Continuing the conversation: Two versions of history
Egan, Robert J.
and he fulfilled the hope recited daily in the church's morn- forward in different styles and with different emphases by ing prayer that we "live a life of holiness and justice all the Leo XIII,...
...diately distorted by various secular ideologies-individualAmong his many awards were the 1987 Saint Francis de ism, egalitarianism, secularism, and the complacency and Sales Award from the Catholic Press Association, the 1990 self-indulgence of the prosperous middle classes...
...Curiously, this papacy represents a Catholic "conser- This part of the 2000 platform differs only in adding the vatism" of a brand new kind-for at least two reasons...
...Language supporting Roe has been in every Deercion and condemnation in the search for truth-seem ob- mocratic platform since 1976, and support for government scured and even betrayed...
...troduced quotation marks around the words "long" Obviously, there's room for nuance here...
...The quotation marks and "late modern" capitalism has become necessary...
...This council is understood to mark a dramatic turning point, a "revolution" in Catholic theology (Bernard Lonergan...
...In response gitimate place of the natural sciences, historical consciousness to the threats of liberalism a sensitivity to religious and modernity, the offi- experience) were denied cial church, and especial- and repudiated entirely, ly the papacy, courage- while some negative feaously refused compro- tures of modernity (abmise and set itself against solute certainty, "foundathese evils in all their as- tionalism," "positivist" rapects...
...Commonweal 8 September 8, 2000...
...Catholic self-understand- If this is tragedy, the ing...
...Second, it doesn't return to ancient doctrinal forms...
...The only appropriate response to them, then, is amof a somewhat conservative cast, that covered some of the bivalence and discrimination...
...their condolences to the Skillin family...
...One were not in my original text...
...present papacy...
...Those Movable planks Why has so little notice been taken who hold to the second narrative want to "restart" or "re- of the new language that the Democratic convention in Los sume" the renewal, break through the backlash, and push Angeles added to the party's platform plank on abortionforward to a more radical implementation of Vatican II...
...It has become the The second part of the platform's abortion plank urges normative framework for its third phase...
...They believe there's much unfinished work to be carried The topic is of particular importance to voters like myon...
...In this second story, liberalism Global Church" (America, July 15), Archbishop John Quinn's and modernity are understood as movements that, from the The Reform of the Papacy (Herder and Herder/Crossroad), beginning, were morally and intellectually ambiguous...
...In this story, the main event is John Paul II...
...self who find that the Democratic party now treats antiThe implication of this second story is a sad ambivalence abortion Democrats as hardly more worthy of a hearing about the church's current leadership, because so much of the than racists and probably less worthy of a hearing than robpresent papacy, for all its profound accomplishments, seems, ber barons...
...Some ancient opposition to abortion...
...pacy of John Paul II, which re-established balance and reinThe Commonweal staff, its readers, and supporters extend forced Catholic identity...
...Father Garvey writes: who live in the second story would want to argue that after "This makes me appear to be winking at, or dis- Vatican II, and especially after 1989 and the collapse of comagreeing with, the idea that the church has opposed munism, a more penetrating critique of Western cultures abortion from its earliest years...
...Although several and as a messianic people entrusted with a mission...
...I think of the leaders of these efforts were silenced by Pius XII, most it would be good for Commonweal to talk about this history of them lived to see their views vindicated by Vatican II...
...He was a man of legendary acts of per- Vatican H "completed" the work of Vatican I by providing sonal charity and an undaunted advocate for social change...
...There is now, ef- reducing the abortion rate through contraception, family fectively, a papal theology that is made out to be the new An- planning, and education-language also in previous platcient Theology...
...modernity (democratic republicanism, human rights, the leVersion One The first story goes like this...
...funds for abortion in every platform since 1984...
...El Many, in fact, participated in the council as advisers...
...First, claim, based on a worst-case interpretation of June's Supreme it doesn't "return to" any dominant theological tradition- Court decision about a particularly gruesome form of latenot Scholasticism, not Thomism, not Augustinianism...
...a fuller theological understanding of the roles of bishops and Many in Congress and local government will be missing his of lay people...
...of the first story, since these are also central concerns in the thought of John Paul II...
...There will aland "ancient" in reference to the church's long and ways be more than one direction in which to move...
...May Edward shine In this narrative, which has become a touchstone of orforever in God's resplendent presence...
...Maybe this is why Pius IX must be canonized with John XXIII...
