Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Maritain's anguish In part because of my lifelong admiration for Jacques Maritain, Bernard Doering's "Silent Dissenter" (May 18) floored me! Since today's...
...nor any acknowledgement of the privileged role of the church's magisterium in this discernment of God's revelation in Christ...
...Further, though there is a superficially attractive modesty in putting the Commonweal and America reviews of Jesus Symbol of God on an equal intellectual level (one critical, the other positive), such misplaced "modesty" merely serves to camouflage the depth of the first and the puffery of the second...
...How is one to know whether it has been sought and received...
...It would never occur to us to describe Elizabeth Johnson's review as "puffery...
...And who could have imagined the gentle, otherworldly Maritain anguishing over and probing deeply into the moral implications of contraception long before Humanae vitae— and then reaching conclusions opposite to those Paul VI would adopt...
...The editors reply: Father Robert Imbelli does "not dispute the need for more openness and accountability in the CDF's process...
...But to put matters bluntly: To what extent are the "Rules for Thinking, Judging, and Feeling with the Church" of the Spiritual Exercises truly present and operative in our "postmodern" ecclesial discernment...
...ROBERT P. IMBELLI Newton Centre, Mass...
...Right...
...Or has theapeutic and consumerist individualism trumped all, our nostalgic rhetoric about "solidarity" notwithstanding...
...REV...
...To whom does the policy apply...
...Appeals to honor "subsidiarity" also entail corresponding obligations...
...Commentators like Christopher Lasch and Robert Bellah, with their analysis of American society's "loose connections and porous institutions," can help us gain some cultural perspective on our polarized squabbles and predicament...
...But aren't the CDF's procedures precisely the issue (dare we call them procedural autocracy...
...Is the permission of the relevant superior required prior to publication...
...But I also have a broader ecclesial concern...
...REV...
...For, ultimately, the issue is one of the discernment of spirits...
...So that means he agrees, at least in general, with our editorial's criticism of the CDF's methods...
...Father Imbelli also reads too much into the examples we offered as tentative steps...
...In reaction to the excesses and abuses of the past, are we experiencing a paralysis of authority and an abdication of responsibility in the postconciliar church that, in effect, represents a complete capitulation to the culture of the therapeutic...
...Since today's postmodernists probably consider Maritain an anachronistic conservative, who could have imagined that he was ever in fear of Vatican censure...
...Finally, though I will not dispute the need for more openness and accountability in the CDF's process, I would welcome greater forthrightness from all parties concerned...
...Here the Ignatian tradition could, indeed, provide inestimable assistance...
...If this be "procedural liberalism," bring it on...
...Paul should have sought Maritain's wise counsel and listened to him...
...Commonweal 4 June 15,2001...
...I had always assumed that as a "safe" Thomist, and a Neo-Scholastic, Maritain enjoyed an unassailably secure position of favor and respect in Rome...
...GEORGE P. CARLIN New York, NY Terror strikes So uncharacteristically tender-minded was your recent comment on "1/Affaire Haight" ("Haight on Trial," May 18), that for one terror-stricken moment, I thought I was reading the National Catholic Reporter...
...What is its purpose and what criteria are in place...
...Certainly these are estimable virtues...
...My immediate point: too often we lament Roman intervention, yet fail to exercise due authority and assume appropriate responsibility earlier in the process...
...So one might also inquire: Is there a policy of internal Jesuit review of theological writings...
...Well he does, apparently as long as that accountability doesn't involve "procedural liberalism," a phrase he introduces and sneers at...
...We used the phrases "critical" and "positive," not out of any "superficially attractive modesty," but because it seemed accurate...
...Thus you write: "What is required is dialogue, conversation, criticisms, countercriticisms, prayer, and Christian charity...
...Our citation of the book reviews in Commonweal and America was meant as nothing more than a demonstration that the Catholic community is clearly capable of engaging in a process of discernment that might contribute to the magisterium's discernment...
...Had he, the encyclical would have been different, or might not have been written at all...
...But significantly absent is any mention of discernment, judgment, and truth about dogma...
...Finally, we wonder if, despite his apparent agreement with our criticism of the CDF, Father Imbelli doesn't prefer the shadowy methods of a clerical culture, whether the Jesuits' or the Vatican's, that is simply no longer credible as a means of guarding "God's revelation in Christ...
...It is those procedures, whether in the hands of the CDF, a conclave of bishops, or some other body of doctrinal guardians, that need to become more transparent and fair, precisely to make the church's magisterium more, rather than less, credible...
...Your remarks almost lend credence to the conservative charge of "procedural liberalism": a sort of Wagnerian endless postponement that never achieves resolution...
Vol. 128 • June 2001 • No. 12
