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An Overview of Catholic Theology
By John J. Carey

"Perhaps an analysis of trends in Roman Catholic theology serves best to remind us that increasingly the problems of ecclesiology, humanness, and meaning transcend Protestant-Catholic categories, and that in reflecting upon these matters we have much to learn from our Roman Catholic counterparts."

IT has been several years now since Robert McAfee Brown, in The Ecumenical Revolution, and George Lindbeck, in The Future of Roman Catholic Theology, charted for Protestant readers some of the new directions emerging in Roman Catholic theology since Vatican II. Both Brown and Lindbeck were observers at Vatican II and shared in the excitement and euphoria as old molds of Roman Catholic style and thought were broken. In The Ecumenical Revolution, Brown attempted to show what the possibilities might be for the ecumenical movement vis-à-vis the "new" Catholicism; Lindbeck, in turn, analyzed the documents of the Council to detect their theological intent and to see in what ways the Council brought Roman Catholicism and mainline Protestantism (especially Lutheranism) closer together.

It is obvious that in recent years Protestant and Roman Catholic theology has drawn much closer together. Dialogue between Roman Catholic theologians and theologians of various Protestant traditions has flourished, and the flow of scholars back and forth in colleges, universities, and seminaries has served to wash away earlier parochial boundaries. Protestants have taken a particular interest in the reform movement in the Catholic Church, a movement which questions traditional models of theological investigation as well as patterns of church life and authority. Ecumenically-minded Protestants

John J. Carey is Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Religion at Florida State University. He has written extensively on Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, and this article grows out of a summer of study and research at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St. John's Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minn.

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were justifiably concerned, therefore, when James Hitchcock, in his provocative book, The Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), argued that the progressive element which triumphed at Vatican II had interjected confusion, apprehension, and suspicion into the Church, and called for a recovery of the spirituality and absolutism which were major characteristics of pre-Vatican II Catholicism.

It is not my intention here to do a critical analysis of Hitchcock's book, although it is marked by a number of lacunae and theological deficiencies. I cite his work only to indicate that there are some significant objections within the Catholic ranks to the "new" Catholicism, and because serious probing of his work illumines, within Catholicism, a number of theological currents and controversies of which most Protestants are unaware. Using ecclesiology as a central theme, I believe that one can discern four distinct categories within Roman Catholic theology today: (a) thinkers who are radical theologically and radical ecclesiastically; (b) thinkers who are radical theologically and moderate ecclesiastically; (c) thinks who are liberal theologically and moderate ecclesiastically; and (d) thinkers who are conservative theologically and conservative ecclesiastically. I shall not attempt in this article to deal with thinkers who generally reflect the official Vatican stance on Catholic matters.

The assignment of thinkers into these categories is, of course, somewhat arbitrary, and cannot include commentary on all of the persons and assumptions which are intrinsic to each category. There are, moreover, some aspects of contemporary Catholic life and thought which simply do not fit into these categories (monastic renewal and pentecostalism, for example). This typology does enable us to distinguish between some major alternatives, however, and we now turn to the first category.

I

Thinkers who are radical theologically and radical ecclesiastically. Persons in this category are those generally regarded as the Catholic "left" and on the whole are the theologians anathematized by Hitchcock. This would include Rosemary Ruether, Michael Novak, Daniel Callahan, Charles Davis, Daniel Berrigan, Mary Daly, Eugene Bianchi, William DuBay and Robert Hoyt in America; Terry Eagleton, Brian Wicker and the Slant group in England; Ivan Illich in Mexico; and Ernesto Balducci in Italy.¹ It is also

¹ Some of the representative works of these persons would include Rosemary Ruether's The Church Against Itself (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967) and The Radical Kingdom (New York. Harper and Row, 1970); Novak's The Open Church (New York: Macmillan, 1964), Belief and Unbelief (New York: Macmillan, 1965), A Theology for Radical Politics (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), The Experience of Nothingness (New York: Harper and

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in this category that one must place numerous priests in Latin America (such as Rene Garcia and the Golcanda group in Colombia) who have opted for the praxis rather than the theory of revolutionary theology. Among persons of this group one finds a general interest in the Roman Catholic tradition but a broader and more fundamental interest in problems of politics, social change, secularization, human meaning, the pluralistic framework of modem culture, and the waves of consciousness influencing modern culture (e.g., black power, the new feminism, and ethnicity). Their strongest criticisms of Roman Catholicism tend to focus on the isolation of its intellectual tradition, the alignment of its bishops with the political right, and the insensitivity of its authoritarian structures to people in need (e.g., birth control, abortion and divorce positions).

