The end of Catholicism?
The end of Catholicism?
David Tracy & Andrew M. Greeley respond to Thomas Sheehan R UDOLF Schnackenburg, Raymond E. Brown, Roland Murphy, Pierre Benoit, John P. Meier, J.A. Fitzmyer, David...
...The reasons why this is so can probably be filed under what theologians call "the human situation...
...Two of them have very kindly provided responses to the Sheehan article...
...revelation is said to authenticate faith, but faith is needed to authenticate revelation...
...Jesus knew nothing of preexistence or the Trinity, ordained no priests or bishops, and established no church...
...New Pluralism in Theologyand The Analogical Imagination: Christian Th~ogy and the Culture of Pluralism (both Crossroad Books...
...Largely, he answers, in terms of "the church's gradual shift of concern away from theoretical questions and toward social, political, and moral issues like nuclear warfare, abortion, and liberation theology," a shift he calls "one of the major consequences of the undoing of traditional theology...
...conservatives en- trenched in "their shrinking pockets of power...
...The church may answer "supernatural revelation" and argue that even "if the scientifically controllable evidence of scripture does not show, for example, that Jesus was divine," nonetheless, the" authentic sense of revelation" is to be found in the apostolic tradition and those entrusted to maintain and interpret it, the bishops and the pope...
...Hope in immortality, the religious experience of transcendence, or the natural human experience that satis- fies many people as sufficient meaning for life --all can be found outside the church...
...Instead he saw himself as a Jewish prophet proclaim- ing to his fellow Jews alone the dawning kingdom of God...
...It seems somehow ungracious (or, at least, ungrateful) to comment on his work publicly only when I basically disagree with it...
...A contributor to many journals, he is the author of Blessed Rage for Ordet...
...I I I with some misgivings...
...Fitzmyer, David M. Stanley, Rudolf Pesch, Walter Kasper, David Tracy, Edward Schillebeeckx, Hans Kiing...
...He speaks of them as Catholic theology's "most vigorous intellectual renaissance since the high Middle Ages...
...My major misgiving is this: I am a great admirer of Thomas Sheehan (and an occasional acquaintance...
...They express, "in im- aginative and symbolic language," the disciples' "belief that Jesus was somehow alive with God and would someday reap- pear," but they cannot be taken literally...
...Sheehan's depiction of what the New York Review an-nounced on its cover as a "REVOLUTION IN CATHOLICISM" obviously merits further discussion...
...At this point, concludes Sheehan, "Kiing (or, for that mat- ter, the liberal consensus) has pushed Catholic theolo- gy...
...liberal exegesis and theology advancing in scholarly circles...
...Do these scholars "and hundreds of others" constitute a "liberal consensus" of Catholic theologians and exegetes that has accomplished nothing less than "the dismantling of traditional Roman Catholic theology...
...But those articles, alas, did not cause the stir that this recent article did...
...Thomas Sheehan's starting point is the adoption by Catholic scholars of"scientific exegesis of the New Testament...
...AUTHORITY Levels of liberal consensus I DAVID TRACY T HOMAS SHEEHAN'S RECENT article on "Revolution in Catholicism" in the New York Review of Books (June 14, 1984) has caused a stir...
...Such sympathy may even obscure, for some readers, the otherwise striking fact that Sheehan's conclusions coincide with two major conservative charges against liberal, post-conciliar theology: (a) that it eventually empties Catho- licism of all distinctive belief...
...and, in particular Kiing's "deconstruedve analysis of the Biblical data behind the Christian belief that Jesus was raised from the dead" --and that eternal life is promised to his followers...
...Is its natural destination finally a vague "pious agnosticism" or a conventional liberal humanism, perhaps inspired by a subjectively appealing "'myth...
...It remains trapped in a "hermeneutical circle": claims to be the authentic interpreters of scripture must be based on the interpreters' own interpretation of scrip- ture...
...But Sheehan also poses the possibility that the "liberal consensus" could push "beyond its limits," abandon belief in Jesus's resurrection and in any afterlife, and return to "the pre-apocaiyptic faith of the prophets with its moral, social, and political concerns...
...But here I think Thomas Sheehan will agree with me...
...Kiing "'says nothing that we cannot find elsewhere in modern Roman Catholic exegesis," namely, that the Gospel accounts of Jesus's post-resurrection appearances and of the empty tomb are inconsistent "later stories...
...But for Sheehan this response won't do...
...All this lends credibility to the author' s ultimately rather devastating view of the current developments' limits and im- plications...
...We discussed these and other questions with several Catholic scholars...
...This, he says, has led them to conclusions which "conflict sharply with traditional Catholic doctrine...
