Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly · 2 FCS Quarterly • Fall 1996 Catholics ought to accord it a strong presumption of support. When the undertaking comes with the endorsement

O Timothee, depositum custodi, devitans profanas vocum novitateset oppositiones falsi nominis scientiae, quam quidam profitentescirca fidem aberraverunt.Gratia vobiscum. 1 ad Timotheum 6

CONTENTS

PRESIDENT’S PAGE:

Looking for Common Ground ................................ 2

EDITORIAL:

Redrawn and Quarterly ............................................ 3

ARTICLES:

The Nation’s Burden of Conscience ..................... 4

Nature and Grace ...................................................... 7

Avoiding Biblical Paralysis ....................................... 10

The Stale Game of Scientific Prophecy ............... 16

DOCUMENTATION

Homily for Baccalaureate Mass ............................. 18

Report from theCardinal Newman Society ...................................... 21

REVIEWS

James Francis Cardinal McIntyre:One of a Kind ............................................................ 23

Books .......................................................................... 28

BOOK NOTES ............................................................... 31

BOOKS RECEIVED ....................................................... 31

BOARD OF DIRECTORS ............................................ 32

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1874-1936, Maurice Baring, 1874-1945 (standing) and Hilaire Belloc, 1870-1953Painting by Sir James Gunn

ISSN 1084-3035

Fellowship of CatholicScholars Quarterly

VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4, FALL 1996

2 FCS Quarterly • Fall 1996

Catholics ought to accord it a strong presumptionof support. When the undertaking comes with theendorsement of Catholic laypersons of renownedfidelity and proven devotion to the Church, theproject is all the more likely to warrant unreservedsupport. Joseph Cardinal Bernadin’s “CatholicCommon Ground Project” [CCG] comes withsuch credentials. But, after giving it a careful lookwith the benefit of such a presumption, findingcommon ground with Common Ground hasproved difficult. The published reservations of sev-eral other Cardinals have persuaded this Catholicthat it is neither disrespectful nor imprudent topublish his reservations about Cardinal Bernadin’sendeavor. At the outset, I should say that there aretwo interpretations of the Cardinal’s project whichlargely escape my reservations. Cardinal Bernadinrecommends CCG in the “hope” that “with dia-logue” we can come to a better understanding ofchurch teaching and doctrine...the world needs ourCatholic faith more than ever.” Just so, and if CCGis or turns out to be advanced catechetics or refinedapologetics, we should pray that it succeeds.

This interpretation is undermined, it seems tome, when Cardinal Bernadin says that he does notintend “a teaching group, a dogmatic group, orsome form of “official” dialogue group in thechurch. Though not clear about the list of invitees,he “would be happy to see anyone attend who isinterested in being in dialogue.” CCG might be afriendly discussion among people who identify them-selves as Catholic. And, on the assumption (whichI grant but do not concede) that a Cardinal and

Gerard V. Bradley

Looking for Common Ground

hen a Cardinal Archbishop,with the support of severalbrother bishops, launches amajor project three yearsunder consideration, faithfulW

PRESIDENT’S PAGE

several bishops can avoid scandal while heading upsuch a project. Lots of luck to them.

But, nobody launches a friendly conversationwith such fanfare, and it surely appears that the“Catholic” in Common Ground is supposed to bea term of real limitation.

What manner of project is “CCG?” Hard tosay. The accompanying prospectus — “Called ToBe Catholic” — is maddeningly vague at criticaljunctures. It is also plagued by strawmen. “Called”warns that “no single group or viewpoint” in theChurch has a “complete monopoly on the truth”;we must not revert to a “chain-of-command,highly institutional understanding of the Church”,resembling a “modern corporation”; faith mustnot be conceived “as an ideology, an all-encom-passing doctrinal system that produces a ready ex-planation and practical prescriptions for every hu-man question.”

Does anyone hold any of those criticized posi-tions? One must presume that the authors of“Call” and Cardinal Bernadin believe there reallyare such people in the world. I have not met anyof them. Since these descriptions are the standardcaricatures of the FCS (I should add that CardinalBernadin has never so spoken of the FCS), if Ihave not met one, they are a scarce breed indeed.

“Call” presumes all discussants will affirmbasic truths, “chief” among them being “account-abil[ity] to the Catholic tradition” and to the“spirit-filled, living church”. Jesus Christ “mustalways be the measure,” Very well. Let us put thequestion bluntly. Is assent to the proposition that,by the will and action of Jesus Himself, theMagisterium teaches with the authority of Christa prerequisite to being on “Catholic CommonGround?” ✠

3FCS Quarterly • Fall 1996

in control of the Democratic Party, however, will godown fighting to the death in favor of a principle theycannot intellectually or morally defend except in termsof raw will, except in terms that radically violate notonly the most basic principles of human right and per-sonal dignity but also violate both the letter and thespirit of the Declaration of Independence. I suspect thatsuch abortion warriors will not be remembered as theAlamo was remembered, that is, as a noble defeat thatinspired victory later on. They will be rememberedrather as the man who died in the bunkers of Berlin isremembered. This perhaps unexpected editorial refer-ence to the Alamo, however, does give me occasion toreflect on another aspect of this analogy occasioned bythe reference: namely, what happens, I mean in this

Redrawn andQuarterlyRalph McInerny

No keen eye is needed to notice thatthis publication has been renamed.The board of the Fellowship lookedkindly on the suggestion that we callourselves a quarterly rather than a

newsletter, and so the change was made. There areobvious reasons against changing one’s name. The Latinadverb alias carries sometimes sinister overtones; to readof Hortense née McNealy and realize it is just Mrs. Cor-nucopia that is referred to can be upsetting. So too nomsde plume are, after all, pseudo names and we may rightlywonder what is wrong with the writer’s given moniker.There are cataloguing considerations against changingthe name of a periodical. During the years that I waseditor of The New Scholasticism, I manfully resisted ef-forts to change its name to something blander and lesssuggestive of the character of the association whosepublication it was. In the heat of debate I always hauledout the example of the Revue philosophique de Louvainwhich, when it stopped calling itself the Revuenéoscolastique, confounded librarians all over the civilizedworld. And closer to home there was the American Jour-nal of Jurisprudence, olim the Natural Law Forum. Refer-

ences to a landmark article by Germain Grisez, for ex-ample, had to refer to the original name of the journaland it was nip or tuck whether the reader could becounted on to know that the journal was no longercalled that. Would he think it defunct? Would he thinkthat natural law had been dropped as an embarrassment?

Such considerations have always seemed to arguestrongly in a conservative direction. Stick with thename you started with. I was once a poet in favor ofliving with the name that was yours.

Nonetheless, I lobbied for the change from newslet-ter to quarterly. Why? Readers will agree that this pub-lication has looked increasingly like a journal rather thana newsletter. Contributions to it have become meatyand substantial, no longer the stuff of a newsletter.Moreover, contributors found that including a contri-bution to a newsletter in their list of publications causedeyebrows to lift. Perhaps they would like to includeletters to the editor as well? It was this that weighedmost heavily with me. Our writers should receiveacknowledgement proportionate to their contributions.The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly representsupward mobility. But it is not just a matter of nomen-clature. Aquinas says that the wise man should notquibble about words. At the same time, he insisted onthe importance of the right word in the right place.

Quarterly is the right word for this publication now.It has been observed that this commits us to four

issues a year. It does. But we were already committed tothat. And we will continue to smell as sweetly as before. ✠

ARTICLES

EDITORIAL

The Nation’s Burdenof ConscienceJames V. Schall, S. J.Georgetown University

The lead Editorial in the Wall Street Jour-nal (August 1, 1996) called “abortionrights” the liberal movement’s “Alamo”.I take this comparison to mean that, onevidence, the liberals will inevitably lose

this battle. “Abortion rights” present defenders, largely


ARTICLES

life, when the present defenders of abortion finallyrealize in their souls, as they surely must begin to real-ize is the case, that they have no more arguments, nomore defenses to justify what they do other than rawpower and contorted will to continue their awful acts? Two days previous to the Wall Street Journal Edi-torial, Mackubin Thomas Owens wrote in The Wash-ington Times, a very clear and forceful comparisonbetween the arguments used to justify slavery and thearguments used to justify abortion. Anyone who hasread this essay or Hadley Arkes’ brilliant account of thesame issue in his First Things will know that in logic itis simply impossible to maintain that the intellectualgrounds used to defend slavery are different from thoseused to defend abortion. Both rise or fall on the sameargument. The principle that human life is not presentand sacred in all its forms, including in its beginningand in its end forms, is impossible to defend rationally,scientifically, or morally. It can only bedefended, and is only defended, by naked political win. Recently, I came across a reference to a Letter froma self-acknowledged abortionist in the New EnglandJournal of Medicine (5,1998, p. 1267), in which he statedthat “conception is defined as fertilization of the oocyte(female’s egg) by a spermatozoon (male sperm cell) toform a viable zygote. In nearly all mammalian species,fertilization occurs in the oviduct a few hours afterovulation takes place.” This passage is worth citing toeliminate any suspicion that it is the Catholic Churchalone, blindly arguing from faith, that maintains thatindividual human life begins at conception. On thisissue, the Church and science are in total agreement.The conflict is not between faith and reason, but be-tween politics and what faith and science agree on,with politics gaining the upper hand through its ma-nipulation of law and police power. At the other end of human life, Dr. Jack Kavorkiansaid that Christ died an ugly, grisly death on the Cross,with wood and nails, but that it would have beenmuch more “humane” to have killed him in his rustyvan, Kavorkian affirmed this, I believe, at the NationalPress Club. After playing the tape of Kavorkian sayingthese awful things, Rush Limbaugh, that voice of san-ity, remarked that Christ was being executed, that Hisdeath, the worst form of execution the Romans knew,was not voluntary but imposed upon Him. It wasforced on Him by the state, in fact. He was not com-mitting suicide or asking for Kavorkian’s terrible “mer-ciful death”. In making this analogy to Christ,

Kavorkian implicitly admitted that what he was doingwas executing people. At the beginning and at the endof life, we are faced with the same arguments and thesame deviant principles, as modern Popes, those pro-phetic men, have seen from the beginning. Theseevents, the Kavorkians, the scientific abortionist whoknows perfectly well when fife begins, the Popes whohave described where these things would lead and havenow led us, make us wonder about what is in fact thegreat, unspoken truth about us? What is the truth thatwe will not face? What seems to be new about the 1996 election isthat both candidates, in principle, agree that abortion isall right, one in many cases, the other in fewer. It is apolitical issue about what we will do, not a moral prin-ciple about what we ought to do. One might still arguethe lesser evil, but, as James McFadden said, our politi-cal choices may already be so bad on key ethical issuesthat we will have to sit this one out. We have forgottenthat there are regimes so bad that the only moral alter-native is to drop out, — however much this goesagainst the optimist and activist philosophy that wehave been bombarded with from all sides. We forgetthat both Christ and Socrates finally reached a pointwhere their only choice was to suffer evil rather thanto do it. We simply refuse to imagine that our demo-cratic regime, in the person of both parties, can choosecorruption and give that corruption to us as our onlychoice. No wonder the Holy Father worries about“democratic tyranny.” Jack Kavorkian in the samespeech even accused the Holy Father of running theSupreme Court from Rome! AR we can say, not un-like when Al Smith was supposed to be taking instruc-tions from the Vatican, is that if the Holy Father isrunning the Supreme Court, he is certainly doing aterrible job of it. Joseph Sobran remarked the other day in TheWashington Times, that Mr. Dole is busy looking forthe “middle ground” on the abortion issue, but that“there is no middle ground,” something the too elo-quent Allan Keyes has seen from the beginning — I say“too eloquent” because no one can answer or, if some-one has taken any pro-death position, can he even bearto listen to Keyes. Keyes combines in himself both theanti-slavery and the pro-life issue, as well as the elo-quence of an educated, experienced man. The listenersto Keyes remind me of those who, like Alcibiades,finally have to put their hands over their ears to avoidhearing Socrates, lest they should be persuaded by his


arguments, which they choose in advance to reject. “In 1996,” Keyes said, “it is very likely that Re-publicans cannot win the presidency so long as Ameri-cans fail to recognize the connection between politicsand morality. Bill Clinton’s lack of moral character ishis chief political liability. A solid majority of Ameri-cans believe that he is a liar and a philanderer. Yetmany of those same people believe that this conclusionis irrelevant when deciding on his fitness for office.This is the political consequence of rampant moralrelativism. ... If Republicans adopt in our politics thelanguage of moral relativism, we hand Clinton a passon the character issue, and very possibly a free ride tovictory in November (Washington Times, August 5, 1996).