Although many of the persons in this category have invested much in the effort to democratize and liberalize the church, one can detect in them some disillusionment in recent years, and on the whole they are not really interested in Roman Catholic parochial matters. Both Dan Berrigan and Charles Davis have admitted publicly that the structural problems of the Roman Catholic Church are no longer matters of their concern. Novak, after spending a good bit of time in criticism of the mood and style of Catholic traditional ecclesiology, has come to the point where he understands the Roman Catholic tradition as a total cultural expression of the experiences and styles of people born into that tradition; Catholicism for him means an awareness of the presence of God, a joy in tasting reality, the refusal to flinsh from life, and "a sense of peoplehood . . . ; a vivid appetite for thick steaks, good cigars and beautiful men and women."² Dan Callahan no longer writes on theological matters as be did when associated with Commonweal; Illich is no longer in good standing with the Vatican or with his ecclesiastical superiors in Mexico because of his radical position on the

Row, 1971) and Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove (New York: Harper and Row, 1971); Callahan's The Mind of the Catholic Layman (New York: Scribners, 1963); Davis' A Question of Conscience (New York: Harper and Row, 1967) and Christ and the World Religions (London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1970); Daniel Berrigan's The Geography of Faith (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971); DuBay's The Human Church (Garden City, N. J.: Doubleday, 1966); Eagleton's The New Left Church (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), The Slant Manifesto (London: Sheed and Ward, 1966); Illich's The Church, Change and Development (Chicago: Urban Center Training Press, 1970). None of Balducci's work has been translated into English, but an introduction to his thought and style can be found in Lawrence Cunningham's "Theology Italian Style" Commonweal, March 24, 1972 pp. 64-65. All of the above listed theologians have contributed to periodical literature and have written other books as well; my intent: here is simply to suggest the works which bear most directly on a radical ecclesiology.
² See Novak's article "Where Did All the Spirit Go?," Commonweal, September 5, 1969, pp. 540-42. This same theme is developed in the various essays of Novak's collected in All The Catholic People (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971).

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church's task in Latin America, and most of the Slant group in England have gravitated towards other areas of interest.

The radical theology implicit in this group of thinkers stems from (a) their repudiation of the Fragestellung of traditional Catholic theology; (b) their distrust of the integrity of the Church's official leadership; and (c) their own conviction that the changing cultural climate requires new starting points and perspectives for religious reflection.³ In short, a primarily humanistic interest informs their work. Rosemary Ruether has perhaps summarized much of the spirit of this group when she observed that "radical Christianity . . . is not interested in ideas of Christ or the Kingdom except as an expression of man. It is not interested in the church, community, or eucharist except as an expression of man."⁴

Catholic theologians who are more traditional in orientation frequently charge that thinkers of this first category are iconoclastic and unsystematic in their approach to theology. It is true that much of the writing of this group is done through essays and articles, but one must note that two of the most prolific writers in this category have demonstrated their ability to do sustained and careful theological analysis. Rosemary Ruether is formally trained in patristics and historical theology, and her competence in these areas has given her recognition as a formidable person even in more traditional circles. Methodologically, she has shown a keen interest in the radical eschatology of the New Testament (The Church Against Itself) and in the theme of messianism as a clue to social change (The Radical Kingdom). These starting points, of course, are sharply different from those of traditional Roman Catholic theology, and it is not surprising to find her radical in ecclesiology as well as in theology.

Michael Novak has different interests than Ruether but is equally radical in terms of Catholic tradition. He has proposed a methodology for the study of religion which is both personal and imaginative, allowing for the creative interpretation of experience (Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove). He wants to work on theological problems from the vantage point of politics and ethics, not from metaphysics or epistemology (both of which have deeply influenced traditional Catholic methodology). Novak's methodology has been controversial, even in "progressive" Catholic circles,

³ See, for example, Anselm Atkins' devastating review of Henri de Lubac's The Mystery of the Supernatural in Commonweal, May 3, 1968, pp. 211-213; and Novak's sharp criticisms of Leslie Dewart's much-praised The Future of Belief in Commonweal, February 3, 1967, pp. 485-488. Although Novak recognizes Dewart's desire to raise some critical questions of Thomism and to postulate an alternative epistemology, Novak feels that this whole endeavor is a "rear guard" action. For Novak's appraisal of the changing cultural context and its implications for theology, see his article "The New Relativism in American Theology" in Donald R. Cutler, ed., The Religious Situation, 1968 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), pp. 197-231.
⁴ "A New Church?," Commonweal, Vol. XC, No. 3 (April 4, 1969), p. 66.

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but most Protestants find his work stimulating and certainly akin to Protestants who are interested in political theology.

It is worth noting that a number of these radical theologians are laymen or laywomen (Ruether, Novak, Callahan, Mary Daly, Robert Hoyt) and several others have left the priesthood (Davis, Illich, Eugene Bianchi). This simply means that they are, for the most part, free from ecclesiastical harassment, and also that their range of academic influence is other than in the seminaries and centers of "official" Catholicism. Frequent contributions by these authors are found in Commonweal, Cross Currents, and The National Catholic Reporter, which tend to be the journals most critical of Roman Catholic traditionalism.

