Editorials
commonweal WHO'S DISTURBING THE FAITHFUL? ONCE AGAIN the institutional church and its intellectuals are on a collision course. It is an ironic moment for such a conflict. Theological thought...
...The "disturbance of the faithful" that is being produced by Rome's treatment of Ku'ng is greater by far than any consequent upon his theory of' 'indefectibility''—a theory that could well have been left to the theological debates where it had far more formidable critics than it does in Rome...
...Authority is being discredited, decent procedures flouted, the possibility of responsible, selfcritical theological exploration diminished...
...Yes, Hans Kiing is a provocateur: in responding to the criticism published in these pages of his infallibility book, Kung readily admitted to trying to stir Rome with a polemical tone...
...Rather than viewing the functions of theologians and the episcopacy as complementary, both subordinate to the Word of God, it tends to reduce bishops to papal yes-men and theologians to party-line ideologists...
...Or so a Vatican authority assures us...
...From this perspective, Christ's yoke shouldered by church authorities is bound to be burdensome, and any theologian who criticizes official teaching must be guilty of the aberration of substituting "private opinion" for episcopal authority...
...In a Platonic mode, it views revelation as encapsulated in the ahistorical, objective formulations of a tradition which it is the duty of bishops to proclaim, and the obligation of the faithful to accept...
...The current "conflict is unnecessary and destructive...
...In short, the institutionalization of a broad-based dialogue between the episcopacy and the theological community provides the proper forum for dealing creatively with questionable theological developments...
...The conflict here was ingredient from the first in the texts of Vatican II...
...What appears to be happening now in Rome is just the opposite...
...Commonweal: 38...
...Hans King's On Being a Christian and Edward Schillebeeckx's Jesus, An Experiment in Christology signaled a new period of synthesis and reappropriation following a largely critical phase of post-Vatican II theologizing...
...None of these cases—Pohier, Kting, Schillebeeckx, the proceedings against Charles Curran—is meant to limit the "legitimate and necessary freedom of research for theologians...
...And faith, trust in the critical process of the intellectual community that would so willingly serve the truth that Rome wishes to proclaim to the world...
...On the contrary, as a study of the provisional schema appearing in the current issue of Theological Studies points out, the text thus far exhibits a general tendency to canonize present discipline and to legislate answers to widely controverted theological, pastoral, and canonical questions...
...Yet precisely these works and these authors are today found at the center of controversy in Rome...
...Those who reject evasion, however, should not pretend that the alternative will be some easy progression to always profounder expressions of Christian faith...
...The problem is that the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith is inclined to use as the criterion of legitimacy the concealed presuppositions of that theology devised by the theologians of the Roman School in the second half of the nineteenth century...
...Theological thought and argument, as the critic George Steiner insisted a year ago, is in the midst of a "striking renaissance...
...Moreover, a permanent Vatican arena for peer evaluation of questionable theological positions might educate the whole church and lend credibility to any possible negative judgment authorities might finally reach...
...On another occasion he compared the opening up of theological thought after Vatican II to the confrontation between early Christianity and Greek thought in the church's first centuries...
...As matters stand now, however, Rome gives the appearance of fearing more than promoting the quest for truth...
...It's as if the pope and his obedient legates, the bishops, were the sole surviving Christians, alone possessing insight into the meaning of Christian truth...
...At no time during the last century and a half, in this country at least, has Catholic theology exhibited more health...
...Indeed, in the Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), two vastly different mind-sets were simply placed side by side without any attempt at synthesis...
...Instead, it reserves the teaching function exclusively to the pope and bishops...
...Under these circumstances, one can sympathize with the concern of many that some recent theological trends might be eroding the substance of the faith...
...It is, however, understandable . Karl Rahner has recently described the change of viewpoint in certain aspects of Catholic theology as ' 'Copernican''—a shift in worldview as radical as the sun and the earth's trading places in the cosmos...