For many people, it is more important that bothparties promote abortion, rather than that there be agenuine choice within or between the parties. Thatway the practice of abortion will be politically unchal-lenged. By now, most people know the story of Dr.Bernard Nathanson, the former abortion leader, whohimself performed many hundreds of abortions. Hefinally realized in horror what he had done and simplyrepented. Nathanson, I think, is a kind of symbol forwhat I want to talk about in connection with what theWall Street Journal called the “liberal movement’sAlamo”. That is, I will be frank here, we are a nationthat has committed terrible crimes against the lives ofour kind, the tiniest of our kind, begun, human lives.No honorable or scientific or moral way can be found.We choose not to listen or take account of what wehave done because it means that those awful pro-lifepeople were right in their basic principles all along. Wecheer the man who attacked the guard taking the pris-oners to a Nazi death camp, but we arrest those whopeacefully protest this slaughter of our kind, of thosewe need, of those we miss every day in our economy,if we would only calculate correctly the cost in termsof loss of workers, loss of income, loss of brains, loss ofdignity. We have spent enormous volumes on wonderinghow the Germans could bear their guilt. Can we bearto wonder how we can bear ours — not that thepresent Germans are not doing much the same thing totheir own? Those, such as Professor William Brennan,who have studied the history of medicine in Germany,have told us authoritatively that the principles thatjustified what the world watched with horror were

already largely in operation before Hilter. Wasn’t Ger-many a democracy? Are not many of these principlesbeing practiced among us today? Just the other day I sawthat in Arizona there is a suit against the state law ban-ning medical experimentation on the human fetus, a suitposed in behalf of people suffering from, I think,Parkinson’s disease. Someone proposed that we shouldbe able to take the organs of living, severely handi-capped individuals, who would not need or miss them. What does all this mean if not that human life is notsacred or its own, but that, once the state allows it, onehuman being is at the total service of another? This be-ing at the total service of another was the classical defini-tion of slavery. We are in fact reintroducing a form ofslavery by forgetting the arguments about why weshould get rid of slavery in the first place, that is, becauseeach individual is a human being, whatever his form orcondition, with a dignity that does not come from civillaw or from our subjective wills.

What do these things we do to ourselves mean if notthat human fife is not sacred with its own dignity, butthat, once the state allows it, one human being isat the total service of another? This “being at the totalservice of another” was the classical definition ofslavery. We are in fact reintroducing a form of slavery byforgetting the moral arguments about why we got rid ofslavery in the first place, that is, because each individualis a human being, whatever his form or condition, witha dignity that does not come from civil law or from oursubjective wills. But still, my concern is with ourselves. What hap-pens when the arguments that we concoct to justify ourkillings of our own kind are exhausted, as they are?When we ask, for instance, why President Clinton ve-toed the partial-abortion ban — that clearest of all visibleexamples of what we are about - he did so with an ex-cuse, as he always does in his indefensible actions. Eventhis ghastly procedure is justified by abortion advocatesbecause it is quite clear that the abortionist positioncannot yield one inch of its own principle. No matterhow horrible to anyone, the advocates of abortionclearly see that they cannot admit even the slightestmitigation of abortion practice. For granting the prin-ciple that some lives, at least, are sacred and cannot betouched because they are human means that the sameprinciple must be granted to all human lives. Here inpartial-abortion (full infanticide) we have perfectly nor-mal babies, completely formed, with no reference to anyreason, except the fife of the mother, a case that never


ARTICLES

happens, being killed before our very eyes. It cannot bebanned, we are told. The people who do not want itbanned know perfectly well what they are doing. Theyare protecting themselves from ever having to admit inprinciple to themselves, to the world, what they aredoing, therefore of never having toacknowledge before God or men the depth of theirguilt and obtuseness of their consciences. What was it that the American Cardinals told thePresident on the occasion of their letter to him (April16, 1996)? To the President’s excuse that reasons ofpolitical necessity “forced” him reluctantly to sign thepartial abortion ban veto, the Cardinals wrote, withconsiderable eloquence, “At the veto ceremony you(the President) told the American people that ‘you hadno choice but to veto this bill.’ Mr. President, you andyou alone had the choice of whether or not to allowchildren almost completely born, to be killed brutallyin partial-birth abortions.” We should not underesti-mate the significance of this letter of the AmericanCardinals. It represents their finally realizing the extentand depth of the problem both in itself and in the diffi-culty caused by their not clearly and effectively chal-lenging what has step by step been happening in thiscountry. Notice that the Cardinals are here definitely“pro-choice”! They do not allow a politician to denyhis personal responsibility. He cannot blame anyoneelse. He stands naked before God with his choice. Speaking of the literally hundreds of documentedtimes that President Clinton has changed his position,mind, and memory, Paul Greenberg, the Editorial PageEditor of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in LittleRock, wrote: “But if the president is an artist at thephony, what beliefs is he being false to (in changingthem all the time)? What political standards is he be-traying (if he has no standards)? Can anyone be sure?Not really, for after a long and successful career ofpleasing any and all, William Jefferson Clinton may nolonger have an identifiable core of political belief fromwitch to deviate. The most unsettling thing about thepolitical personas of Bill Clinton is not their numberand variety, but the suspicion that after all the masksare gone, they reveal nothing. Which raises the dis-turbing possibility that he is, yes, truly, reflecting us.”(Washington Times, 5 August 1996).

Bill Clinton was elected to office, that is, chosen. Thatis to say, if Greenberg’s analysis is correct, we are allbound to the choices the president makes. We partici-

pate in the public corruption, unless we choose toreject it. The notion of “corporate guilt” is a dangerous one.As John Paul II has often said speaking of what is called“social sin” that it cannot happen except through pre-vious personal sin. This is why the Cardinals were veryprecise to say to a president ever bent on excusinghimself, yet again, that he had a “choice”. The purposeof a politician, just like everyone else, is to choosegood and reject evil. To decide as the president did, hemust have deliberately chosen not to argue on theevidence at hand. He chose instead another “principle”that would allow him to choose as he did and suppressin his own mind any pertinence to the moral issue ofhis action. Human freedom means that we are free todo this, but we are not free to escape the responsibilityof our choices. On a very vast scale — not all are involved, forsome reject this action — we are a people guilty ofimmense slaughter, the reality of which we deny toourselves. Every political and propaganda effort is madeto prevent us from squarely admitting the responsibilityand what it implies — that we, as a free and democraticpeople, have chosen for ourselves the greatest slaughterof our kind in human history. It is a terrible fact that isthere relentlessly before our eyes and we refuse to see.Continuing on this road is destroying gradually ourlives, our political parties, our president, our moralfabric. The first and essential step that can and must betaken is the one stated in the sentence I cited from theAmerican Cardinals to the President — you, Mr. Presi-dent, had a choice. This principle applies up and downthe line. That sentence indicates precisely the cause andthe nature of the problem. However “compassionate” we may wish to be inmitigating the responsibility of some, the fact is thatabortion rests on the personal choice of hundreds andmillions of our fellow citizens and those in other coun-tries that imitate us (we seem initially to have imitatedthe British). To choose to perform these acts is in everyinstance an objective evil that will not be automaticallyrepaired or go away. It can only be first acknowledged,that is, stated for what it is, second repented, and finallyrepaired. For the essential problem, that of choosingsomething evil, there is no other sociological, psycho-logical, political, or economic solution. This acknowl-edgment and repentance must come first. This is theburden of conscience almost too horrible to acknowl-edge to prideful men, that they could choose to dosuch a thing to themselves in a democracy. But it is


Nature and GraceFr. Brian Mullady, O.P.

In a recent series of lectures delivered at OxfordUniversity, the Jesuit professor of Moral The-ology, John Mahoney, states that after KarlRahner’s work one can now state that, “Thecontinuity and the interpretation of history of

God’s work as both Creator and Saviour have the ef-fect, if not of blurring, at least of rendering academicthe conceptual distinction between nature andsupernature.”1 This is quite a statement indeed! Fr.Mahoney thinks this statement basically summarizes thework of the Second Vatican Council. In fact, the con-

done and it was, is being chosen. The end of communism came quickly, at least tothe outside observer. People suddenly saw. We do notcompute the contribution of suffering, sacrifice, orprayer into this event, for that would imply that theworld is ruled by something other than ourselves. Wenow admit that this web of evil and disorder could notsustain itself because it was against human nature, thatit did not work. Yet it worked for seventy years and isstill at work in China, one of the most efficient of allsocieties in history at killing off its own kind. The endof abortion will probably come equally as fast. Its evilmust first be seen in the quiet of thousands and millionsof hearts. Calling it good or advisable is simply a lieabout what is happening, about what we do. No doubtfor this lie to be acknowledged on the widest scale, wehave to see what we are doing — as we could see quitevividly in the partial-abortion operation. But also wehave to see how the fault lies in abortions relation tothe whole complex of individual rights and libertiesthat admit no responsibility except to ourselves. The outlines of the counter doctrine are alreadyclear enough: 1) every human life is sacred in all itsforms, 2) every child has a right to a mother and afather who are married in a stable family, 3) everyone isresponsible for his own choices, 4) duties to othersdefine duties to ourselves, 5) thou shalt not kill inno-cent life. These are principles which we want for our-selves when we are the ones threatened. The key to allof this national burden is the elementary catecheticalstatement of the American Cardinals to the President of

the United States on his signing a bill to permit killingand excusing himself “You and you alone had thechoice....” Once this choice is made, its consequencesare no longer in the order of choice. We cannot undowhat we have chosen. We can obstinately proclaim thatwe are right and make our own world on the basis ofour own principles. Or we can acknowledge what wehave done and bear the terrible burden of our choices.We can repent and amend. There is no other way, noother alternative. But it is the only honorable and wor-thy alternative for a repentant people. We can thus say, in conclusion, that the Alamo of“abortion rights” has already taken place. The bodies areall killed and neatly disposed of, millions and millions ofthem, soon to be followed by the elderly, no doubtthemselves conned or shamed into choosing their ownslaughter in a sanitized Kavorkian style. This fact is aterrible, unyielding, present truth that took place, istaking place in our time, m a democracy that proclaimedthat we have from our Creator certain inalienable rights,among which is that of life. Every time we refuse toacknowledge our choices, particularly at elections wherewe choose, the lie gets worse and leads to greater hor-rors, the evil more and more extensive, inexorable. Weonce had two parties against abortion, then we had one,now we have effectively none. Behind evil, Augustinesaid, is nothing, though in the case of moral evil, noth-ing but our choices. Once we are clear where the issuelies, there is hope. This is why things can suddenlychange because we can see, if we will, we too canchoose, if we will, to choose against our own choices. ✠

text of this quotation is another of Paul VI reflectingon how the revealed law completes the natural law. Though it is true that this idea is very commonabout what de facto has been taught since Vatican II asthe proper interpretation of that Council, this is decid-edly not what either Vatican II or the tradition of thechurch have ever held about the relation of nature tograce or God to creation. However, Fr. Mahoney iscorrect in the sense that one cannot understand thepost-Councilor malaise in the Church unless one un-derstands how Rahner arrives at his ideas. These ideas are in fact the basis for the identifica-tion of the natural and supernatural order which hasoccurred since the Council. This identification iscaused by a great lack of Metaphysics and is completedin a confusion of the natural and the supernatural. I do