The orbit of Catholic radicalism is, of course, much broader than I have indicated in citing the above-mentioned authors. Certainly many Catholic radicals are not writing theologians; the broader community is found among younger priests in campus ministry work, among priests and ex-priests who are doing educational work and/or social work, and among many former members of men's and women's religious orders who have left their communities to find new roles in secular occupations. Protestant radicals (and liberals) find them to be kindred spirits, perhaps bearing deeper scars than Protestants but with the same nexus of values and political orientations. The underground church provides a loose sort of community for some Catholics of this persuasion; some retain ties (albeit strained) with the institutional church; and others, like their Protestant kindred, simply no longer find the worship or fellowship of the Church a source of sustenance.

What I am suggesting here is that the ecclesiology of this first group is not uniform or worked out in any formal way. This group clearly rejects the traditional lines of ecclesiastical authority and generally wants a more democratic, lay-influenced Church; there is more respect for charisma than for office. Hitchcock is right when be says these theologians have rejected the conventional patterns of Roman Catholic piety and spirituality, but they do it in the search for a deeper awareness of humanity and a serious wrestling with the problems of contemporary culture.

One important factor to note in this first category of Catholic thinkers is the influence that Thomas Merton bad on many of them. Many of these tinkers went on retreats with Merton at Gethsemane Monastery in Kentucky and were inspired both politically and theologically by Merton's style of 'commitment spirituality." Merton, therefore, looms as a larger influence on America Catholic radicals than has generally been recognized.

I have dealt with this category of "radical-theologically and radical-ecclesiastically" first because it includes the names and out-

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looks which are most apt to be familiar to liberal Protestants. Its spokesmen are not really doing "Catholic" theology but are bringing their Catholic backgrounds and perspectives to the broader theological issues of the day. There are, however, some other important stances influencing the shape of contemporary Roman Catholic theology, and it is to these that we now turn.

II

Thinkers who are radical theologically and moderate ecclesiastically. Persons in this category often tend to intertwine and hence to be confused with thinkers of the first category, but there are some important differences. They share the conviction that Roman Catholic theology must find new forms and methodologies, but on the whole they are more involved in, and optimistic about, the structures of the Church. Some representative persons in this category would include Teilhard de Chardin; Gregory Baum, Leslie Dewart and Harry McSorley in Canada; Johannes Metz in Europe; John McKenzie, Gabriel Moran, Leonard Swidler and Richard McBrien in America; and, on the Latin American scene, Helder Camera of Brazil.⁵ Journals generally representative of this stance would include the Jesuit weekly America and the Chicago-published monthly The Critic, English journals such as The Tablet, New Blackfriars, and Month, and such ecumenically-oriented journals as The Ecumenist and Unitas.

Teilhard, of course, is the classic example of how one can develop a radical theology while still remaining in the busom of the church. His attempt to do theology from a new vision, and to refocus both the sources and language of theology, has been an impetus to creative thought in Catholic circles, even to thinkers who have not agreed with his assumptions or conclusions. One is tempted to say about Teilhard what has often been said about Buber, namely that be has had his greatest impact outside of his own tradition; how-

⁵ Major works of this group of authors would include Baum's The Credibility of the Church Today (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), Faith and Doctrine (Paramus, N. J.: Newman Press, 1969) and Man Becoming (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970); Dewart's The Future of Belief (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), The Foundations of Belief (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969) and Religion, Language and Truth (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970); Metz's Faith and the World of Politics (New York: Paulist Press, 1968) and Perspectives of a Political Ecclesiology (New York: Herder, 1971); McKenzie's The Roman Catholic Church (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1969); McBrien's Do We Need the Church? (New York: Harper and Row, 1969) and Church: The Continuing Quest (Paramus, N. J.: Newman Press, 1970); and Camera's Revolution through Peace (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). Camera is not a professional theologian but a bishop in Brazil; he has emerged as a leading spokesman for Latin American Catholics who are influenced by Marxist thought but who shy away from the guerrilla tactics of more radical groups. Moran's interests can be seen in his book The New Community (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), and of Swidler's several books perhaps his Freedom in the Church (Dayton, Ohio: Pflaum Press, 1969) is most germane to this discussion.

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ever, a review of Roman Catholic journals reveals an on-going interest in Teilhard's work, and interpretive works continue to be published which show Teilhard's relevance for Catholic theology.⁶

The other thinkers I have put in this category have all attempted to alter or deepen the traditional categories of Roman Catholic theology. Gregory Baum has been one of the best-known and ecumenically-minded Catholic theologians in North America; in an attempt to escape the parochial confines of traditional Roman Catholicism, be has argued that the basic shift in Roman Catholic doctrine since Vatican II has been to emphasize that the gospel is concerned not just with Christians and the church but with what is happening to people everywhere. There is, therefore, a "universal" dimension to faith, and Christians are called upon to develop a new "world" consciousness.⁷ In the development of his apologetics, Baum has taken his cue from Maurice Blondel, the noted French philosopher whose work was influential in the earlier days of the modernist controversy. This world consciousness means that Roman Catholics (indeed, all Christians) can face the future unafraid, that there will inevitably be a development of doctrine and even new forms for the church's life and faith, but these should be welcomed as the fruits of God's Spirit.⁸ Dialogue, openness, ecumenicity are major values for Baum, and although his theological endeavors may cause tremors at the Vatican, his irenic style and his interest in church life make him an ecclesiastical moderate.