...Once having accepted non-fundamentalist, scientific methods of 10 August 1984:425 studying scripture, scholars like Kiing are led to treat questions like immortality in terms of "a kind of 'pious agnosticism.'" "Even the Christian believer who takes Jesus as his or her model is still thrown back on the same finite information as the non-believer, and the same human tasks: providing for one's own needs, overcoming one's selfishness, making the social and political order more human...
...What does Catholicism claim that makes it unique, essentially different from non-Catholic reli- gious and non-religious humanism...
...Announcements of revolu- tion tend to do that...
...The further fact is that Sheehan's previous articles in the New York Review on Catho- lic theology, especially his extraordinary article on Karl Rahner ("The Dream of Karl Rahner," Feb...
...Indeed, according to Sheehan, the work of this "liberal consensus" is even "bringing the Church to what can be called the end of Catholicism...
...My own response to Sheehan's article is offered, I admit, I I FATHER DAVID TRACY is a professor of theology at the University of Chicago...
...That is the view of Thomas Sheehan, a professor of philosophy at Chicago's Loyola Uni- versity, writing in the June 14 issue of the New YorkReview of Books...
...Sheehan's article, it should be noted, is written with consid- erable sympathy for these exegetical and theological devel- opments...
...To what extent is his account of the "liberal consensus" accurate or complete...
...THE EDITORS I II EXEGESIS, TRADITION...
...As an example of this "new reading of Christianity," Sheehan presents Hans Kiing's recent bookEternal Life...
...and the social gospel vigorously pursued...
...Sheehan mentions ques- tions raised by exegetes about the Virgin Birth, the Infancy Narratives, and Jesus's miracles...
...He clearly admires the liberals' scholarship and inten- tions...
...Sheehan compares "this kind of whittling away at belief in the divinity of Jesus" to earlier developments in liberal Protes- tantism...
...This circularity -- some would call it the reinvention by the liberal consensus of "the Protestant wheel" --is producing "the end of Catholicism...
...How, asks Sheehan at this point, can one understand the church's momentum despite the fact that "the liberal consen- sus has pushed Catholic theology to the point where it seems to break down...
...So, in good Catholic fashion, I con- fess: I would rather write an article on how good Thomas Sheehan's other New York Review articles and his Heidegger work are...
...The fact is- that Thomas Sheehan's technical work on Heidegger has aided me and many others greatly in trying to understand that modern classic...
...some further reflections on Sheehan's interpretations seem in order...
...Things may continue as currently: Rome slapping "a few more wrists in a futile effort to stop the liberal movements launched by the Second Vatican Council...
...Obviously, Sheehan's article raises major questions about the state of Catholic theology...
...Commonweal is pleased to publish here the responses of two noted Catholic thinkers, preceded by our own summary of Sheehan's argument...
...But the bulk of his attention is focused on the exegetes' conclusions ("now common teach- ing," he reports, in Catholic seminaries) that "Jesus of Nazareth did not assert any of the divine or messianic claims the Gospels attribute to him and that he died without believing he was Christ or the Son of GOd, not to mention the founder of a new religion...
...Does the com- mitment of the "liberal consensus" to scientific methods of scriptural scholarship really lead to the impasse he describes...
...and (b) that it stimulates politi- cal, social, and economic activism as a compensation for doctrinal uncertainty...
...David Tracy & Andrew M. Greeley respond to Thomas Sheehan R UDOLF Schnackenburg, Raymond E. Brown, Roland Murphy, Pierre Benoit, John P. Meier, J.A...
...In effect, Christianity may be a useful "myth" which "inspires some people to do what all human beings should do: be sensitive, intelligent, reason- able, loving, and just...
...But before Catholics United for the Faith and The Wanderer (and their mysterious Vatican sub- scribers) rush to the fray brandishing the New York Review, no less, as Exhibit A of all their fears (or hopes...
...What Ki~ng's book does, says Sheehan, is to reduce all scriptural "proofs for Jesus's resurrection-- or for eternal life -- to a hope that "life has an ultimate meaning" and that "if there is a God, he will save the whole of you...
...to the point where one can ask what its teachings have to offer that cannot be found outside the scope of its experience and discourse...
...4, 1982) have been, quite simply, the best articles that journal has published on religion or theology...
...Announcements of how the present "lib- eral consensus" in Catholic theology has occasioned the loss of any distinctively Catholic vision of reality are even more likely to unleash the furies...
...We hope the discussion will continue...
...The issues he raises in this recent article are too important, and the interpretations he gives of where Catholic theology is going Commonweal: 426...
Vol. 111 • August 1984 • No. 14