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This mixture of anature and grace which

really cannot bedistinguished in the

source of all themodern problems

in theology.

not mean that Fr. Rahner meant forthis confusion to occur. He wishedonly to show the close relationshipbetween nature and grace. Neverthe-less, Rahner’s ideas have in fact led tothis confusion. The problem has its origins in the16th century with the famous Do-minican theologian, Thomas de VioCajetan. Cardinal Cajetan wrote afamous commentary on the SummaTheologiae which was so influentialon all subsequent thought about this problem that itwas printed as the bottom of the page in the criticalLatin edition of the Summa produced by the Leoninecommission in the late 19th century. According toCajetan, there was no natural desire in man for God,no natural capacity in man for God and grace if oneconsidered only the powers of human nature. Thevision of heaven was only the destiny of man and thesoul was only capable of God because Adam was cre-ated in grace before the Fall. If one considered man’ssoul in itself, hypothetically the state of pure nature inwhich man could be satisfied without the vision ofGod was possible. Cajetan’s ideas were very influential on thethoughts about this problem even though some otherThomists like Gilson referred to Cajetan’s commentaryas corruptorium Thomae2 (the corruption of Thomas).In one of the notes to these letters, Henri de Lubacquotes another famous Thomist of the Council ofTrent Dominic Soto (1495-1560) as saying, “Haecglossa destuit textum, est tortuosa. (This gloss destroysthe text. It is torturous.)3

It is no accident that the letters of Gilson to deLubac are the context for this discussion. Henri deLubac undertook to resolve this problem of the relationof nature to grace as his life mission. His famous book,Surnaturel, for which he was silenced by the Holy See,sought to clarify the problem. After he was exonerated,he republished a revised edition of this book which waspublished in English in two volumes: Augustinianismand Modern Theology and The Mystery of the Super-natural. In the first volume of this series, Fr. DeLubac un-dertakes a searching criticism of the traditional solutionof Cardinal Cajetan and very clearly proves that it isdestructive of the relation of nature to grace becausetheir relationship becomes too extrinsic. To maintain

that the capacity of man for grace isonly an non-repugnance and thatthe vision of God is the end of manis only due to the creation of manin grace either makes grace thedestruction of nature, or two hu-man natures with two different endsor destinies. The former solutionmakes grace completely overcomenature. The latter creates a completeseparation between nature andgrace.

After he has shown that the traditional solution isinadequate, Fr. DeLubac goes on to give his own solu-tion in the second volume. This is more problematicthan the solution of the Cajetan. In The Mystery of theSupernatural, Fr. DeLubac distinguishes between “thefact of the creation of a spiritual being, the supernaturalfinality imprinted upon that being’s nature, and finallythe offer presented to his free choice the share in thedivine nature.”4 In this division, Fr. DeLubac seems toadd a third element to the famous relation of nature tograce. This is the supernatural finality imprinted on thebeing’s nature. In other words, if nature is consideredas a universal, there is no call to grace. It is only theindividual concrete nature which has received this call.Each and every person created receives this call, butthis call is not a part of any power in nature. This con-clusion seems nominalistic and voluntaristic. Nominal-istic because of the real distinction between universaland concrete nature. Voluntaristic because the call tograce seems only given to the will. Fr. Karl Rahner carried the distinction of Fr.DeLubac a step further. He says that there is nature.Then there is the structure of man and the world calledto grace which “is by that very fact always and every-where inwardly other in structure than he (man) wouldbe if he did not have this end.5 Finally, there is theactual gift of grace. So, for Rahner there are three dis-tinct realities also: nature, nature called to grace (calledthe supernatural existential) and grace. Not only this,but the nominalism of Fr. DeLubac becomes moresevere because nature left to itself is described byRahner as a “remainder concept” (Restbegriff)6 so that“there is no way of telling exactly how his (man’s)nature for itself alone would react, what precisely itwould be for itself alone.7

For Rahner then there are three things: nature, thesupernaturalized existential, and grace. Since one can-


not define what nature means without grace, this is thesame as saying that it means nothing at all. Nature andgrace are mixed in the supernatural existential and yetbecause this is a third complete thing, nature and graceare more separated that they were with Cajetan. Thismixture of a nature and grace which really cannot bedistinguished in the source of all the modern problemsin theology. The nominalism of the school of thoughtwhich follows Rahner looks to any concept whichdemands an idea of nature in a strange and difficultyway. Richard McBrien states the conclusion of this posi-tion well in his latest edition of Catholicism when hestates, “There is now a radical capacity in nature itself,and not merely superadded to nature, by which we areordained to the knowledge of God. Thus all dualismbetween nature and grace is eliminated. Human natureis already graced existences. Though it is true that thecapacity for God is not superadded to nature, the ful-fillment of it certainly is. If human nature were alreadyengraced, then there truly would be merely an aca-demic distinction between nature and grace and manwould be God.8

The problem with all these solutions is that theytreat the capacity for God as a capacity of will. To saythat there must be a natural capacity in the will for Godis moral Pelagianism. This would mean that manwould consciously be able to desire to see God by hisown power. It is true that St. Thomas uses the termnatural desire. But the term desire must not be taken tomean appetite. Desire here means only potential, in thiscase a potential with cannot be realized by humanpower, but which is not destructive of nature. “Eventhough man is called to an ultimate end by nature, hecannot attain it by nature, but only by grace and thisowing to the loftiness of that end.”9

The solution to the question must turn around themanner in which St. Thomas speaks of the ultimateend. He does indeed say there is a nature desire to seeGod present intrinsically in man. This is the basis forthe necessity of grace for human fulfillment. But thisnatural desire is not of the will. It is not conscious, it isnot moral. It is the same desire a stone has for rest onthe earth and the matter formed in the womb of ahuman mother and father has for the soul which onlyGod can create. It is innate but to the intellect. Thenatural desire is a desire or capacity of the intellect toknow the truth.10

In fact, in the Summa contra Gentiles, St. Thomas

gives no less that six arguments to prove that both menand angels (no original justice in angels) have a naturaldesire to see God because their intelligence desires toknow the cause of effects.11 Interestingly enough, sev-eral of these arguments use the proof for the necessityof metaphysical knowledge in the Metaphysics ofAristotle.12 St. Thomas clearly thinks that even thepagans could know that nothing natural can satisfy thedesire of the mind to know the truth. Of course, thepagans could not and did not discuss the natural desireto see God because they did not know there was anymeans for man to arrive there. They did not knowabout grace, so man for them was frustrated, like thefox before the grapes. Nature and grace are truly dis-tinct, but one is ordered to the other. This is not justbecause there is no repugnance in nature for grace —Nor it is because nature is capable to arriving at Godwho is infinitely distant from us. Its it because everymind wants to know the ultimate truth. Man can andhas known that he does not know this truth.Revelation is necessary for his to know it, otherwise hewill be completely frustrated. The present malaise in the church as to doctrineand morals seems due to a thoroughgoing nominalismand voluntarism which has completely confused cre-ation with the Creator. Perhaps this is the basis for thedenial of Original Sin, the Natural Law, the DivineCharacter of Christ, the secularization of the liturgyand the complete inability to distinguish between theinfallibility of the authority of the Pope and secularauthority in civil governments. Even more serious isthe silence about the riches of the life of grace for allCatholic vocations: priesthood, religious life and laity.Only in losing ourselves to interpersonal union withthe Trinity by faith can we prepare for the ultimatedestiny which fulfills our natural power to know. Unhappy is the man who knows everything (allcreatures) but does not know you; but happy is the onewho knows you, even if he does not know the othercreatures. Yet the one who knows you and the othercreatures is not any happier because he knows thoseother things than he is for knowing you alone.13 ✠

1. John Mahoney, S.J., The Making of Moral Theology, (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1987), 113.2. Etienne Gilson, Letters of Etienne Gilson to Henri de Lubac (SanFrancisco: Ignatius Press, 1986) 92 and 101, note 3.3. Ibid.


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ices who thought that Matthew wrote the first gospel,are then told no, it was Mark, actually Q (or Q1, Q2,and Q3 for the more advanced). Just when the lettersof St. Paul are beginning to become instructive, some-one points out that they are not all really his. What arethe Catholic faithful to make of this convoluted mess?Every new piece of information only seems to callattention to how little we can (really) know.

Doctrinal Amnesia?

It is not always easy to discern how modernscholarship can be reconciled with the officialteachings of the Church. A recent article inCatholic Twin Circle pointed out that mostscholars doubt the historical nature of many

passages in Scripture: “[M]ost U.S. Catholic scholarsnow generally view the Infancy narratives—the visit ofthe magi, the flight into Egypt, the massacre of theinnocents—as religious legends created by the evange-lists, or their sources, to convey theological truthsabout Christ (Hutchinson, “The Case forChristmas,”Catholic Twin Circle, p. 10, 12/24/95).

This position not only runs counter to what manyCatholics had always thought to be true, but it is alsoseems difficult to reconcile with Magisterial teaching.For example, in his Syllabus of Errors, Pope St. Pius Xcites the following statement as an example of theModernist heresy: “In many narrations the Evangelistsrecorded, not so much things that are true, as thingswhich, even though false, they judged to be moreprofitable for their readers” (Lamentabili Sane, no. 14,1907). The average Catholic wants to be well-in-formed and intelligent, but also to be faithful. From myown studies it is far from clear how the two positions

4. Henri DeLubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, (New York:Herder and Herder, 1967), 105.5. Karl Rahner, S.J., “Concerning the Relationship between Natureand Grace,” Theological Investigations (Baltimore: Helicon Press,1961) 303.6. Ibid. 313.7. Ibid. 314.8. Richard McBrien, Catholicism, (San Francisco: Harper and Row,1994) 183.9. “Quamvis enim homo naturaliter inclinetur in finem ultimum,non tamen potest naturaliter illum consequi, sed solum per gratiam,et hoc est propter eminentiam finis.” Thomas Aquinas, Commen-

tary on Boethius’ De Trinitate, Question 6, Article 4, ad 5.10. 11 . . . naturale desiderium cognoscendi causam . . . 11, Tho-mas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 12, 1, corp.; “naturaledesiderium rationalis creaturae . . . naturale desiderium sciendi . . .12, 8, ad 4.ll. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, III, c. 50.12. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 982bll-983a25.13.“Infelix homo qui scit omnia illa (scilicet creatures), te autemnescit: beatus autem qui te scit, etiam si illa nesciat. Qui vero te etilla novit, non propter illa beatior est, sed propter te solum beatus.1'Augustine, Confessions, Book V, c. 4 (PL 32,708); quoted inThomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 12, 8, ad 4.

Avoiding BiblicalParalysis: SacredScripture and theModern Catholicby Curtis A. Martin

Who has never experienced frustrationtrying to read the Bible? The Bookitself is fairly imposing, with morethan 1,000 pages and seldom a pic-ture. The characters seem to be right

out of the Iliad and the Odyssey: “Mizraim became thefather of Ludim and Anamin and Lehabim andNaphtu-him” (Gen. 10:13). Trying to read throughthe sacred text can lead to more perspiration than in-spiration. So what is the layman to do? Many peopleread modern commentaries or even take classes on theBible, looking for some helpful hints on how to crackopen the sacred page and begin to experience the joy,the wisdom, and the life-transforming effects of whichthe saints and so many of our evangelical friends speak.This is usually where the problems begin.

A typical “Introduction to the Bible” course prac-tically involves learning a new language and a newalphabet. For example, instead of Moses as the authorof the Pentateuch (the first five books), we are toldthat J, E, P, and D are the real authors. Just when onebecomes acquainted with the prophet Isaiah, we aretold that there are two of them, then three. The nov-


can come together. It almost seems as though somebiblical scholars are suffering from doctrinal amnesia.