Leslie Dewart, who is a colleague of Baum's at the University of Toronto, can be considered a theological radical because of sharp antagonism to Thomism and its philosophical definitions of reality and truth. Dewart is actually more of a philosopher than a theologian and should be understood as one who is primarily interested in the philosophical foundations of theology. The real Catholic crisis of our day, he has argued, does not concern matters of papal authority, celibacy, revisions of the liturgy, or other such expressions of any problems of this sort; rather, the religious life relates to "the epistemological, metaphysical and other philosophical questions which underlie theological and religious disputes."⁹ Dewart maintains that much of what passes for theological "renewal" in Roman Catholic circles is an attempt not only to preserve the substance of

⁶ Among internationally known Roman Catholic theologians Henri De Lubac has shown the greatest interest in interpreting and extending Teilbard's thought; see his Teilhard: The Man and His Meaning (New York: Hawthorne, 1965) and The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin (New York: Desclee, 1967).
⁷ This is developed in The Credibility of the Church Today and in Faith and Doctrine, pp. 1-21.
⁸ Baum writes that because of her belief in on-going tradition and the Spirit, "the Catholic Church is open to the future…. The Church need not be tied to her past doctrinal definitions; she is able to re-interpret her ancient teaching in the light of God's on-going self-communication in his word, taking place in her now" (Faith and Doctrine, pp. 97-98).
⁹ Religion, Language and Truth, p. 19.

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the traditional faith but also the traditional cultural form of that faith; in his various works he has attempted to show both the inadequacy of Thomism and of "Transcendental Thomism"¹⁰ for the modern world view with its scientific orientation and cultural pluralism. Not only must dogma be de-Hellenized, but the Church must become more sophisticated in its understanding of language, reality and truth. Too much of Catholic thought has regarded language as being a medium of truth, or as corresponding to an objective reality apart from man, whereas Dewart insists that language does not tell us what reality is like but only crystallizes our "conscious, purposive self-relation to it."¹¹

I consider Dewart an ecclesiastical moderate even though basically he has not been interested in ecclesiology. He calls for a renewal of language and doctrine in order that man's evolving awareness of God might be more fully and adequately expressed. He does not seem to have basic quarrels with the structure of the church, although be would like to see the substance of its message recast.

Space does not permit me to develop and document the kind of theological radicalism intrinsic to the work of Johannes Metz, John McKenzie, and Helder Camera. Suffice it to say here that Metz is probably the leading European Catholic exponent of political theology; and McKenzie, who has earned most of his theological credentials as a biblical scholar, has recently been moving on broader theological fronts and is well known in Roman Catholic circles for his candid (and often acerb) observations about Roman Catholic dogmas and assumptions.¹² I do, however, want to comment briefly upon the general stance of Richard McBrien who is emerging as one of America's leading ecclesiologists. McBrien wrote Ms doctoral dissertation at the Gregorian University in Rome on John Robinson's concept of the Church, and he generally takes a Robinsonian-type stance towards the traditionalism of the Roman Catholic Church. He compares the three epochs of pre-Vatican II,

¹⁰ "Transcendental Thomism" refers to a movement in Roman Catholic theology from roughly 1930-1960 of scholars who were trying to work creatively within a Thomistic framework. It includes the work of persons such as Joseph Marechal, Andre Marc, Johannes Lotz, Karl Rahner, Emerich Coreth and Bernard Lonergan. The term "Trancendental Thomism" was applied to this movement to distinguish it from the Neo-Thomism of Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson. The fullest statement of Dewart's reservations about this approach to theology is found in his appended essay "On Transcendental Thomism" in The Foundations of Belief, pp. 499-522.
¹¹ The dispute over language and epistemology continues to divide Dewart and Bernard Lonergan; Dewart summarizes his reservations about Lonergan in his appended essay "Philosophy and the Limits of Renewal" in Religion, Language and Truth, pp. 145-169.
¹² In his review of Hans Küng's Infallible? An Inquiry, for example, McKenzie observes that concerning the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, "I have not the slightest idea of what either dogma means, and therefore they create no problem for me" (The National Catholic Reporter, March 26, 1971, p. 12-A).