...and he fulfilled the hope recited daily in the church's morn- forward in different styles and with different emphases by ing prayer that we "live a life of holiness and justice all the Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII...
...The key, here, is again a judgment O'Malley's "The Millennium and the Papalization of Catholi- made concerning the papacy of Pius IX and the historical cism" (America, April 8), Avery Dulles's "The Papacy for a significance of Vatican II...
...It is a conversation in which many different Nevertheless, a third opportunity to re-examine democ- kinds of expertise will be required and welcomed, but it is racy, critical history, ecumenical dialogue, the principle of re- not an issue that can be left to specialists, since it bears diligious liberty, and the relationship between theology and rectly on how we all understand ourselves as Catholics today spirituality appeared after World War II...
...In addition, I've contain much that is dangerous, but also much that is very recently listened to several talks about Catholic theology, good...
...In this story, the main event is Vatican II...
...But in several places, especially Western Europe timely, pointed letters...
...This term abortion, that "eliminating a woman's right to choose is one reason why, in the first story, the personal theology of is only one justice away...
...John Paul II has become so important...
...Yet other factors and cultural allegiances seem to have excluded this possibility...
...days of our lives...
...And may the seeds thodoxy in some circles, Pius IX and John XXIII are seen as Edward has generously planted here produce a rich and en- two moments in a historical process that culminates in the during harvest...
...A infallible teaching role modern antimodernist explicit and central for Catholicism was born...
...familiar with it...
...in this light, like a counterrevolutionary force, a restora- There are really four parts to the Democratic abortion tionist interlude, and what was most distinctive and au- plank...
...The first reaffirms "the right of every woman to thentic in the documents of Vatican II-the ideals of dia- choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of abillogue, engagement, and collegiality, the repudiation of co- ity to pay...
...To insure this re- tion alism, and centralfusal and reinforce this re- ized authority) were more solve, it was necessary to or less unconsciously abstrengthen the power of sorbed in Catholic thought the papacy and make its and made normative...
...He wrote for a variety of other jour- and North America, these achievements were almost immenals and edited The Commonweal Reader (Harper, 1949...
...ProvidenPax Christi Award from Saint John's University, Collegeville, tially, these trends were checked and then reversed by the paMinnesota, and a number of honorary degrees...
...Since then, we've been arguing-sometimes bitterly-about the church's yeses and the noes to modernity and the liberal heritage...
...language that was actually written by Republicans...
...The present time is seen as a third phase beyond them both...
...These examples helped me realize that in the In this narrative, the popes of the early nineteenth century, last decade rival interpretations of nineteenth- and twentieth- and especially Pius IX, represent a tragedy for Catholicism, a century Catholic history have coalesced and are now com- lost opportunity, in which the emergent, positive values of peting for our allegiance...
...Many popes were in- reign of Pius X (1903-14) volved in this part of the is tragedy replayed as story, but the paradig- farce...
...I know the church's op- might have thought this would provide an opportunity for position to abortion is in fact long and ancient, and it dialogue with those who understand the church in terms was my intention to say so...
...Newman, von Hugel, and Blondel, the papacy embraced a We need to have a public conversation about this history practical anti-intellectualism and witch-hunting strategy that now, which means that many more of us need to become stifled Catholic thought for half a century...
...University in Spokane, Washington...
...11 Version Two The alternative narrative has yet to find Two versions of history I read Commonweal's ed- adequate expression, although many people have been paitorial on Pius IX (August 12), having recently read John tiently working on it...
...They and Garry Wills's Papal Sin (Doubleday...
...Americans are urged "to take personal responsibiliformulations for its sense of the "hierarchy of truths," but ty" to avoid unintended pregnancies, a note added four makes central to its understanding of Catholicism an em- years ago...
...and to solicit some further thoughts about it...
...same period...
...In response to a matic case is the long pa- second wave of opportupacy of Pius IX and the nity to discern the good decrees of Vatican I. These in modernity, following policies were then carried the leads of people like Commonweal 7 September 8, 2000 phasis on the papacy that originated only in the first half of Correction In John Garvey's August 11 col- the nineteenth century (what O'Malley means by the "paumn on Garry Wills's Papal Sin, an editing error in- palization of Catholicism...
...This second narrative rests on a view of modernity and lib- Robert J. Egan, S.J., teaches theology and spirituality at Gonzaga eralism that distinguishes positive from negative aspects...
Vol. 127 • September 2000 • No. 15