But even if modern scholarship could be harmo-nized with the official teachings of the Church, it still ismissing the point. Vatican II encourages us to interpretScripture thoughtfully and carefully, to make use ofhuman wisdom and scholarship (cf. Dei Verbum, no.12). However, it appears to the average layman that thescholars have become more interested in their “schol-arship” than in what the Bible actually says, as thoughtheir “eyeglasses” are more important than the worldthose eyeglasses were designed to help them see. TheBible itself warns that some of its passages are not easyto understand (cf. 2 Pet. 3:16), but some modernscholars make the enterprise seem impossible.

I remember teaching seventh grade catechismseveral years ago. One night we were to discuss theGospel of St. John. The teacher’s manual began, “Besure to stress to the students that the Apostle John wasnot the author of the fourth Gospel.” Even if this weretrue—the Pontifical Biblical Commission, in its find-ings of 1907, stated that St. John must be acknowl-edged as the author—this is not catechesis. Here is thetragedy: In St. John’s Gospel we have many wonderfulteachings, including the most compelling explanationof the Eucharist (Jn. 6), the institution of the Sacramentof Confession (Jn. 20:23), some of the clearest teach-ings on the divinity of Christ (e.g., Jn.1:1-18; 8:58),and many profound passages found nowhere else. Allof these took a backseat, so that I could stress to thestudents that St. John did not write the Gospel of St.John. How does this help young people to deepentheir faith in Jesus Christ and His Church? Even if itwere true, it is relatively trivial.

The confusion seemed all the more unnecessary tome. As a fallen away Roman Catholic, it was by read-ing the Protestant Bible that I came to see that the trueBible Church was in fact the Church of the Bible:Roman Catholicism. As a recent “revert,” I quicklybegan to see that reading the Bible as a Catholic in-volved many apparent challenges and difficulties.I wanted to be faithful to the Church that I had redis-covered to be the mystical Body of Christ, but the“experts” seemed to be taking the Bible right out ofmy hands. Thank God for sacred Tradition and theMagisterium! The more I listened to the modernscholars, the more confused and frustrated I became.I decided to go to the source. By studying what theChurch had said in her official documents, it became

clear that it was her clear desire for all Catholics to beBible Christians, and all Bible Christians to be RomanCatholics.

I have come to discover five basic principles whichallow us lay people to read the Bible as Roman Catho-lics and maximize the profit we can gain from thesacred page. I will now share these principles with you,and then look at a couple of ways in which we mightbe able to begin our own personal study of the Wordof God in Scripture, so that this grand source of Catho-lic revelation [may] be made safely and abundantlyaccessible to the flock of Jesus Christö (Pope Leo XIII,Providentissimus Deus, no. 2, 1893).

1. The Truth Will Make You Free:Biblical Inspiration and Inerrancy

All Scripture is inspired by God andprofitable for teaching, for reproof, forcorrection, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may becomplete, equipped for every good

work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The first point is to realize that sacred Scripture is

the very Word of God: For as the substantial Word ofGod became like to men in all things, “except sin,” sothe words of God, expressed in human language, aremade like to human speech in every respect, excepterror (Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, no. 37,1943).

The Bible is different from all other books becauseit is inspired by God. But it is important to understandwhat the Church means by this “inspiration.” Shedoes not mean that the Bible is necessarily inspirational,although it often is. Rather, the Scriptures are referredto as inspired because they are literally God-breathed.“For the sacred Scripture is not like other books. Dic-tated by the Holy Spirit, it contains things of the deep-est importance” (Providentissimus Deus, no. 5). As thebook of Hebrews says, “the Word of God is living andactive and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb.4:12). The fact that Scripture is God’s very wordsbecoming the words of men gives it an inner dyna-mism which differentiates it from all other books. TheScriptures possess a reliability in which we may placeour trust as to what we are to believe and how we areto act. This reliability is based upon what the Churchcalls inerrancy.


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[H]aving been written under the inspiration of the HolySpirit, [the books of the Bible] have God for their au-thor and as such were handed down to the Churchherself. . . . [This is a] Catholic doctrine by which suchdivine authority is claimed for the ôentire books with alltheir partsö as to secure freedom from any error whatso-ever (Divino Afflante Spiritu, introduction).

The Bible’s inerrancy is based on God’s trustwor-thiness, who can neither deceive nor be deceived (Actof Faith). This trustworthiness distinguishes the Biblefrom all other books (cf. Lamentabili Sane, no. 12).Typically, we as readers stand in judgment over thebooks we read, deciding for ourselves whether toaccept or reject the assertions that we encounter. Butthe Scriptures—because they are written by God—stand in judgment over the reader, calling us into alife-transforming relationship with the ultimate Author,our Heavenly Father. The sacred Scriptures, read inlight of sacred Tradition and with the guidance of theMagisterium, provide that firm foundation on whichwe can build a life of faith and support for our dailylives (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15). Biblical inspiration andinerrancy is the fundamental principle of biblicalinterpretation.

The Lord’s words are true; for Him to say it, means thatit is. Again,“Scripture cannot lie”; it is wrong to sayScripture lies, no, it is impious even to admit the verynotion of error where the Bible is concerned (PopeBenedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, no. 13, 1920).

An example of this commitment to the sacred pagenot only extends to all thesaints, but to Our Lord Him-self, who quoted from all parts of the Scripture withsolemn testimony: “The Scripture cannot be broken”(Jn. 10:35). This is the commitment we too will needif we want to experience the fruits that Our Lord hasintended for “hearers of His Word.”

2. As You Sow, So Shall You Reap:The Importance of Sound Interpretation[S]o shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; itshall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish thatwhich I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it(Is. 55:11).

The prayerful and careful reading of theScriptures will always prove itself to be aprofitable use of time. This does notmean, however, that reading the Bible iseasy or simple. The sacred Scriptures are

like a large lake, sufficient for anyone to come anddrink fully, but deep enough for anyone to drown.This is the way God has designed them, to encourageus to dig deep and to dig humbly. While the Churchencourages us to read the Bible, it calls us to read care-fully. Special attention should be paid to the text sothat we might discern the intention of the sacredwriter. This includes noting the literary form, or genre,of the text: Is it poetry, a parable, or a narration? Thenature of the text will affect the meaning of the passage:[I]t is the duty of the exegete, to lay hold, so to speak, withthe greatest care and reverence of the very least expressionswhich, under the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, haveflowed from the pen of the sacred writer, so as to arrive at adeeper and fuller knowledge of his meaning (Divino AfflanteSpiritu, no. 15).

Proper care and willingness to always examine ourunderstandings in light of the teachings of the Churchwill help us to avoid the opposing errors of fundamen-talism and skepticism.

The Bible works something like a chamois, aleather cloth used to dry your car when washing it. Achamois needs to be moist in order to absorb moisture.This is the paradox for the biblical student: We needto know the Bible in order to get to know the Biblebetter. This means that in our first reading we may missmany elements and aspects which a later reading willshow us. But God has designed the Scriptures so thatthe faithful reader will be able to bring something awayfrom every time of study. One helpful hint may be tobegin on more familiar ground. The ideal starting placefor devotional reading may be the Gospel of St. John inthe New Testament. The Gospels are more familiar tous. We hear them at Mass every week, even daily if weattend. The characters of the New Testament are alsomore familiar to us, such as Mary and the apostles.A commitment to read a portion each day will lead usquickly through the New Testament, and then we maybe ready to go back to the beginning.

The Old Testament, on the other hand, is admit-tedly more difficult. The names, places, and events canbe foreign to the modern reader. I recommend a tapeseries by Dr. Scott Hahn entitled “Salvation History,”available through Catholics United for the Faith. Inthis tape series, Dr. Hahn provides a framework withinwhich we can begin to make sense of the Old Testa-ment salvation history. This framework provides a“filing cabinet” in which we can begin to store


the information as we read it, almost like a computerdisk which needs to be formatted before informationcan be stored on it. Most of all, we must avoid thetemptation to become frustrated. There will be thingswe will not fully understand. When we encounterthese difficulties, we should realize we are in goodcompany: “ Whosoever comes to [Scripture reading] inpiety, faith, and humility, and with determination tomake progress in it, will assuredly find therein andwill eat the “Bread that comes down from heaven”(Jn. 6:33); he will, in his own person, experience thetruth of David’s words: “The hidden and uncertainthings of Thy Wisdom Thou hast made manifest tome!” (Ps. 51:6) (Spiritus Paraclitus, no. 43).

Pope Benedict XV also provides: “[St.] Jerome wascompelled, when he discovered apparent discrepanciesin the sacred books, to use every endeavor to unravelthe difficulty. If he felt that he had not satisfactorilysettled the problem, he would return to it again andagain, not always, indeed, with the happiest results”(ibid., no. 15, emphasis added).

As with any craft, there are many tools which canbe used to maximize the profitability of our reading.First and foremost among these tools is the regular andconsistent reading of the sacred page itself. St. Jerometaught, “Read assiduously and learn as much as youcan. Let sleep find you holding your Bible, and whenyour head nods let it be resting on the sacred page”(ibid., no. 42).

Only after we have read and reread the sacred pageourselves can we effectively make use of other tools.There are modern commentaries on all of the NewTestament put out through the Navarre Study Seriesby Scepter Press. Dr. Hahn has a number of commen-taries on audiotape on various books of the Bible.There are several official documents put out by theMagisterium on the topic of sacred Scripture (PopeLeo XIII, Pope Pius X, Pope Benedict XV, Pope PiusXII, Vatican II, and the Pontifical Biblical Commissionbefore Pope Paul stripped it of its Magisterial status).There are also a number of other study guides availablefor more serious investigation, such as concordances,Bible dictionaries, biblical encyclopedias, etc. Thesetools, while helpful, can never replace the daily,personal reading of sacred Scripture. The Word of Godis that pearl of great price which deserves all of ourattention.

3. For the Sake of Our Salvation:The Purpose of Sacred ScriptureThe Church . . . has always regarded, and continues toregard, the Scriptures taken together with sacred Traditionas the supreme rule of faith (Dei Verbum, no. 21).

In its dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum, liter-ally “the Word of God,” the Second VaticanCouncil provides the gemstone of officialChurch teachings onthe sacred Scripture.Building upon the firm foundation of other

Magisterial teachings, the Council Fathers remind us ofthe ultimate reason for God’s gift of sacred Scripture:“It pleased God, in His goodness and wisdom, to revealHimself and to make known the mystery of His will.His will was that men should have access to the Father,through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the HolySpirit, and thus become sharers in the Divine Nature(Dei Verbum, no. 2).

All of the truths about Scripture and each of thetruths contained in the Scripture lead to the Gospel,the good news, that the almighty and ever living Godhas freely chosen first to create us and then reveal Him-self to us as a loving Father, through the work of ourdivine Savior Jesus Christ, and desires to draw us backinto His divine favor through the sanctifying power ofthe Holy Spirit. All of the wisdom and insights whichmay be gleaned from the Scriptures pale in comparisonto this over-arching truth. In a beautiful and centralpassage of Dei Verbum, the Church teaches: “Since,therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writ-ers, affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the HolySpirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scrip-ture, firmly, faithfully, and without error, teach thattruth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wishedto see confided to the sacred Scriptures” (Dei Verbum,no. 11).

This passage has one of the longest footnotes of anyof the Vatican II documents. This footnote bears wit-ness to the rich tradition upon which the Catholicperspective of the Word of God is based. The footnotecontains references to St. Augustine, St. ThomasAquinas, the Council of Trent, Pope Leo XIII, andPope Pius XII, each affirming the inspiration, iner-rancy, and importance of the sacred Scriptures for theChurch and the individual Christian. These first threeprinciples provide the framework within which weunderstand the Bible within the Church. It is inspired


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by God, literally God-breathed, and therefore com-pletely trustworthy. It is rich in content and meaning,and deserves our zealous and diligent study. It is anexpression of the gift of God of His very self to human-ity, and is provided to us for the sake of our salvation.