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Vatican II, and post-Vatican II with the Ptolemaic, Copernican, and Einsteinian eras of cosmology, and argues that whereas Vatican II was a necessary event to break the old "Ptolemaic" mentality of the Church, even the thinking of Vatican II must now yield to the newer awareness of men in an ecumenical and pluralistic time. Part of the real quandary of the Roman Catholic Church, in fact, is that

The Council was not nearly radical enough . . . . . It did not really confront the question of the church's very existence. It did not call into question some of its traditional assumptions: Is the church the ordinary means of salvation? Is it the center and goal of all history? Are all men in fact called to membership in this community? What, indeed, is its mission?¹³

More than most Roman Catholic theologians (at least in America) McBrien shows an awareness of, and debts to, leading European theologians (particularly Moltmann, Pannenberg, and Robinson). He has been strongly influenced by the eschatology of the theology-of-hope school. Although he is deeply committed to the life and work of the church, he holds that modern society does not need the "Ptolemaic" church, but only a post-Copernican and post-Einsteinian church that can be a servant church, speaking for, and serving, the social, political, economic and cultural outcasts.¹⁴

In many ways the thinkers in this category are just as "radical" as those whom I have placed in the first category; the difference lies essentially in their more moderate ecclesiology. It is precisely this group of thinkers, however, who are not dealt with in Hitchcock's Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism. "Radical" Catholicism is a more diverse and theologically sophisticated phenomenon than it would appear from Hitchcock's description of it, and certainly more substantial in its depths and methods. Although Dewart and McKenzie are distinctly Roman Catholic in their starting points and ranges of interest, certainly Baum, Metz and McBrien have shown basic interests in a broad range of problems common to both Protestants and Catholics and can be read with profit by Protestant scholars. Let us now consider a third position in contemporary Roman Catholic theology, a position which might be called the Catholic "middle."

III

Thinkers who are liberal theologically and moderate ecclesiastically. There is, of course, some shading between this group and the second category, but on the whole this group is more interested

¹³ Do We Need the Church?, pp. 29-30.
¹⁴ Ibid., pp. 217-218, 228-229.

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in classical Roman Catholic dogmatic problems and in the place of tradition in Roman Catholic thought. The spirit of this group is reflected in the language and temper of The Dutch Catechism. Here I would place the Dutch Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx and a host of his lesser-known colleagues in Holland; Hans Küng in Germany; Yves Congar in France; and Avery Dulles in America.¹⁵ Gustave Thils and Roger Aubert of Louvain share the general orientation of this group, along with a sizable number of, but less well-known, American and German theologians. Journals representative of this orientation would include Concilium (published in Holland in numerous language editions), Continuum and Theological Studies in America, the Swiss Orienterung, the Heythrop journal in England, the Tübingen Teleologische Quartalschrift, and The Irish Theological Quarterly.

It may strike some readers as odd that I have placed perhaps the two best-known, influential and controversial Roman Catholic theologians in the world (Schillebeeckx and Küng) in this category. I have done so primarily because they are dogmatic theologians, and in spite of calling for some reassessments of traditional positions in Roman Catholic thought they continue to find the loci of theological issues within the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. Schillebeeckx was a peritus to the Dutch bishops at Vatican II, just as Küng was to the German bishops; they are conservative enough about the mood of the Church to know what is possible and what is impossible in terms of effecting change. I would maintain, in fact, that it is precisely because of their "conservatism" in method and perspective that they have been as influential and as controversial as they have in recent Roman Catholic theology. Their books are read and apparently taken seriously in Rome, whereas much of the writing of our earlier two categories is dismissed by Rome as being simply antiecclesiastical or as "too progressive."

In his recent work, Schillebeeckx has pressed the question of what hermeneutics means for the Catholic tradition, and has shown a familiarity with the Protestant discussion of this problem on the continent. The real issue for the Roman Catholic is bow to understand the past-that is, how to assimilate the deepest meaning of the tradition for the present. Scbillebeeckx argues that the past always has to be interpreted in light of the present, and that "the correctness of these interpretations cannot be tested simply by set

¹⁵ Representative works of these men would include Schillebeeckx's God the Future of Man (London: Sheed and Ward, 1969); Küng's The Church (London: Burns and Oates, 1967), Truthfulness: The Future of the Church (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968) and Infallible? An Inquiry (New York: Doubleday, 1971); Congar's Tradition and Traditions (New York: Macmillan, 1967) and Ecumenism and the Future of the Church (Chicago: Priory Press, 1967); Dulles' The Dimensions of the Church (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1967) and Revelation Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969).

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ting earlier formulae of faith against them, since these too always require interpretation and have still to be made true."¹⁶ What Schillebeeckx is doing, of course, is laying the foundation for an approach to the development of dogma, wherein historical and cultural factors can be assessed when trying to understand the theological assertions of councils and popes. This hardly seems weighty to Protestants, but it has to be understood in the light of the great stress on tradition found in Roman Catholic theology--a stress that had major consequences for Pius XII and for Paul VI and which has led such recent thinkers as Gustave Weigel and George Tavard to stand against much Protestant theology on the grounds of the "normative" decrees of earlier church councils. Once Catholic thought is allowed to have some freedom in its understanding of the past, it can be more open to the future.

Schillebeeckx has also raised the issue of the importance of today be is a progressive, definitely a force for change, but working dialogue in the church (versus the one-way communication which assumes that truth is already known and simply needs to be passed on) and of the limited role of the magisterium in a secularized and pluralistic world.¹⁷ In a broad spectrum of Roman Catholic thought within the middle matrix of Catholic theology.

