Heart of the World, Center of the Church
Schindler, David L.
servative the free marketplace allows the pursuit of self-interest to work for the common economic good; and for Hesburgh the commonly accepted academic criteria predefine what a university,...
...That Murray's writings contain many indications that belie Schindler's description of it passes largely unnoticed...
...But such a view overlooks the moment of receptivity that must precede, condition, and direct all "autonomous" human activity...
...Even in the very few places at which Pope John Paul II's encyclical on the Holy Spirit (Dominum et vivi ficantem) is cited, it is not for the sake of explaining the Spirit's mission and role...
...The Inaugural Conference for The Center for Congregations and Family Ministries at Louisville Seminary Marian Wright Edelman • Founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund (CAF), an organization dedicated to educating the nation about the needs of children and the importance of investing in their futures...
...David M. Thomas Graduate Professor of Family Life and Church , Leadership at Regis - University in Denver, Colorado...
...It could even be argued that the Spirit's role is in fact taken by Mary, and the book might be said to illustrate the "de Maria numquam satis" (roughly translatable as "You can't exaggerate the role of Mary") school of Marian theology...
...It is no belittling of the great Swiss theologian to remark that his imposing work represents, as Schindler well knows, only one stream in twentiethcentury theology and that more than a few of von Balthasar's favorite themes and much about his method are quite personal and even idiosyncratic...
...Everything concentrates on the Father (or, generally, on the Trinity), on Christ, and on Mary...
...The vision centers around an ecclesiology of commuiiio, originating in the inner life of the Trinity, realized in the Incarnation, and defining not only "the center of the church" but also "the heart of the world," created by God for the sake of the spousal union God wishes to establish with the whole of creation and already realized in Christ, Mary, and MISSING PERSON the church...
...There is not a single reference to the mission of the Spirit...
...One particular issue needs to be mentioned: the astonishing absence from this ecclesiology of communion, whether Trinitarian or ecclesial, of the Holy Spir it...
...She has published 200 articles and several books on theology, internatiiir:a~ relations, war, the family, and political theory...
...How does one get at least part of the way from this exalted or primordial vision toward a different polity, economics, or university...
...The preceding paragraph is a rapid summary of the theological vision that Schindler sets out in the first chapter and whose implications he also unfolds in several concluding chapters on deconstruction, sanctity and the intellectual life, contemplation and action, gender and God, and the Thomist philosophy of relation...
...Familie Con,qre.qati s November 13-15,1997 Louisville Seminary Louisville, Kentucky Theme: How congregations can strengthen their ministry with families, particularly in communicating the Christian faith from one generation to another...
...Even when one might agree that perhaps the startingpoint should be more Christological or Trinitarian, still what follows from this...
...for the Catholic neocon F I 2"M € man v arm .a =0111 ' ew 't ~ -1 ~1~3 ®tl'8 sum X . NNW Bin on 51 kno tnala go, all F: W-0 -e H Ego ~.'~,b„rshtr,>trrr tic-~waavrv~~~ L S M .1 Crrrnnrwnriva...
...The often very basic theological options that lie behind the thought of von Balthasar and other representatives of "ressourcement" theology, as Schindler likes to call it, require further elucidation...
...Thus, to take the instance I know most about, what Murrav said about religious freedom being first negativeimmunity from coercion-and being based upon the autonomy of the person is thought to imply an abstract notion of human nature which neglects that the first truth about the person is human nature's positive orientation toward supernatural fulfillment in God...
...first African American to serve as Senior Minister of one of the largest multicultural congregations in the nation...
...This Roman aL& Catholic theologian, a former consultant to the United States Bishops' delegation at the Vatican Synod on the Family in Rome, has written books on faith, family life, and marriage...
...22, which is quoted several times, "Christ..., in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully' reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling...
...From the inadequacies of that startingHeart of the World, Center of the Church Corrnnunio Ecclesiology, Liberalism, and Liberation David L. Schindler William 6. £erdnurns, $3730.340 pp...
...It is a value of the book that it is an exercise in very serious theology...
...On more substantive issues, there is the choice of von Balthasar as the chief interpreter of the tradition, of Vatican II, and of the teachings of the present pope...