4. The New in Light of the Old:Analogy of Scripture

God, the inspirer and author of the books of both Testa-ments, in His wisdom has so brought it about that the Newshould be hidden in the Old, and that the Old should bemade manifest in the Newö (Dei Verbum, no. 16).

The complete canon of Scripture includes73 books. But as the Catechism of theCatholic Church teaches, there is an innerunity which also allows us to refer to theBible as a single book: “Be especially

attentive ‘to the content and unity of the wholeScripture.’Different as the books which comprise itmay be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity ofGod’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center andheart, open since His Passover” (Catechism, no. 112).

This principle of interpretation is called the analogyof Scripture. The analogy of Scripture allows us to seehow the plans, promises, and covenants of the OldTestament salvation history are realized and fulfilled inthe person of Jesus Christ and the foundation of theRoman Church. Salvation history seen in this lightallows us to see that “His story” becomes “our story.”This realization allows us to read the Scriptures with anewfound interest. What may have appeared to be anobscure story now becomes our family history. St. Paulstates: “For whatever was written in former days waswritten for our instruction, that by steadfastness and theencouragement of the Scriptures wemight have hope” (Rom. 15:4).

When viewed in this light, theScriptures invite us in and provide uswith a God-given worldview. Webecome acquainted with ôthe eternalpurpose which He carried out inChrist Jesus our Lordö (Eph. 3:11).We have become “fellow citizenswith the saints and members of thehousehold of God, built upon thefoundation of the apostles and proph-ets, Christ Jesus Himself being the

cornerstone” (Eph. 2:19-20). It is with this knowledgeand through the life of prayer which must accompanyit that we may begin to make sense of our lives and ourrole in the modern world. Vatican II provides that“Christ fully reveals man to Himself” (Gaudium etSpes, no. 22), and without this Christ-centered knowl-edge of self we have no hope of living the life that Godintends for us.

5. Faith of Our Fathers: Analogy of FaithSo then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditionswhich you were taught, whether by word of mouth or byletter from us (2 Thess. 2:15).

This final interpretive principle allows us toexperience the breath and length andheight and depth of the fullness of theRoman Catholic Faith. This principle isentitled the analogy of faith, and is de-

scribed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:“Read the Scripture within ‘the living Tradition of thewhole Church.’ According to a saying of the Fathers,sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’sheart. . .” (Catechism, no.113). The analogy of faith isbased on the fact that “sacred Tradition and sacredScripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Wordof God, which is entrusted to the Church” (Dei Ver-bum, no. 10). This deposit of faith given by God andentrusted to the Church is “the pillar and bulwark ofthe truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). The analogy of faith is thesecret weapon of the Catholic Church. If we as Catho-lics were to realize in our lives the analogy of faith, wewould become suitable laborers in the work of authen-tic Christian unity.

The unity willed by God can be attained only by theadherence of all to the content of revealed faith in its

entirety. In matters of faith, compromiseis a contradiction with God who isTruth (Pope John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint,no. 18).

It was the discovery of thisinterpretative principle which led meback to the Roman CatholicChurch. Even though the Bible isthe very Word of God given in thewords of men, there is still room forhuman error and misinterpretation.In the book of Acts, the deaconPhilip comes across an Ethiopian

If we as Catholics wereto realize in our livesthe analogy of faith,we would become

suitable laborers in thework of authenticChristian unity.


eunuch who is reading a passage from the sacred Scrip-tures, and Philip asks him, “Do you understand whatyou are reading?” and the eunuch replies, “Well, howcould I unless someone guides me” (cf. Acts 8:30-31).There are more than 25,000 different Christian de-nominations, each claiming the Bible as their rule offaith. So without someone to guide us, we would beunable to discern the authentic meaning of the sacredpage. St. Jerome illustrates this point, stating: “What Ihave learned I did not teachmyself—a wretchedly pre-sumptuous teacher!—but I learned it from illustriousmen in the Church (Spiritus Paraclitus, no. 36).

Many sincere Christians disagree on biblical inter-pretations. For example, should our Lord be takenliterally when He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, un-less you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink Hisblood, you have no life in you” (Jn. 6:53)? Imaginehow much insight we could gain if we could speakwith St. John himself and ask him what he understoodour Lord to mean. Well, this is exactly what theFathers of the Church were able to do. St. Ignatius ofAntioch was a disciple of St. John, and St. Ignatius isnot silent on the subject. He writes in his letter to thechurch of Antioch, “They [the heterodox] do notconfess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior,Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins in whichthe Father in His goodness raised up again. They whodeny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes.”

When I discovered the analogy of faith, I realizedthat I was no longer left to my own devices and subjectto my own limitations in trying to discover the fullnessof faith. Rather, I was able to enter in to a “dialogue”with other faithful followers of Jesus Christ. But as ifthis were not enough, I also had the wise and anointedleadership of the Magisterium, the servant andteacher of God’s word. For the Catholic, the riches ofthe Bible are open so completely. We have the verywords of God, in Tradition and in Scripture, as theyare preserved and proclaimed by the Teaching Church.This means that Catholics among all Christians shouldbe the most biblical. Some people are concerned thatby reading the Bible we may fall away from theChurch. But what I have seen is quite the opposite.Catholics who read the Bible within the Church helpothers to come into the Church. Catholics who areignorant of Scripture are easily drawn away to a Biblechurch, which rightly focuses on the importance of theWord of God, but does so outside of its God-givencontext, the family of God, the Church.

Two Ways to Start

There are many styles and methods ofstudying the sacred Scriptures. The mostbasic is an inductive Bible study: to go tothe very words of Scripture and allowthem to teach you. As a Catholic this

must be done in light of the five principles of iner-rancy, the importance of taking our study seriously, therealization that the Scriptures are given for the sake ofour salvation, that they will not contradict themselves,and that they will not contradict the Church, butrather the Church will help us and lead us to a fullerunderstanding. These principles allow us to read theBible with freedom and confidence, knowing that ifwe encounter something that we do not understand orthat seems to contradict the Church, we will humblydefer and allow the Church to guide us into the rightinterpretation. The Gospels may be the most fruitfulsubject for an inductive study. In them, we confrontthe very words and person of Jesus Christ, who invitesus to repent and believe, and challenges us to live, notfor the sake of this world, but for the sake of the worldto come. Seemingly, every passage in the Scriptures isan invitation to have our lives transformed by God. St.Paul writes, “I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, bythe mercies of God, to present your bodies as a livingsacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is yourspiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world,but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, thatyou may prove what is the will of God, what is goodand acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1-2).

Another type of study is a deductive study, inwhich we allow a topic or a teaching to lead us intothe Scriptures to show us its foundation and its biblicalprinciples. Perhaps the most useful guide for a deduc-tive study is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.The Catechism is filled with scriptural references, somuch so that one modern theologian accused it ofciting the Bible in a “fundamentalist way” (E. A.Johnson, “Jesus Christ in the Catechism,” America,p. 208, 3/3/92). To read articles of interest in theCatechism and then to follow the references into thesacred Scriptures allows you to interact with the teach-ings of the Faith in the way the Catechism intends. In acertain sense, the Catechism of the Catholic Church isnot the last word in Catholic teaching, but rather thefirst word, leading us to deeper study through theextensive references and footnotes. It is a wonderfulsynthesis of teachings flowing from the sacred Tradi-


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From the Illustrated London News, 1932-1936

The Stale Gameof Scientific ProphecyOur Note-Bookby G.K. Chesterton

I am trying to do some work, a thing towhich I strongly object, in the beautifulseasonable summer weather, to which Ialso object; and I am wondering in a dazedway why the game of Scientific Prophecy

has become so dull and stale. Why does not someliar say something fresh and fanciful about the rueof humanity, instead of going on perpetuallyrepeating that things will be as they are, only moreso’ Why not say, for instance, that all this cult ofSunbathing and Seabathing and Life on the Lidomeans that we are all slowly going back into thesea, out of which all organic life originally came;so at least I am informed by the ‘Outline of His-tory’ and other fairy-tales of science. That vastreturn of all the earth-creatures to the water wouldbe a fine imaginative panorama, and in thisweather it sounds cool and fresh. The profiteersparading in pink and purple would turn slowlyinto sea-beasts; nothing extra seems needed exceptthe sea. Film stars evolving into star-fish andsun-bathers into sun-fish would still be a hopefulevolution. There would be macabre prose sketchesof how our suits of clothes dangled and decayed

like scarecrows in the deserted lands and towns,the hollow husks or shells of the men who werealready mermen and would return no more. I canimagine an interesting legend or hymn of praisefor the whale, that pioneer of progress, who musthave done this very thing centuries ahead of hisage. For the whale is only sort of large sea-cow,who has wantonly gone into the water or bred tocome out of it, taking a perennial bath. Or whenwe have exhausted this prophecy about the men ofthe future who go down to the sea, in slips insteadof ships, we could turn to some other fancy; theremust be twenty More, and they are all quite asgood as the prophecies now regularly uttered;quite as likely and much more lively.

For instance, I read in huge headlines, in adaily paper, that one day we shall all visit Mars. Ifeel just as if I were told that one day we shall allvisit Margate. I have heard so much about Marsand Martians, in innumerable romances, shockers,short stories, predictions by cranks, revelations byspooks, that I feel as if I knew.

When I do a class on St. Thomas, I like theclass to read with me during the semesterChesterton’s book, St. Thomas Aquinas. Onerainy morning near the end of March, abouteleven thirty in the morning, by chance I readaloud to the class a short passage from the August,1995, Chesterton Review, a passage taken from anessay Chesterton wrote in 1911 on ‘School Maga-zines,’ about his early writing at St. Paul’s School.I guess I wanted to make the point to the class thatalmost any page of Chesterton can lead us to themost profound of topics,

tion of the Fathers, saints, Church Councils, and espe-cially the sacred Scriptures, which embody the verysoul of sacred theology, the study of God. By utilizingthese principles and techniques, we lay people canavoid some of the confusion which surrounds modernCatholic biblical studies. Theories will come and theo-ries will go, but the official teachings of the CatholicChurch provide us with reliable guideposts which leadus and transform us into the children of God we havebeen called to be. ✠

Curtis Martin holds a Masters degree in Theology from theFranciscan University of Steubenville. He is President ofCatholics United for the Faith. He is a featured speakerfor The Institute of Applied Biblical Studies, founded byDr. Scott Hahn. Curtis and his wife Michaelann live inSteubenville, OH with their children, Brock 5, Thomas 3,Augustine 1, and MariAna.


When we love dutymore, Chestertonthought, we would

produce in ourselvesdried souls. We would

be incapable, as aconsequence, of joy.

Among the memorable lines inthis essay were these:

Man always begins by owning theuniverse; it is ordinarily later in lifethat he leaves to own a home. Menshould always love virtue before theylove duty, the reverse produces driedsouls, incapable of joy.

Now, I could, and eventuallymay, so be forewarned, write acolumn on the first of these twosentences, about owning the uni-verse and finally owning one’shome. Needless to say, Chesterton no doubt con-sidered the latter ownership, of the home, to bemore profound than the former, of the universe, orbetter that the only sure way to learn to own theuniverse which we do with our knowledge is toown our own home wherein we can have thefreedom and love that make the more universalownership possible.

But this essay is on the second sentence, theone about duty and virtue. Here is how it cameabout.

When I finished this passage, a young lady putup her hand. With a combination of frown andinquisitive look on her face, she wanted to knowwhy we could not have both duty and virtue? Thatwas a good point, of course. There is no reason atall that we cannot have both virtue and duty. Sowhy would Chesterton separate them, or suggestthe priority of virtue?