Küng needs no introduction to American readers, and I have previously explored the issues raised by his recent book on infallibility.¹⁸ Küng is probably the most widely read Catholic theologian in American Protestant circles, and his repeated calls to liberalize the Roman Catholic Church add a certain pungency to Karl Rahner's initial response to Infallible? An Inquiry that Küng had adopted the views of a "liberal Protestant." What I am concerned to point out here, however, is that it is Küng's theological method and interests in ecclesiology which justify our placing him in this third category. More than most Roman Catholic theologians, Küng is a biblical theologian. He stands against much of Roman Catholic dogma and fideism on the grounds that it cannot be justified by Scripture. He is a careful exegete and thorough researcher, and his works are usually characterized by the meticulous style of German theological scholarship. With the notable exception of his major work on christology,¹⁹ almost all of his interests in the past decade have focused on ecclesiology.

It is instructive to see bow representatives of our two other theological categories view Küng's endeavors. Novak, in reviewing Küng's major work The Church, called Küng a "rear guard theo-

¹⁶ God the Future of Man, p. 43.
¹⁷ See his essays "The Church as the Sacrament of Dialogue" and "Church, Magisterium and Politics" in ibid., pp. 117-166.
^{18 "}Infallibility Revisited," Theology Today, Vol. XXVIII, No. 4 (January, 1972), pp. 426-438.
¹⁹ Menschwerdung Gottes (Freiburg: Herder, 1970).

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logian" because of his continued interest in church structures and problems .²⁰ Baum has faulted Küng for being too biblical and restricted in his vision of the church,²¹ and McBrien feels than Küng's ecclesiology "is too narrowly circumscribed by Barthian biblicism and Lutheran separatism."²² The issue comes down to what is the best starting point for Roman Catholic theology today and what should be the sources for theological reflection. Our first category would opt for more emphasis on culture, secularization and concern for things human before things Christian; the second category would certainly opt for new theological methodologies, reappraising the significance of symbols, liturgy and ministry, and being open to entirely new forms of life and thought. Küng, by contrast, is traditional in method (historical-critical) and biblical in language and vision. It is for these reasons that we have to see Küng as occupying a middle ground in contemporary Roman Catholic theology, despite his bête noire image among Catholic conservatives.

Without considering the work of Avery Dulles in depth, we might note that he is progressively-oriented and ecumenically-minded. He has seen the inadequacies of the claims of Roman Catholic exclusivism, and accepts the Vatican II affirmation of the grace of God being operative in all of the manifestations of the Christian church. He has been a part of the Vatican II-inspired new awareness of Catholic theology, and has made distinctive contributions towards ecumenical dialogue in America.²³

The liturgical traditions of Protestantism (Anglican and Lutheran) which have been engaged in Protestant-Catholic dialogues are usually in conversations with representatives of this shade of the Catholic middle. Creeds, confessions, sacraments, and intercommunion are mutually important concerns for these groups, and much important preliminary spadework has been done by them to overcome some of the historic divisions of Christendom.²⁴ Representatives of our first two categories would seldom be included in such discussions, however, and find their ecumenical interests best expressed through personal relationships and engagement in professional societies.

²⁰ New York Times Book Review (May 5, 1968), p. 16.
²¹ See Baum's article, "Truth in the Church-Küng, Rahner, and Beyond," The Ecumenist, March-April 1971 pp 33-48 This article is reprinted in The Infallibility Debate, ed. by John J. Kirvan (Paramus, N. J.: The Paulist Press, 1971), pp. 1-33.
²² Church: The Continuing Quest, p58.
²³ A good recent example of Dulles' stance is found in his article "The Church, the Churches, and the Catholic Church," Theological Studies, Vol. 33, No.. 2 (June, 1972), pp. 199-234.
²⁴ This is the stream of Roman Catholic theology with which George Lindbeck is most familiar and comfortable, and as helpful as his analyses of Roman Catholic theology have been, they are definitely oriented to this middle position in Catholic thought. See Lindbeck's The Future of Roman Catholic Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), passim.

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We now come to our final category, one that is more difficult for Protestants to understand and be engaged with since it preserves many of the assumptions of pre-Vatican II Catholic thought.

IV

Thinkers who are conservative theologically and conservative ecclesiastically. Persons in this group form the fashionable part of the Catholic right. They deserve consideration because they were major forces for theological renewal prior to Vatican II and their work shows considerable creativity even within conventional Catholic parameters. The most prominent representatives are Karl Rahner, Jean Danielou, Henri de Lubac, Michael Schmaus, and Bernard Lonergan.²⁵ It is among these men that one finds the creative residue of Thomism, and particular interest in things Catholic. The shadow of this group extends into the canonists, liturgists, and mariologists of modern Catholicism, and to the extent that bishops stay abreast of theological matters they seem to be informed by thinkers of this category. It is from within this group that one finds most of the contributors to the standard reference works on contemporary Catholicism, such as The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Sacramentum Mundi, the Catholic Theological Dictionary and the encyclopedia of biblical theology entitled Sacramentum Verbi. Journals representative of this outlook include Gregorianum (published by the Gregorian University in Rome), The Thomist and The American Ecclesiastical Review, the Revue Thomiste in France and Civilta Catholica in Italy.

