Religious Booknotes
Cunningham, Lawrence S.
few months ago I was a guest "expert" on a radio-talk show in Washington, D.C. The topic was weeping statues reported in churches in Virginia. These reports were all the more...
...In general, however, in those areas where he has worked extensively (ecumenicism, apologetics, fundamental theology, etc...
...Students of theology would benefit from a reading of it...
...This particular book is somewhat restricted in its topic but its relevance is much wider...
...His observations on various figures are stimulating enough...
...He is one of the more interesting of those historians who today are doing pioneering work in the field of popular religion...
...One nice touch is that the text refers to two accessible anthologies of primary readings (i.e...
...One might get the impression from this book that the beleaguered Christians of antiquity spent most of their waking hours discussing the Trinity...
...and, finally, how they became a central issue in the intellectual discussion of post-Enlightenment Europe especially, but not exCommonwe necessity of hermeneutics in theology against, I suspect, the critics who, with Rahner, feel that preoccupation with method and strategy is too like the constant sharpening of the knife without ever carving the roast...
...They issue both primary texts and serious scholarly studies of monasticism both East and West...
...The New Eusebius and Creeds, Councils, and Controversies both edited by W. H. C. Frend) which would make it possible to follow Hall's narrative while having access to the texts he discusses...
...I have been reading a good deal of Merton recently and am constantly struck by how germane his ideas are for areas as seemingly disparate as ecclesiology and spirituality...
...He died on the feast of Saint Francis at a contemplative center he founded in central Italy which was open to all people who desired a period of solitude and reflection...
...that requires, in short, hermeneutics...
...Jeanrond rightly observes that theology not only must preserve the integrity of the Christian tradition but adopt strategies to mediate it to a world, which in our day, is increasingly pluralist and less inclined to listen...
...By this he means a theology which operates within an ecclesial framework, is sensitive to the life of worship, has a refined sense of the tradition, and anchors itself in the Scriptures...
...The work is useful for taking time to show how theories of interpretation developed in the classical past...
...Postcritical theology will resist the hermeneutics of suspicion so characteristic, say, of certain forms of liberation theology and will be less likely to engage in a polemical stance vis h vis the magisterium...
...42:6 November 1992 Commonweal...
...In fact, Dulles, in the course of these essays, has some critical comments to offer both to the theologians and to the magisterium...
...Despite its brevity and the magnitude of the topic there are some very instructive reflections in this somewhat sketchy work...
...They make me wish that someone will write (is writing...
...Finally, should a second printing of this book appear, Origen's name should get spelled correctly on the back cover...
...After ten years in the North African desert (which inspired his bestselling work on spirituality, Letters from the Desert), Carretto returned to Europe to work in eremitical fraternities in both France and Italy...
...My less than total enthusiasm for this book, however, is based mainly on the less than thorough way in which it was revised...
...He could be critical without sounding like a nag or someone who was alienated from the church...
...One point that Christian makes may have contemporary relevance: all three "activations" (his word) of Christ came as a result of the revival of popular religious strategies that had been dormant for a long time...
...He deals with his chosen figures in historical order but his work is too narrowly chosen to approximate anything like that of a history of spirituality...
...Hall spends precious few pages on how these people worshipped, less on their devotional life, and still less on popular religion...
...This latest collection of essays by Avery Dulles will not disappoint his many readers...
...Symbols & systems Lawrence S. Cunningham forms of piety and the concurrent reporting of pious phenomena in the wake of post-Vatican II changes (not long ago I witnessed thousands of Medj ugorje devotees wander the Notre Dame campus in anticipation of a big conference) of all stripes...
...Williams' s book is also an updated edition of a book first published under the title Christian Spirituality more than a decade ago...
...I found it extremely interesting for three reasons...
...Such a theology, Dulles observes, begins with a "prejudice in favor of faith...
...That point struck me forcefully as I thought of today's renewed interest in post-Tridentine LAWRENCE S. CUNNINGHAM chairs the department of theology at the University of Notre Dame...
...This is also a good opportunity for readers of this column to be made aware of the treasure trove of materials being published by Cistercian Publications (headquartered at Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo) who not only put out materials of contemporary interest like this Merton volume but fresh translations of ancient monastic writers ranging from the desert mothers and fathers through the great Cistercian figures like Bernard of Clairvaux...
...Thus, his essay on the use of Scripture in theology is excellent as are his reflections on methodologies in theology...
...Those interested in popular religion and religious sociology should familiarize themselves with Christian's work...
...This book, as he tells us, grew out of much university lecturing experience...
...That requires a sensitivity to the way in which people receive (or do not receive) words and how they encounter (or do not encounter) texts...
...It is for that reasons that this book will find a place in courses in historical theology...
...He is less successful on broad topics (e.g., theology and the physical sciences) which do permit more than a first glance...