Let me attempt again to respond to this ques-tion, as I did to the student and class. In the mod-ern world, there will always be something Kantianabout the word ‘duty.’ It has the overtones of aphilosophy that sees something wrong with plea-sure and delight. To do our duty, of course, hassomething noble about it. When all else fails dutymay save us. Duty, while it does not entirely losesight of the object of duty, emphasizes what weowe. It seems most distant from the object of dutyitself, duty towards what?

Duty looks at things from our side. Duty refersto what we ought to do, what we must do. In asense, duty looks at things in so far as we must do

something about them whether welike it or not. Duty is designed toovercome our lethargy, our fear,our lack of certainty about whatwe ought to do. ‘To do Yourduty’ implies that the rightness ofthe action is already decided. Dutyat its best implies an orientation towhat is good.

Chesterton concentrates onvirtue and duty. He said that manshould always love virtue before

he loves duty. If he does this, his duty will evi-dently be much easier. Thus, Chesterton does notdeny that we can indeed love our duty. Yet, hesays that right order implies that we love virtuefirst. ‘Why would this be?’ we might ask ourselves.Why does loving virtue come first? The clue canbe found first, perhaps, in the consequences of lov-ing duty more. When we love duty more,Chesterton thought, we would produce in our-selves dried souls. We would be incapable, as aconsequence, of joy.

Dried souls? Incapable of joy? Inspired orbuoyant souls, souls capable of joy, must arise fromvirtue, or better from what virtue itself is directedtowards. But how is this? Let us talk about lovingour mothers. If we ‘obey’ the Fourth Command-ment, it tells us to honor our parents.

This is a command to us;it indicates a duty. When all else fails, we are stillobliged to love OUR parents (or any one else weare obliged to love) because of our duty.

But it would be of little consolation to ourmother if she thought that the only or primaryreason that we loved her was because we weredoing our duty, looking not at her, but at what weowed her, what we were obliged to do. For thatmatter, she would not be happy either if shethought we were practicing virtue on her.Chesterton’s point was rather that virtue directs toits object, to what it is about. We are to be virtu-ous virtuously, in Aristotle’s tradition. That is, whatis primary in virtue is not virtue, or duty, but whatit is we love or do, the object of out love or duty.


ARTICLES

Joy does not come to us because we go out toseek it. If we go forth to seek joy, we will neverfind it. If our mother gives us joy, it is not becausewe do our duty towards her, nor even act virtu-ously around her. Rather, we first love her, forherself. What will follow from this placing theobject of our love first, is precisely joy and thealiveness that comes from what is not ourselves.To be incapable of joy happens to us when weundermine in ourselves the power of joy. Joy isthe possession of what we love. Both duty andvirtue can and should lead us to our concentratingon, not ourselves, but on what we love.

But if we so concentrate on either duty orvirtue so much that these are what it is we aremainly concerned with, we will never get beyondourselves to that towards we are to look. Whenthe Commandment implies that it is our duty tolove our parents, it does not mean that we shouldnot love them for themselves. That is what we arefirst to do, and if we do love and honor them first,we will do our duty to them in a very new light.The Commandment also means that, such is ourcondition, we may so allow our own desires, con-fusions, sins, or anger to come between us and that

Homily forBaccalaureate MassUniversity of San FranciscoMay 23, 1996

Introduction

It is a great joy for me to makemy first pastoral visit to theUniversity of San Francisco as

your new Archbishop on the happyoccasion of your graduation, and Ishare your sense of accomplishment(and perhaps even relief!) as wecelebrate these Commencementexercises of 1996. It is also most fitting that my

which we are to learn to love that the only thingthat might save us is obedience or duty whichleads us to do the external acts of loving our par-ents. After we do the acts of love, we may finallylearn to love as we should in the first place. Joyfollows from this, from what it is we love. Joy isnot an object of our desire, but a gift of lovingwhat we ought, what is right for us to choose.

I am not at all sure what this good studentthought of this explanation that I more or lessrecount here. What strikes me now, as it oftendoes, is that a single sentence in Chesterton, whenwe think about it, mull it over, can lead us to dis-tinctions and reflections that carry us to the heartof things. Yes, both virtue and duty do belongtogether, but in a certain order. What is importantin thinking about them is not merely knowingwhat each is, but the order in which each is relatedto the other. Get this wrong, as Kant seems tohave done, and everything else will go wrong. Wewill end up thinking that the duty of loving ourmother is more noble than our mother and the giftof joy that she is. ✠

John Peterson

DOCUMENTATION first visit among you should takeplace at this celebration of the Eu-charist. The words of Our Lordwhich we have just heard, “I amthe vine, you are the branches” (Jn15:5) take on their most profoundreality in this liturgical gathering, inwhich Christ nourishes us with HisBody and Blood and we are allgiven to drink of the one Spirit, asSt. Paul tells us. All of you —students, faculty and staff — haveworked hard in your years leadingup to this night, but it is with aweand gratitude that we attend to thecompelling words of Christ: “Apartfrom me you can do nothing.”(Jn 15:5) Let us be grateful for theabundant grace of God which hasaccompanied and sustained you on

every step of your journey at theUniversity of San Francisco.

1. Christ, the Light ofthe Nations

This evening, we gather inthe final days of the Easterseason, when the Church

unites in prayer with the first dis-ciples awaiting the promised out-pouring of the Holy Spirit. Indescribing this momentous event,St. Luke tells us that the dawningof the day of Pentecost found all ofthe believers together in one place.Enflamed by the Spirit, the dis-ciples preached the Good News sothat the throngs of pilgrims frommany nations understood them. In


the mystery of Pentecost, we seefulfilled what the prophet Isaiahprophesied centuries before: Christis the light of the nations. In the mystery of Pentecost, weencounter the paradox betweenGod’s desire that all be saved, andwhat has been called “the scandalof particularity”: to bring about thisuniversal gift, God chooses onepeople, sends His only Son to beour one Savior, and continues thework of salvation in His oneChurch. The followers of Jesusspeak innumerable languages, yetare together in one place; they goto the ends of the earth, but arebranches of the one vine. They aremany members of one body,whose various gifts are animated bya single guiding Spirit. The paradoxical tension be-tween particularity and universalityis a challenge both to the Churchand to the university. The tempta-tion to opt for one or the other isvery real. We can forego universal-ity, choose to withdraw from theworld, and become a sect; thisunwillingness to engage the widerworld is what lurks behind thescornful question posed byTertullian centuries ago: “What hasAthens to do with Jerusalem?” Or,we can forsake the uniqueness ofthe claims of Christ and by so do-ing reduce the Gospel to merelyone alternative among many in auniversal pantheon of philosophies.It is relatively easy to be in theworld on its own terms, or to cutourselves off from the world, butChrist has called us to a more diffi-cult vocation: to be in the world,but not of the world. Only in thisway can Jesus truly be seen as thelight of all the nations.

2. The Vocation of aCatholic University

I would like to reflect with youon the vocation of a CatholicUniversity in this context of

particularity and universality, forthe university is a privileged placewhere all are gathered as one, yetspeak a multiplicity of languages.Like the Church herself, the uni-versity is a kind of abiding Pente-cost event. Emblazoned on your UniversityCenter is the image of a Phoenixrising from the ashes, with themotto “Pro urbe et universitate.”Let us ask ourselves what is thepurpose of the University of SanFrancisco for the city as a center ofCatholic education.

a. “Pro urbe”

The role played by the Univer-sity of San Francisco in the life ofthe City has been and continues tobe crucial. Since its foundation in1855, USF has sought to fulfill thesimple yet all-embracing vocationof a university as described by ourHoly Father in his Apostolic Con-stitution, Ex Corde Ecclesiae: “aCatholic university is distinguishedby its free search for the wholetruth about nature, man andGod.”1 Pope John Paul stressesthat such a vocation demands acertain institutional autonomy andfreedom of inquiry which permit“an impartial search for truth, asearch that is neither subordinatedto nor conditioned by particularinterests of any kind.” 2

While submitting itself to theintellectual rigors demanded of anycenter of higher learning, a Catho-lic university seeks to provide aunique service to the City by creat-ing a place where the enterprise of

education is engaged with a dis-tinctly religious ethos, a setting inwhich the question “how” is neverisolated from the question “why?”This stance provides a necessarycorrective to the tendency to re-duce knowledge to technology,and to drown the human subject ina sea of presumed scientific objec-tivity. In the words of Fr. PedroArrupe: The university looks to the totaldevelopment of people — intellec-tual, artistic, moral, religious —and to the issues of values, bothpersonal and social. 3 The great giftof this university pro urbe is to be acenter of such total development,both for its members and the widercommunity. When I described theCity in my homily at St. Mary’sCathedral last October during myinaugural Mass as Archbishop —the City as “marketplace of mod-ern life,” as “home for individualsand families,” as “crossroads ofhuman civilizations”4 it was pre-cisely to focus our ecclesial andcivic attention on the ongoing taskwhich God has given us: to be thearchitects of our City as a civiliza-tion of love. For this creative work,a Catholic university like USF istruly indispensable.

b. “... et universitate”

In order for the university tofulfill this mission in the world, it isessential that it be firmly rooted inits identity as a Catholic university.It is precisely by this particularitythat USF can make a unique con-tribution to the wider society,while at the same time embodyingthe one Gospel in the complexmulticultural context in which welive. For this reason, even as theHoly Father is insistent on the


DOCUMENTATION

necessity of academic freedom andinstitutional autonomy in the life ofa Catholic university, he is equallystrong in calling upon Catholicuniversities to maintain fidelity tothe Christian message as it comesto us through the Church. 5 Suchfidelity involves far more thandownloading data; it can, andshould, represent a profound andexciting experience of conversion.In his words:

Catholic theology, taught in amanner faithful to Scripture, tradi-tion, and the church’smagisterium, provides an aware-ness of the Gospel principleswhich will enrich the meaning ofhuman life and give it a newdignity.6

For some, the insistence ofthe Holy Father on this fidelity tothe teaching of Jesus handed on tohis disciples in the Church mayseem almost a threat to the veryacademic freedom he defends.I believe that the image of Pente-cost teaches us a different lesson:while it is crucial that the messagebe proclaimed in many tongues, itis equally important that it be themessage of the Gospel given to thebelievers gathered in one placewith the Apostles, under the guid-ing Spirit of truth promised byJesus himself. For this reason, we shouldattend carefully to the words of St.Paul addressed to us this evening:“God has set up in the church firstapostles, second prophets, thirdteachers, then miracle workers,healers, assistants, administrators,and those who speak in tongues.”(I Cor 12:28) In listing the varietyof ministries established by God inthe infant Church, St. Paul notesthat the first of these is the Apostle.It was the responsibility of theApostles to coordinate the diverse

ministries of the first disciples, andit remains the responsibility of theirsuccessors, the bishops in unionwith the successor of St. Peter, todo so today. It is true, therefore, that theapostolic office holds a certain pre-eminence in the life of the Church.But if God has set up “firstapostles” He has not set up onlyapostles. Prophets and teachers arealso given to the Church by God,and both history and contemporaryexperience demonstrate that, what-ever conflicts and tensions mayexist in this dispensation, all ofthese ministries are essential to theChurch’s vitality and growth. Does such episcopal or papalinvolvement mean the death knellof academic freedom? The ques-tion, though warmly debated to-day, is not new. Cardinal Newmangrappled with the same issue over acentury ago, and his answer isworthy of our reflection: Some persons will say that I amthinking of confining, distorting,and stunting the growth of theintellect by ecclesiastical supervi-sion. I have no such thought. Norhave I any thought of a compro-mise, as if religion must give upsomething, and science something.I wish the intellect to range withthe utmost freedom, and religion toenjoy equal freedom; but theyshould be found in one and thesame place, and exemplified in thesame persons ... I wish the samespots and the same individuals to beat once oracles of philosophy andshrines of devotion.7