As influential as these men have been in Roman Catholic theology, there is a distinct generation gap between them and a younger group of Catholic theologians. Rahner, Danielou, de Lubac, and Schmaus stand to a new generation of Catholics much as Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, Tillich, and Bultmann stand to contemporary Protestantism. Rahner, of course, was long regarded as one of the major and creative theologians of modern Catholicism; his prolific writing and his editing of dictionaries, reference works, and other scholarly tomes gave him a place of eminence in the Roman Catholic theological community. Danielou and de Lubac were a part of the French tradition which tried to chart new directions within

²⁵ Some representative works by thinkers of this group are Rahner's The Church After the Council (New York: Herder, 1966), Belief Today (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967) and Obedience and the Church (Washington: Corpus Books, 1968); Danielou's God's Life in Us (Denville, N. J.: Dimension Books, 1969); Historical Theology (London: Penguin Books, 1969 and The Faith Eternal and the Man of Today (Chicago: Franciscan Press, 1970); de Lubac's The Splendor of the Church (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956) The Mystery of the Supernatural (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967) and The Church: Paradox and Mystery (Staten Island, N. Y.: Alba House, 1969), and Schmaus' multi-volume Katholische Dogmatik (Munchen: Max Hueber Verlag, 1948-60).

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Thomism and which was officially condemned by Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis in 1950.²⁶ Schmaus served as Professor of Dogmatic Theology for over twenty years at Munich and authored the frequently cited Katholische Dogmatik, which be has recently revised in light of Vatican II.²⁷

Problems of tradition, authority and spirituality loom large for thinkers in this category, and it is not surprising that the postVatican II ferment in the Church has pushed all of them towards a conservative ecclesiology. Rahner led a group of European theologians in support of Rome against the Dutch bishops in the spring of 1970, and be has led the theological attack against Küng in the infallibility debate. Although Rahner was heralded a number of years ago for his method which attempted to form a "theological anthropology" grounded in man's capacity for transcendence,²⁸ it has become clear that Rahner has become more conservative as be has grown older. (It might be fairer to say that Rahner, having pushed for theological aggiornamento for so many years, has watched the revolution move beyond him and now finds himself on its conservative edge.) There is also a certain irony that Danielou, who has been appointed a cardinal, has recently been the leading spokesman for papal authority in the Synod of Bishops against the more democratic position of Cardinal Suenens of Belgium. De Lubac, who has taken a major interest in the theology of Teilhard, nevertheless continues to work on Thomistic themes and problems.

The one major thinker in this category who cannot be said to be a spokesman for an earlier generation, but who is alive and well and living in Toronto, is Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan has emerged out of a long involvement with Thomism to become one of the most influential philosophical theologians in the Roman Catholic tradition. Lonergan for many years divided his time between Toronto and the Gregorian University in Rome; in Catholic circles he gained an international reputation both for his Thomistic studies and for his later attempts to explore epistemology as the prolegmmena to constructive theology. He has been singularly honored by having a special issue of the prestigious journal Continuum

²⁶ A discussion of this attempt to shape a "new" theology is found in T. M. Schoof's A Survey of Catholic Theology, 1800-1970 (Glen Rock, N. J.: Paulist Newman Press, 1970), pp. 194-221.
²⁷ See Schmaus' Dogma, Vol. 1: God in Revelation, Vol. 2: God and Creation; and Vol. 3: God and His Christ (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968).
²⁸ Much of Rahner's early work was controversial because methodologically he wanted to start with human experience and man's capacity for knowledge of the Divine (it is in this way that man can transcend the limitations of his own finitude, hence the term "transcendental" method). Good discussions of Rahner's method (and its intrinsic conservative ecclesiology) can be found in Louis Roberts, The Achievement of Karl Rahner (New York: Herder, 1967) and in Paul Surlis, "Rahner and Lonergan on Method in Theology," The Irish Theological Quarterly, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 3 (July, 1971), pp. 187-201.

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devoted to his thought,²⁹ by having an international theological congress convened at St. Leo's College in Florida in the spring of 1970 to consider implications of his thought,³⁰ and by being appointed to the Stillman Chair of Roman Catholic Studies at Harvard for the 1971-1972 academic year. Students of Lonergan hold important positions in Roman Catholic seminaries and universities, as well as in some private and state universities, so his influence is extensive. The publication in the spring of 1972 of his long-awaited magnum opus, Method in Theology (New York: Herder), is bound to bring his work to a wider range of Protestant scholars.