...In the present instance, we think the problem has arisen, and will worsen if nothing is done about it, because the collegial principle has not been adequately extended and implemented with respect to theologians...
...Regarding the teaching mission of theologians, the emphasis falls on hierarchical control, canonical mission, prior censorship, and penalties for those who question the Holy See or the local ordinary...
...Herein lies the ideological dispute, and the cultural gap, between Rome and northern European and American theologians...
...Everything will be complicated by the vigilant presence of the mass media and the constant pressure to force exploratory study into hard and unnuanced conclusions, the more startling the better...
...Setting these two conceptions side by side was an act of honesty, but the inner conflict there was bound to surface...
...No doubt few would subscribe now to this crude form of Roman School theology, but in the buzz words of the decree removing King's canonical mission as "Catholic" the tenor of this perspective is distinctly visible...
...Again, we are brought to the vicious circle of a practice instilled by a defensive Roman School theology: official pronouncements are invariably criticized because they ignore broad consultation with the best thinking in the church, and this criticism is taken as "contempt" for the magisterium, or heresy that is to be silenced...
...Independent of the feudal judicial procedures involved, an indicted theologian may well suspect the outcome is rigged in advance by the unacknowledged theological preferences of the judges...
...If current tensions are not to mean an incalculable loss to the intellectual vitality of the entire church, regularized channels of consultation on the broadest possible scale must be set up between Rome and the various national societies and faculties of theology . Institutionalization of this kind might do three things: 1) It might insure that papal and congregational statements on a broad range of doctrinal and moral issues contained the best thinking currently available in the church...
...The one reflects the "perfect society," strictly hierarchical, overtly juridical, concerned with obligations upon and control of an essentially passive laity...
...Borrowed from Joseph de Maistre's ideal of absolute sovereignty as a model for church organization and infallibility , the theology of the Roman School breaks with patristic and medieval theology which had distributed the teaching function among bishops and doctors of theology...
...3) In providing a mechanism for reconciliation among diverse cultural and intellectual viewpoints, it might lighten the burdens of exercising authority...
...One can heartily affirm the necessity for the church to have some practical means of scrutinizing new formulations, a task in which special responsibility falls on the bishops and the papacy...
...There will be false starts as well as fruitful speculation, superficial enthusiasms as well as penetrating insights...
...So is the bitterness of official duties...
...Most knowledgeable observers concede that the International Theological Commission, set up to continue the faithful dialogue of Vatican II, has been wholly inadequate...
...Imagination to conceive and implement structural changes in church administration that will allow something akin to that fertile communication among bishops, theologians, curial officials, and non-Catholic observers which occurred at Vatican II to become an ongoing feature of the church's teaching and learning process...
...A positive alternative requires imagination and faith...
...Not long ago, it seemed that the emergence of works like...
...In an age of mass publishing and instant communication, does anyone really believe that such methods will achieve their purpose of protecting seminarians or the populace from "disturbance...
...This is more than a Roman Catholic internal issue, it is more than an ecumenical issue: in a world in which Authority appears either to freeze into authoritarianism or dissolve into anarchic individualism, the witness given by humane, responsible procedures for maintaining Catholic identity and belief through an inevitably turbulent period of theological change would be considerable...
...There will always be those who prefer to evade such intellectual challenges altogether...
...The policy is manifestly futile...
...2) It would provide the appropriate forums in which to discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate interpretations of the faith in modern and cross-cultural idioms...
...On the other hand, Kung's provocativeness helped build support for reform during Vatican II, and both his outspokenness and his recent apologetics have been the source of renewed faith 1 February 1980: 37 for many...
...The other images an imperfect society, a pilgrim people whose process of realizing the truth of the Gospel it is the function of authorities to serve dialogically, collegially...
...Looking ahead, however, the long-promised revision of the Code of Canon Law offers little indication that due process will be embodied in the new law...
Vol. 107 • February 1980 • No. 2