3. The Jesuit contribution

To be “oracles of philosophyand shrines of devotion” isa very demanding voca-

tion, but it should be noted that

the unique charism of the Societyof Jesus has drawn men to live thisvocation for over four hundredyears. While some may seek todrive a wedge between the identityof a university as “Catholic” and“Jesuit,” the example of St.Ignatius and his followers bearseloquent witness to the truth thatthe Jesuit vocation embodies in asingular degree both the universal-ity and particularity which are thethemes of my reflection thisevening. St. Ignatius felt drawn to theHoly Land, aflame with the desireto witness to the Gospel among theMuslim people. His dear friend St.Francis Xavier carried the faith toIndia and Japan, and died with hiseyes fixed on the coast of China. Inthat same year, Matteo Ricci wasborn; he became the great Jesuitmissionary who gained a hearingamong the Chinese people becauseof his profound respect for theirculture and traditions. Universality has been the hall-mark of the Jesuits since their foun-dation, and it finds a worthy homeat this university, poised on theedge of the Pacific Rim and wel-coming students with a rich varietyof religious backgrounds. Here thespiritual descendants of MatteoRicci and Roberto da Nobili canexplore the Gospel of Christ inrespectful dialogue with rich tradi-tions of other world religions. Paradoxically, this universalvision is sustained precisely by theanchor of fidelity to what St.Ignatius called “our holy Mother,the hierarchical Church” and inparticular to the successor of St.Peter, the Pope. Even as the Soci-ety of Jesus has sought to carry theGospel to every segment of society,it has done so most effectivelywhen it has maintained a firm unity


with the disciples gathered in oneplace. The very word “apostolic”captures both terms of this vision:it implies being sent to, and sentfrom — to the world, from theheart of the Church. This twofoldloyalty is the key to shaping menand women who are both “oraclesof philosophy and shrines of devo-tion” and who can proclaim Christas the light of the nations.

Conclusion

As we now continue withour celebration of theEucharist, let us with all

our heart implore the outpouringof the Spirit of Pentecost, gratefulfor the accomplishments we cel-ebrate this evening, and committedto using the talents developed soeffectively at this great university inservice to a world in need of thelight of His truth and the fire ofHis love. Apart from Christ, thetrue vine, we can do nothing toachieve the civilization of love. Butour great consolation is that we arecalled to be His disciples, likebranches joined to the vine. MayHis presence with us in our life’stasks always be the source of ourjoy. ✠

1. Ex Corde Ecclesiae, #4.

2. Ex Corde Ecclesiae, #7.

3.Pedro Arrupe, S.J., “The Jesuit Mission inthe University Apostolate,” in SelectedLetters and Addresses - III: Other ApostolatesToday (Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis,1981), pg. 87.

4. William J. Levada, “The City: MeetingPlace of Politics Industry and the HumanSpirit,” Origins (vol. 25, no. 21, @OV. 19,1995), pp. 362-4.

5.Ex Corde Ecclesiae, #13.3.

6.Ex Corde Ecclesiae, #21.

7.John Henry Newman, “Intellect, theInstrument of Religious Training”; Sermonspreached on various Occasions, (London:Burns and Oates, 1881), pg. 13.

Report from theCardinal NewmanSociety: A Planfor Restoration

The newly established Cardinal Newman Society(CNS) is the only national

organization dedicated to restoringrespect for Christ and His Church atthe more than 230 Catholic collegesand universities in this country. Theorganization’s mission is simple, topromote the restoration of Catholichigher education through a faithfulimplementation of Ex cordeEcclesiae.

The need for the Cardinal Soci-ety Newman is painfully obvious toall Catholics who truly love theChurch. Since 1967, the LandO’Lakes vision for Catholic highereducation has been embraced bynearly all Catholic colleges and uni-versities in the United States. As aresult, schools that were once thepride of the Catholic Church inAmerica now tolerate, and in somecases promote, secular views whichare at odds with the teachings of theFaith. Nearly a generation of youngCatholics has been led away fromthe Church.

There is, however, a small butsignificant movement beginning onCatholic campuses across Americathat gives reason for hope. OnCatholic campuses across the coun-try, there are growing pockets ofconcern and activity in response tothe increasing secularization of theirschools. Student publications likeThe Observer at Boston College orRight Reason at Notre Dame andcampus groups like the Society ofSt. Augustine at Villanova are stand-ing up for Catholic identity.

In addition, there are alsofaculty groups such as Ruach(Hebrew word meaning Spirit) atthe University of Scranton andalumni groups like the ConcernedFriends of La Salle, which aredrawing attention to the loss ofacademic and religious integrity attheir schools and alma maters.

Our plan is to help thesegroups by sponsoring conferences,where those involved can gather todiscuss their challenges and shareexperiences. We are assisting stu-dent groups with their campuspublications and helping them tohost Catholic speakers instead ofthe likes of Gloria Steinam, whorecently spoke at St. Norbert’sCollege in Wisconsin. We feel it isimportant to expose students to therich tradition of the Church andthe dignity in giving witness to ourFaith. By providing a nationalvoice for these various groups wehope to give the added fuel to thismovement so that it can maintainzeal and consistency.

It is our hope that this growingcampus movement in support ofCatholic identity and Fx cordeEcclesiae will inspire our bishops totake a more active role in Catholichigher education. In Portlandrecently, several bishops indicatedtheir appreciation for the work ofCNS and promised to assist ourefforts.

By working from the bottomup through campus groups andencouraging bishops to work fromthe top down, we hope to reachuniversity administrators in themiddle. We are convinced thatmuch can be accomplished byfacilitating active networking andcollaboration between membersfrom all levels of the Catholic uni-versity community, who support


DOCUMENTATION

THE CARDINALNEWMAN SOCIETYPRESENTS ITS

FIRST NATIONALCONFERENCE...POPE JOHN PAUL II& CATHOLICHIGHEREDUCATION

October 19-20, 1996Crystal City Marriott,Crystal City, Virginia (justoutside Washington, D.C.)

Join hundreds of students,educators and alumni todiscuss the issues challengingCatholic higher education andshares ideas for effectivelypreserving Catholic identityon campus.

featuring...The Most Rev. James McHughRev. Peter StravinskasDr. James HitchcockMrs. Linda ChavezMr. Kenneth WhiteheadJustice Antonin Scalia

plus...Panels of student leaders fromacross the country.

for more info:Cardinal Newman Society207 Park Ave., Suite B-2Falls Church, VA 22046(703) 536-9585

�

the faithful implementation ofEx corde Ecclesiae.

We already have the supportof a Board of Advisors composedof many well-known Catholicleaders such as Msgr. George Kelly,Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., Fr. PeterStravinskas, Dr. Robert George,Dr. John Haas, Dr. James Hitch-cock, Dr. William May, and Dr.Janet Smith. In order to bettercoordinate the efforts of membersfrom the various levels of theCatholic higher education commu-nity. We plan to re-organize ourBoard of Advisors into severaladvisory boards and councilsincluding: episcopal advisors, spiri-tual advisors, presidents council,trustees council, faculty council,alumni council and students coun-cil. By forming these various advi-sory bodies, we will be able tomore effectively share information,provide ideas, and promote wide-spread and coordinated support forEx corde Ecclesiae.

The reason for this effort isobvious. The Pope refers toCatholic universities as the “Heartof the Church” and that is exactlywhat we are striving to restore. It isthe very heart of the Church that isat stake.

Many would say that there isno turning back for most Catholiccolleges and universities in thiscountry. Whether this is true ornot, we will strive to bring themessage of the Holy Father tostudents and allow them to be awitness to Truth Himself. If we areable to reach students in this way,then the effort is worth it.

There are, however, two subtlefactors which will aid us in ourmission to fully restore the religiousidentity of Catholic colleges anduniversities. There is a generation

of young people, a post-Vatican 11generation, that is dissatisfied withthe distorted implementation of theCouncil. We clearly see this in ourwork with the various studentgroups that are speaking out forTruth and Life. This generation ofyoung people is inspired by thewitness of Pope John Paul 11 and isfirmly rooted in the teaching patri-mony of the Holy Father. Theseyoung Catholics will be the drivingforce behind the movement tobring about the authentic fulfill-ment of the Council as well as themovement to restore Catholichigher education.

The second factor is a verypractical reality that is affectingCatholic higher education rightnow. Of the approximately 230Catholic colleges and universities inthis country, the majority are smallundergraduate institutions number-ing between 1000-2000 in enroll-ment. As these schools secularize,they are offering no more thanwhat the neighborhood commu-nity college is able to offer, only ata highly inflated price. In order tocompete in the higher educationmarket, small Catholic colleges willbe forced to find something uniqueto offer. Of course, the only trulyunique concept to offer in ourincreasingly secular culture isCatholic identity.

We know that great things arepossible with the grace of the HolySpirit. So with prayer, cooperation,and much hard work, perhaps wecan initiate a trend that will runcounter to Land O’Lakes—a trendinvolving a significant portion ofCatholic colleges and universitiesthat embrace the vision containedwithin Ex corde Ecclesiae so theycan once again proudly bear thetitle, CATHOLIC.


MAGISTERIUMREVIEWS

James FrancisCardinal McIntyre:One of a KindA Review Essay

Msgr. George A. Kelly

Msgr. Francis J. Weber’sstory of His Eminence ofLos Angeles: James Francis

Cardinal McIntyre (1886-1979)rescues from oblivion one of theChurch’s most remarkable diocesanpastors.1

One of Cardinal Spellman’s bestgifts to the Church of the UnitedStates was Cardinal McIntyre tobe Archbishop of Los Angeles. Ifeither of them had been less of aChurchman, McIntyre would haveended his life as pastor in Hell’sKitchen on the West Side of NewYork. The future Angeleno wasliving with Patrick Cardinal Hayesin 1936 when he was dispatched toinform Bishop Francis J. Spellman,then auxiliary bishop of Boston,that he was no longer welcome,either in New York or at theCardinal’s Residence. The reason isvariously explained, the more in-teresting one being that Hayes was

miffed because Spellman droveCardinal Pacelli (later Pius XII), onhis only visit to America, to LongIsland, past the Archbishop’s Resi-dence on Madison Avenue withouta courtesy call. Three years later,Spellman was New York’s Arch-bishop, prompting McIntyre toride by train to Boston immedi-ately, where he resigned as Chan-cellor of New York. Spellmanrefused the offer, allegedly saying:“if you could be that loyal to Car-dinal Hayes, you can be that loyalto me!” He was. Spellman madehim a bishop in 1940 and his ownCoadjutor in 1946. New Yorkpriests developed the line:“Spellman ran the world, McIntyrethe Archdiocese!” McIntyre wentto Los Angeles in 1948, and be-came the West Coast’s first Cardi-nal in 1953. The rest is history. It is difficult to conceive of anyother prelate doing for the Arch-diocese of Los Angeles what JamesFrancis A. McIntyre accomplishedduring his tenure there 1948-1970.His sponsor Francis CardinalSpellman will loom larger inChurch history because of hisinternational prominence, and hisown pastoral success in New York,but Spellman could not have donein L.A. what McIntyre did.Spellman’s genius was seeing inMcIntyre what few others saw(as he did later in tapping JohnCourtney Murray for Vatican II)viz. as the priest who would turnthe Church of Our Lady of theAngels into the largest and best runArchdiocese in the nation.2 Is thisnot the specific function of a GoodShepherd? This first Cardinal on the WestCoast is noteworthy for the richpatrimony of Catholic faith andChurch services that he bequeathed

to his successor on his retirement.He may not have been the favoritechoice of local ecclesial leadership,he surely didn’t receive the ravenotices from the Church’s opinion-ated elites. and certainly he was nota public relations man’s dreamsMcIntyre was simply an incredibleperformer as a diocesan pastor.

