaway movement from the journal Concilium, founded in 1965. At the risk of oversimplification, von Balthasar et al desired to explore and apply the Council’s writings and teachings to Catholic life, while Concilium wanted just to continue to explore. I suspect the chaos of the current German synodality circus re the authentic, integral understanding of the human person is a reflection of the open-ended exploration motif of Concilium. Can someone clarify that? Either way, I’ll take Communio thank you very much.

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   • The Communio-Concilium divide, in many ways, is an amplification of a chasm that existed before the Council but was largely hidden from view. Concilium wanted to explore, but often with the desire to accommodate and even embrace theological and philosophical perspective at odds with the Catholic Tradition. A while Communio certainly upholds and engages with the texts of Vatican II, it is rooted in a return to the sources (ressourcement) of Scripture and the early Church Fathers, while engaging far more critically with modern movements and thought. From my 2017 interview with Tracey Rowland:

     As a caricature one could say that the Communio theologians look at contemporary cultural movements from the perspective of the magisterial teaching of the Church while the Concilium types look at the magisterial teaching of the Church from the perspective of contemporary cultural movements. The Communio types believe that when Christ told his disciples to read the signs of the times he was telling them that he, Christ, was the sign of the time. He was making an eschatological point. He was saying to his disciples understand that you are now living in the Christian era, understand that the Incarnation has happened, understand that God has assumed human nature. He was not saying it is important that you keep abreast of changing social currents and correlate the Christian faith to them.

     Secondly, while the Communio and Concilium style theologians agree that Catholic theology represents a synthesis of faith and reason, they prefer different philosophical partners for theology. Karl Rahner predicted that given there are so many different philosophies currently in play Catholic scholars would be tempted by what he called a ‘gnoseological concupiescence’ – the desire to hook up Catholic theology to all manner of fashionable philosophies. A very significant difference between the Communio and Concilium scholars is thus found in their choice of philosophical partners. For example, the Communio types are not remotely attracted to cultural Marxism.

     Thirdly, as you indicated above, the two groups have a different attitude towards the cultures of modernity and post-modernity. While not eschewing every single aspect of these cultures, the Communio theologians (like the Radical Orthodoxy theologians with whom they overlap on a number of fronts) are much more critical of these cultures than the Concilium style theologians.

     Fourthly, the two groups have different attitudes toward magisterial authority and other issues in ecclesiology such as the nature of the Petrine office and the priestly ministry.

     Read the entire interview.

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     • May I add: instead of using the partner to elucidate or give instance of the truth as Aquinas does it, the partner is used to buttress error so that the concurrence gives off an air of universality, which is also then said to be Thomist.

       But it is not Thomist and depending on the subject, it belies this or that truth.

       Or again, further using the concurrence to “rehabilitate” the partner even though nothing has changed. Such a thing was never intended in Thomism.

       JPII made alliances with non-Catholics and non-Christians and it was never for dicing up things or overturning them.

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     • Thanks, Carl. VERY helpful.

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