...Schindler's method typically searches for a sentence or two thought to represent his opponent's starting point, from which, he believes, even if by "unintended logic," must follow certain untenable conclusions...
...Here he appears simply as the great master and many of his views are presented oracularly, as if their meaning is perspicacious and their truth guaranteed...
...34 '.ydernber 12, 1997 point follow, logically, all the consequences that have led to the corruption of the American experiment into "the culture of death...
...The argument is quite dense, however, and the book does not make for light reading and should probably not be brought to the beach...
...A second methodological problem is that, unlike those whom he criticizes, Schindler is most often content to remain at the level of first principles, where he thinks the real battle should be waged, and to leave the practical political, economic, or academic implications of his own position hazy...
...The criticisms, which he has aimed principally at three neoconservative writers, Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak, and George Weigel, are repeated in this book where they are preceded by a critique of the ea r lier work of John Courtney Murray and followed by an argument that the same mistake underlies some statements of Theodore Hesburgh about the nature and purpose of a Catholic university...
...The result is a curious abstraction in the argument, logic replacing genuine dialogue and dialectic...
...Liberalism claims that its own proce dural assumptions, whether in politics, economics, or the university, imply no substantive assumptions or claims but simply permit a neutral arena in which questions about truth and value can be argued out under conditions of free dom...
...Communion is thus not sim ply the inmost reality of the church but defines also the purpose of creation, whose full truth is not known apart from the inner-Trinitarian mystery and not realized apart from the receptive and obedient fiat of Christ, Mary, and the church...
...He is the For information regarding registration and a publicity packet, please contact the Office of Graduate Studies at Louisville Seminar, 1044 Alta Vista Road Louisville, Kentucky 40205 502-895.3411 or toll-free 1-800-264.3839, ext...
...ames Alexander Forbes, Jr...
...r some years now, David 'chindier, Gagnon Profes ,or of Fundamental The ology at the John Paul II irt~titt~to for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C., and editor of the English edition of the theological journal Comrrurnio, has been a sharp crit ic of efforts to argue for a fundamental compatibility between the philosophy that underlies the American political and economic experiment and the Catholic vision of things...
...Thus for Murray, according to SL hindler, freedom of religion is first of all an assertion of the rights of au tonomous conscience over and against a neutral state...
...Only a very high Christology yields a true anthropology in which the liberal tendency to place freedom and truth in tension is unmasked and overcome, in which what freedom is for and what authentic liberation is are revealed, and in which the real achievements of liberalism can be saved and given their only valid basis...
...Schindler's argument is that all these writers stand in a broad liberal tradition which honors proxedure more than sub stance and freedom more than truth...
...Schindler's remarks on Catholic universities do move a bit toward answering such questions, but when it comes to politics and economics, he is frustratingly vague...
...In the passage of Gaudiurn et sph' no...
...And what mediates such necessary moves...
...L The Reverend Joseph A. Komonchak is the John and Gertrude Hubbard Professor of Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C...
...Jean Bethke Elshtain • The first Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School...
...and for Hesburgh the commonly accepted academic criteria predefine what a university, including a Catholic university, is...
...Commonweal 3 5 September 12,1997...
...Let me offer some methodological and substantive comments...
...That vision Schindler finds expressed in the teachings of Vatican Council €1 as carried forward by Pope John Paul 11 and as interpreted by such theologians as Henri de Lubac, Joseph Ratzinger, and, especially, Hans Urs von Balthasar...
...in all three cases, Schindler argues, the claims to neutrality with regard to substance are bogus and in fact rest upon substantive claims that are incompatible with the Joseph A. Homonehak full Catholic theological vision of God, man, and world...
...nior Minister of The Ziverside Church in New York City, a 2400 member interracial, interdenominational, and international church...
...In fact, Schindler's theology could be taken, according to what one hopes is an "unintended logic," as evidence of the claim sometimes made that pneumatology and mariology are inversely proportional...
...It is not too much to say that in Schindler's ecclesiology the Holy Spirit plays no explicit role...
Vol. 124 • September 1997 • No. 15