...Christian is a careful scholar of popular religion in Spain and this work has all the hallmarks of his earlier studies: sympathy, care with the sources, a sense of religious culture, and a resistance to any facile reductionism...
...A little thing like that, I'm afraid, is an indication of the speed with which this "updating" was done...
...His pages on the early martyr and apostolic father, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, were quite moving...
...First, Carretto was a deeply contemplative person whose reflections on the life of the gospel carry with them the ring of authenticity...
...His work concludes with three meaty chapters on recent debates and the status questionis of theological hermeneutics today...
...Furthermore, in the updated readings, the job of revision seems half done...
...Above all, Dulles is a theologian of the church and that comes across on every page...
...Jeanrond's book is a serviceable survey of the history of interpretation theory (i.e...
...a biography of this remarkable man of God since his story would not only speak of his contemplative mature years but his earlier life as an activist with ties to the higher echelons of the Catholic church...
...Dulles is superb at surveying a topic, digesting the different options and strategies, and judging them in light of his own theological position...
...Based on lectures he gave in England, Williams explicates the spiritual doctrine of a select number of spiritual masters from the second century down to the period of Saint John of the Cross...
...That point is underscored in William Christian's careful study of three Spanish towns early in this century where moving crucifixes were seen and, after which, pilgrimages and devotions ensued...
...clusively, in theological circles...
...His tongue-in-cheek observation had at least this much truth in it: statues that move or bleed or weep, visions, apparitions, etc., tend to spring up in times of crisis or social tumult...
...Starting with the postbiblical church, his book ends in the mid-fifth century with the Council of Chalcedon...
...how they took shape in theological and scriptural studies in the Christian tradition...
...His book is both a refresher for those interested in the history of interpretation and an argument for how hermeneutics might be done...
...For one thing, it simply will not do to ramble through a millennium and a half of Christian spirituality and, apart from a glancing paragraph on Julian of Norwich, ignore women as totally as Williams does...
...Williams still recommends E. A. Peers for John of the Cross, seemingly unaware of the Kavanaugh/Rodriguez edition of the Collected Works, and cites the Penguin versions of the English mystics despite the wonderful editions now available in the Classics of Western Spirituality...
...Dulles is sympathetic to, and a proponent of, "postcritical" theology...
...Very little popular religion finds its way into Hall's history of Christian belief and practice...
...These essays--on a wide variety of monastic topics--testify both to Merton's keen interest in the deepest values of the Christian contemplative tradition and to his capacity to mine that tradition for practices, aids, and ideas which go well beyond the cloister...
...After a tidy (and quite readable) historical survey that brings the story down to the usual suspects (Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Ricoeur, etc...
...Some reflection on spiritual mistresses just needed to be added...
...Second, his witness encompasses that period after Vatican II which saw such profound changes in the church, changes which inspired in him neither fear nor reaction...
...During his entire life as a religious, Carretto wrote faithfully to his sister who was a nun in Italy...
...That correspondence makes up the bulk of this little book...
...The new edition of Brother Patrick Hart' s collection of Thomas Merton' s selected essays on the monastic life, for some time out of print, is a welcome opportunity to comment on the continuing interest in Thomas Merton and his writings...
...his Thomas Merton- Spiritual Master (Paulist) was recently published...
...These letters do not have the spiritual heft of Letters from the Desert but they are of interest...
...His concluding words include an apologia for the There are twelve chapters in this book and not all are of equal depth...
...These reports were all the more sensational since they seemed to have involved a purportedly stigmatic priest whose only other claim to fame (I do not make this up...
...hermeneutics) and of the importance of that discipline for theology...
...the essays are models of clarity, fairness, and Christian conviction...
...Finally, Carretto had a prophetic edge to him...
...With about two hundred titles in inexpensive editions, they are a precious resource for the study and practice of contemporary spirituality...
...was a title in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most consecutive hours spent on a roller-coaster...
...One fey caller suggested that Our Lady really was weeping in the churches and her consternation had been triggered by the parlous state of Virginia's Democratic party...
...Let me get my major criticism out of the way quickly so that I may go to praise its merits: there is too much doctrine and too little practice in this work...
...the author then stops to reflect on current thinking on the nature of the text, textuality, and reading in their own right...
...The lines lit up with many folks possessed of strong opinions on the subject...
...Dulles is thorough and informative...
...I liked his description of Aquinas under the rubric of the ecstatic...
...Where Hall is useful, however, is in his capacity to summarize in clear prose the main theological ideas of a very complicated period inhabited by prolific and complex thinkers...
...Carlo Carretto (1910-1988) left a lay career as head of the Italy's Catholic Action movement for young people in 1954 to become a Little Brother of Jesus, a contemplative order inspired by the desert hermit and mystic, Charles de Foucauld...
Vol. 119 • November 1992 • No. 19