It is well to note initially that Lonergan is difficult to read, and even scholars well versed in his thought tend to qualify their remarks with such phrases as "If I understand him rightly . . . " and "I do not claim to have understood him." There is the further complication (shades of Heidegger!) of the shift in Lonergan's interests which prompt interpreters to speak of the "early Lonergan" and the "later Lonergan," the basic transition being Lonergan's decreasing interest in Thomism and his increasing interest in the problems of epistemology and theological method.³¹ In his recent endeavors Lonergan is seeking to establish a "foundational" theology within which one can specify eight "functional specialties," divided into two broad categories. The first category, called "mediating" theology, deals with the tasks of inquiry and evaluation: research, interpretation, historical analysis, and the dialectical evaluation of any given position. These four tasks represent the probing and reflection of theologians upon the phenomenon of man's conversion; they roughly parallel the elements of experience, understanding, judgment, and deliberation in human consciousness. The second phase of theology can be called "mediated," and it is comprised of the tasks of probing philosophical foundations; the framing of doctrines by the religious community (which in effect distills the truth from various personal experiences and keeps it from being subjectivized); the development of systematics, and the task of communications (i.e., church preaching and teaching) .³²

²⁹ "Spirit as Inquiry: Studies in Honor of Bernard Lonergan," Continuum, Vol. H, No. 3, Autumn, 1964.
³⁰ The first of three projected volumes of papers from the Lonergan Congress has been published by Philip McShane, ed., Foundations of Theology (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, Ltd., 1971). These papers, along with David Tracy's The Achievement of Bernard Lonergan (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), serve as the best introduction to Lonergan's thought.
³¹ It is not necessary here to cite Lonergan's early Thomistic publications, but two important works which show Lonergan's interest in epistemology are Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London: Longman Green and Co., 1957; revised edition, 1958) and Collection (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967). Some of the lines of his larger Method in Theology were outlined in his article "Functional Specialties in Theology," Gregorianum, Vol. 50 (1969), pp. 485-504.
³² The various components of Lonergan's method are treated in more detail by David Tracy, op. cit., pp. 239-269, and in his article "Lonergan's Founda-

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It is obvious that Lonergan wants to clarify just what theologians are doing when they do theology, for be feels that unless the intent and purpose of the theological task are clear the conclusions will be confused and ambiguous. Lonergan wishes to establish a method for theology that is similar to the method of the natural sciences. Whether be can definitely establish both the need and appropriateness of such an undertaking remains to be seen, but here Karl Rahner's caveat merits repeating; Lonergan's method is so general that it fits every science, and in fact is simply a deliniation of how every "Ideology" of every society is brought to its own full self-understanding.³³

Although Lonergan has not been primarily interested in ecclesiology, it is clear that he is quite conservative regarding the church's divine origin, the role of the Magisterium, the papal right to issue infallible decrees, and the resting of theology upon ecclesiastical definitions and declarations rather than the Bible.³⁴ Charles Davis has pointed out. bow Lonergan's theology "reflects the dogmatic mentality of the Roman Catholic Church, which needs and finds expression in the doctrine of infallibility," and maintains that Lonergan presupposes rather than argues for the doctrine.³⁵ Even the "later" Lonergan is rooted in scholasticism, inasmuch as his search for an adequate methodology is an attempt to affirm absolute and unchanging truth within the context of a changing contemporary culture.

V

This analysis of contemporary Roman Catholic theology has covered a lot of ground, and has dealt with more peaks than total terrain. Each category has more representatives and nuances than I could deal with in this limited space; I am particularly aware that if one wanted to consider some streams of Italian and Vatican of language, truth, and culture. If Roman Catholic theology is no theologies it would be possible to delineate a fifth category of "reactionary theology," but that would hardly be of interest to Protestant readers.

This review illumines the importance of the problem of method for Roman Catholic theology (Novak, Baum, Küng, Rahner, Lonergan), the crucial role of hermeneutics and doctrinal development (Dewart, Schillebeeckx, Danielou), and the central questions

tional Theology: An Interpretation and a Critique" in McShane, op. cit, pp. 197-222.
³³ "Some Critical Thoughts on 'Functional. Specialties in Theology"' in McShane, op. cit., D.194.
³⁴ See Lonergan's De Deo Trino II (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1964), pp. 21, 32 and 53, and his article "The Assumption and Theology" in Collection, p. 76.
³⁵ "Lonergan and the Teaching Church," in McShane, op. cit., pp. 67-68.

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of language, truth, and culture. If Roman Catholic theology is no longer being consistently done in the "old" way, there is as yet no agreed-upon model for its new directions. Each of the alternatives outlined in this article is making its contribution to contemporary Roman Catholic thought; most Protestants, however, will feel more interest in, and engagement with, the first two categories, while being sympathetic with the intent of the third. Perhaps an analysis of trends in Roman Catholic theology serves best to remind us that increasingly the problems of ecclesiology, humanness, and meaning transcend Protestant-Catholic categories, and that in reflecting upon these matters we have much to learn from our Roman Catholic counterparts.