The Religious Sense
PRUSAK, BERNARD G.
the leader of the movements he championed, only a presence within them. His essential presence is felt in the city' parishes he describes so vividly and, finally, as he leads us on a tour of...
...For example, people often ask "why...
...Caught "between yes and no," God or not, the reader is cut off from not only the reality, of doubt, but from questions about who or what God is...
...Fry as one might, it is difficult to suppress the suspicion t h a t The Religious Sense has been reissued and hyped precisely because of its politics: old-style tEeological triumphalism in new-age dress...
...To make his argument, Giussani quotes not oxdy Aquinas, Kant, and Wittgenstein, but novelists and poets...
...Over and against atheistic humanism, Giussani concludes that religion is not a denial of human life, but an affirmation of its deepest tendencies...
...Commonweal 2 5 March 13, 1998...
...Giussani's style of argumentation also leads to dubious conclusions...
...For Giussani, "the very existence of the question affirms the existence of an answer...
...Loyola University Chicago ~ DEGREE PROGRAMS D/V/N/1T, PASTORAL STUDIES, RELIGIOUS EDUCATION, AND M.A.PASTORAL COUNSELING _9 I NDIVIDUALIZED SABBATICALS _9 FORMATION PROGRAM *|NSTITUTO HISPANO *wORKSHOPS . ~ 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 For further information, call or write...
...There must be a revolution," he writes, "for the defense of what is human, and this revolution can have only one characteristic: it must be authentically religious, and therefore, genuinely Christian...
...What's more, the reader who has known suffering is deprived of the language to ask another essential human question: Why, God, have you forsaken me...
...McGilI-Queen's edition is in fact a reissue ot this translation, though there is no such acknowledgment in the book's publicity...
...This "education in freedom" presupposes only a community, the church, to make it happen...
...Against the positivist reduction of life to mathematical equations or biochemical reactions, Giussani argues for openness to the "ultimate questions"-whence...
...Does Giussani want to say that only Christian faith is "authentically religious...
...After appearing in Italian in 1986, it was published in English in 1990 by Ignatius Press...
...His essential presence is felt in the city' parishes he describes so vividly and, finally, as he leads us on a tour of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, that great Gothic space on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where he reveled in making everyone feel not just welcome, but equal...
...The movement, as it is of Len called by its members, developed out of a student association Giussani inspired and led while he was teaching high school in Italy in the 1950s...
...It answers a thirst for meaning...
...What is the meaning of everytb.ing...
...Theology, he saw even before Vatican II, cannot belong only to the theologians...
...For him, this question arises out of "the radical engagement of the self with life...
...Attend our Smnmer Institute and chl)nsc from a variety of challenging and stimulating one week modules good for academic credit or Continuing Educalion Unils (CEUs) Either way, after completing 12 modules, you'll receive a Summer Institute Certificate in Pastoral Studies Your grass will be long, your backhand incolasistcnl as ever...
...whither...
...Giussani does not bother with interpretation but instead uses poetry as mere illustration on his way to a predetermined end...
...Bethe Dufresne is a reporter and columnist for The Day in New London, Connecticut...
...Reason, in order to be faithful to its nature and to such a calling, is forced to admit the existence of something other underpinning, explaining everything...
...Living life fully leads to religion and to a belief in God...
...But finally this question is grasping at air...
...Yet, despite having already appeared in English, the "new" book has been greeted as an event...
...1 )oubtless it happens that CL changes people's lives, and t h a t ' s why it's important...
...Giussani's echoing of the rhetoric of the culture of life (the church) and the culture of death (everything outside it) not only makes for terribly simplistic and reactionary politics, but confuses the Holy Spirit with the church...
...On t h e Comunione e L i b e r a z i o n e website, the description of the book's French e d i t i o n warns a g a i n s t g e t t i n g stuck on the movement's "most visible, read most political, aspects" and failing to understand "what could move thousands of youth to change t h e i r life so radically and durably...
...For intbrmation contact Eleanor Itolland, [BVM 5401 S Cornell A~enue, Chicago...
...Lost is the density of life--its complexity and ambiguity--poetry exists to defend...
...For Giussani, apparently it is...
...There is a grave need for what Giussani does: write an invitation to faith...
...But a reading of this book suggests a less academic interest, for Giussani's book is no ordinary work of foundational theology...
...the second in December at the United Nations...
...Reality calls us on to an Other...
...The human being cannot avoid this alternative: either he is the slave of men or a subject, dependent upon God," Giussani writes...
...impwving your backhand, or honing your eftectiveness in ministry...
...If l truly wish to know [an object]," he writes, "I have no choice but to look down and fix my eyes on the object itself...
...But Giussani's book is an example not of faith seeking understanding, but of faith seeking uncritical--even unearned--affirmation...
...The group's mission, as its sophisticated website attests (www.comunioneliberazione.org), is "education to maturity in the faith...
...11 60615 17731 753-7474 Fx (773) 324-3414 Visit our websHe: www.ctu.edu E-mail: holland(aicm.edu The last three weeks in June You can spend them mowing your lawn...
...This background is relevant to understanding Giussani's book...
...But Giussani's book is no unshakable foundation...
...Animated by Giussani's charisma and prolific writing, it has taken a leading role in the pope's "new evangelization...
...Bernard G. Prusak is a graduate student in philosophy at Boshm Universily...
...It has been the subject of two conferences: the first, last November, attended by some thirty bishops and cardinals in Rome for the Synod of the Americas...
...Its publication history is also telling...
...What exactly is the force of the "therefore" in t h a t sentence...
...sounds like the most radical question one can ask...
...But your ministerial skills will be remarkably keen...
...This renewed attention may be explained by McGillQueen's plan to publish two further books by Giussani that develop the argument of The Religious Sense...
...LOYOLA K,~.~ UNIVERSITY CHICAGO IPS, LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO 6525 N. SHERIDAN ROAD CHICAGO~ IL 60626 773-508-2320, 800-424-1238 ymv 773-508-2319 h t t p : / / w w w . l u c . e d u / d e p t s / i p s Sharpm skills at summer school...
...Mostly lay, mostly "youth" between the ages of twenty and forty, CL is now active in sixty-seven countries, including the United States and Canada...
...Typically he is satisfied simply to quote, without interCommonweal 2 4 March 13,1998 pretation, as if it were possible to understand a poem, or anything, by merely looking down and fixing one's eyes on it...
...Encountered in high school this rhetoric of either/or may have been thrilling, but finally it is manipulative and reductive in its own way...
...That engagement is at once existential and religious...
...Unhappily, his claim t h a t "the church alone, in its tradition, defends the absolute value of the person" appears to cut this way...
...when they're suffering, or when a loved one is suffering...
...HARD QUESTIONS, SOFT ANSWERS Bernard G. Prusak W onsignor Luigi Giussani is the head of Comunione e Liberazione (CL), an "ecclesial fraternity" officially recognized by Pope John Paul lI in 1982...
...As he puts it, "What is the meaning of everything...
...But is it really that easy...
...From communion follows liberation...
...Giussani's book is short and its argument correspondingly short on substance...
...Applying this principle, he argues that "the world is a sign...
...According to Giussani, this existential argument is the most realistic, reasonable, and respectful of human longing...
...In a culture where faith is no longer a given of life, where the church is no longer coextensive wiLh society, it is something of a trick, if not self-deception, to be a believer without understanding what one believes...
...CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL U N I ON Yhir(t' years q/'educating Catholic leaders...
Vol. 125 • March 1998 • No. 5