During his California episco-pate, when Los Angeles tripled itsCatholic population from 600,000to 1,800,000, the transplanted NewYorker built 200 schools, churches,and agencies, paid for and staffedthem fully year by year until heretired. In that 22 year period, thenumber of diocesan priests movedfrom 700 to 1,400, parishes from221 to 321, seminarians from 312to 454, Catholic collegians from3,250 to 9,500, high school stu-dents from 9,000 to 39,000, el-ementary from 45,000 to 117,000,Catholic hospital patients treatedfrom 86,000 to 935,000, teachersfrom 1.600 to 5,300. Even hisantagonist John Cardinal Dearden,at his funeral in 1979, admitted that“McIntyre wrote the book onmodern Curial activity.”Criticsdismiss this record as mere evi-dence of a “brick and mortar men-tality”; friendly CEO professionalsgive whatever credit is due to his“financial genius.” Neither groupunderstands what a Churchman hereally was - a priest with the un-usual know-how and determina-tion to build an archdiocese as heremembered legendary pastors ofhis boyhood built parishes.

The Cardinal Archbishop

Why were pastors calledlegendary in days whenthey were around long

enough to leave their mark?

The Cardinal Newman Societyinvites all members of the Fellow-ship to assist us in our efforts tobuild a campus movement in sup-port of Ex corde Ecclesiae. Helpkeep us informed of events at yourcampus and we will keep youabreast of the nationwide move-ment to restore Catholic highereducation. Please contact us at: 207Park Ave., Suite B-2. Falls Church,VA 22046, (703) 536-9585.

Mr. Mo FungExecutive Director


FEATURE

Merely for building the housewhere people worshipped?Or schools where their childrenreceived a free education? Simplyfor using their monies wisely? Yes.The pastor’s job, after all, is tobuild and supervise properly theinfrastructures which enhance theChurch’s sacred mission. But wasthis alone what made him apeople’s hero? Hardly. Baptizing,confirming, marrying them, visit-ing their homes, knowing every-one worth knowing, attendingthem when they were sick, buryingtheir dead, speaking at their gradu-ations, giving them a lift when theywere down, fighting city hall fortheir benefit — these are whatturned a priest into an epic figure.If McIntyre was once called “oneof the best, loved prelates of theCatholic Church,” it was notsimply because he built a lot ofbuildings, or ran Los Angeles in theblack. His ten thick volumes ofhomilies and addresses (in thearchives) say he was everywhere,telling people that “you cannothave morality without dogmaticprinciples,” speaking about theDivinity of Christ, or the Legionof Decency, arguing against theNational Education Association.On a day-to-day basis McIntyreseemed to be everywhere, in theright places, with the rich andpowerful to be sure, but moreoften with the people who did allthe Church’s work, and with thepoor. Hardly ten years in L.A.,McIntyre saw that every Mexicanneighborhood had its own paro-chial school and nuns, and everybracero camp of migrant workersits own chaplain.

As for fighting city hall,McIntyre was an activist from thevery beginning. His bags were just

about unpacked (1948), when hediscovered that California taxedparochial schools, hundreds of thou-sands of dollars per annum, betterused, he thought, to build newschools. When he forced the issueinto the polling booths, it was thepluralities he garnered in Los Ange-les which boosted the cause over thetop, with more than a little helpalong the way from his personalinvolvement with men of stature-Governor Earl Warren, AdmiralChester Nimitz, Senator WilliamKnowland. Journalists, who up tothen spoke of thedeclining Church influence on WestCoast politics, were quick to add“but not in those parts of the Statesubject to the spiritual jurisdiction ofCardinal McIntyre.” Though nor-mally detached from national poli-tics, and psychologically suspiciousof all federal aid programs, he joinedCardinal Spellman in 1949 to fightCongressman Graham Barden’s firstfederal proposal ever to provideassistance to public school childrenonly. Beyond his own uplift servicesto L.A.’s increasing minority popula-tion, the Cardinal gave support tothe Civil Rights Act of 1964 and topro-life activities by 1967.

Strong as he was in West CoastChurch affairs, Cardinal McIntyrehad little interest in what book writ-ers would call ecclesiastical politics,nor did he aspire to be an ecclesiasti-cal power-broker. He was not abishop-maker in the usual sense ofthat word. He was highly respectfulof Pius XII, friendly to John XX(unlike Spellman), and enjoyed verygood personal relations with PaulVI. (He and Spellman were pro-Montini in the papal election of1963, although 20 Cardinals refusedto vote for him because of his inde-cisiveness, even after his election was

secure.) He did not want to retire(at 83) and said so, refusing originalnominees proposed by the HolySee for an orderly succession. Yet,he eventually worked with Rometo send Timothy Manning toFresno as a test of his administrativeability (of which McIntyre haddoubts), and for his eventual returnto L.A. as Coadjutor Archbishop.When asked by Rome, he alsoworked to straighten out the shakyfinances in dioceses like Yakimaand SanDiego. In his view the pre-Vatican]I NCWC was a costly inefficientbureaucracy, which liked to setpolicy for the nation’s Church, buttook consolation in the fact thatNCWC resolutions, which heregularly implemented, lacked theforce of law on a diocesan bishop.Understandably, he later opposedlegislative powers for the NCCB.

During Vatican ii, CardinalMcIntyre like his American coun-terparts, played a marginal role,although he sided with the major-ity on 95 percent of those mattersput to a vote. (The Americanscomprising 10 percent of the as-sembly, made only 5 percent of theinterventions.) McIntyre lookedupon the Conciliar debates, not asbetween liberals and conservatives,but rather between change makersin a hurry and those who wantedassurances that any new way wasbetter than the old. Of some inter-est to general readers may be thefact that Pius XII discussed thepossibility of an Ecumenical Coun-cil with Archbishop Spellman atthe time of his appointment toNew York in 1939, again in 1945and 1956. On Pius’ death in 1958,a 200-page schema for such aCouncil was found in the papalquarters.

REVIEWS


McIntyre the Man

Every public figure is theincarnation of a person’sinner self. People usually get

what they see, even it they misreadthe signs. Cardinal McIntyre was asimple man of great faith, devotedto the Church as his only love,impelled by a compulsive personal-ity to work tirelessly on her behalf,disposed to help the helpless, impa-tient with perceived wrongdoers,given little to contemplation,academic pursuits or pettifoggingand, when venting his feelings,could be heard a room away. Hewas well-retired and in fine fettle,when last we met in St. Basil’sParish House where he was servingas a curate. After spending threedelightful hours with the black-robed Cardinal, I went on to SanFrancisco there to meet with adozen pastors and several curates.At this later session, among menwho were considered the finestpriests in the country, I asked thisquestion: “What explains the factthat L.A. priests with their cur-mudgeon Cardinal seem to havebetter morale than San Franciscowith its gentler more permissibleArchbishop? Is it because L.A. hasmore Irish-born pastors?” Afterminutes of mumbling unsatisfactorydiagnoses, one young Suipicianraised his hand: “I was trained inL.A. Many of us frequently dis-agreed with the Cardinal. But youhave to give him credit. He will goanywhere to meet seminarians andpriests to explain or defend what heis going to do or what he has done.He is courageous, the first one intochapel in the morning and the lastone out of it at night. He’s a veryholy man.” New York priests who knew

him, hearing that he was going toL.A., reacted immediately: “He’llscare every pastor from Sacramentoto San Diego.” They had learnedto talk up to him, without everdaring to talk back to him.McIntyre was good at answeringbefore he knew the whole ques-tion, but he was also capable ofchanging his mind, even of apolo-gizing. During World War II, hewould call Dorothy Day in, abradeher for a peacenik editorial in thecatholic Worker, then, as she left,give her a large check for herwork: or chastise a chaplain of theAssociation of Catholic TradeUnionists for something ACTUdid to embarrass Spellman, thensend him off to a strike meeting ofTelephone Workers as a represen-tative of the Archdiocese, because“our girls” were there. Angelenoswould have to learn that side oftheir new Archbishop. Some neverdid. Although a registered Demo-crat all his life, he was pro-Ameri-can, anti-Communist, anti-WelfareState, opposed to political priests.and suspicious of groups like theNational Conference of Christiansand Jews.

McIntyre made a lot ofenemies - usually people he con-fronted because they confrontedthe Church, e.g. Hans Kung(whom he sort of liked), JohnTracy Ellis, Archbishop ThomasRoberts, S.J., and Bishop JamesShannon, the latter before he aban-doned the episcopacy. Biblicalscholar John McKenzie thoughtthe Cardinal was “theologicallyilliterate,” and “an evil man,”Atlanta’s Archbishop Paul Hallinancalled him “absolutely stupid,” andsocial activist George Dunne, S.J.,said he “was not only mean-spir-ited and insensitive, but appallingly

ignorant.” (When McIntyre wastold later what Dunne had said, theCardinal observed “he was onlytwo-thirds correct, which is prettygood for George Dunne!”) McIntyre’s public troubles,small enough before Vatican II,became serious thereafter. Hith-erto, he and his critics collided overthe tactics of what became knownas procedures of evangelization andinculturization; later the substratumof multiple controversies were thevery definitions of Catholicity.In these, the Cardinal, more oftenthan not, had a greater sense ofwhat was right for the Church thanhis antagonists. most of whom hadnever in their lives created ormaintained a Catholic community.Specifically, the public controver-sies which tested McIntyre’s nettlewere three: (1) L.A.’s ImmaculateHeart of Mary nuns-, (2) Fr. Will-iam Dubay, one of his priests;(3) Confrontations within theChurch over political action. The Cardinal became con-cerned with the IHM’s during the1960’s, when he noticed an un-usual rise in requests for dispensa-tion from vows. He did not know,then, that IHM leadership, withthe help of theologians (drawnfrom as far away as Holland), andof Carl Roger’s psychotherapists,was retraining their nuns awayfrom traditional religious life to-wards self-determination, mundaneinvolvement, and professionalism.By the time the Holy See came toreject IHM’s revision of its Consti-tution (1967), McIntyre began tobe worried about the effect of theirupheaval on his school system. Hewas willing to leave the religiouslife issue to Rome, but he wanted“nuns,” not secularized women, inhis classrooms. He had no intention


of allowing “our convents tobecome hotels or boarding housesfor women.” Rome demanded thatIHM’s observe the rules of reli-gious life, and the nuns said No. Bythen, they were no longer inter-ested in ecclesiastical approval fromanyone. Their president, drawingsupport from Jesuits, from peoplelike Harvey Cox and Belgium’sLeo Cardinal Suenens, took hercase to the lecture circuit to drumup support against “archfoe”McIntyre. When she gave theArchdiocese an ultimatum, it wasthe Cardinal’s turn to say No,knowing that he already hadenough religious women of othercommunities to restaff all but oneof their 32 schools. Today, theIHM’s have all but withered away,but the torch of their rebellion waspassed to motherhouses all acrossthe country.

Fr. William Dubay was a parishadministrator who, on his own,decided to confront his Archbishoppublicly over the latter’s failure(he thought) to deal effectivelywith the race question. Dubay, nota very effective parish priest, laterdescribed in the press as “obnox-ious,” relished a short career as abete noire to his Ordinary, accus-ing him as being out of step withthe times. As an organizer of alabor union for priests, he receivednotoriety for a book titled TheHuman Church, which advocated“tolerance for heresy.” During thiscontroversy McIntyre of the tworeceived the more favorable secularpress, although Dubay did receivespace in Chicago Studies to fulmi-nate against the Church. In 1968he got married before a minister,left the woman in 1972 to declarehimself a homosexual. During thissad period of his life, the rebel

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admitted that Cardinal McIntyrehad done a great deal for the poorof Los Angeles, including blacks.

McIntyre, particularly in theyears close to his retirement, was tosuffer political action indignities atthe hands of activists, although hemoved as much as $13 million in agiven year from affluent parishes toChicano pastors. In one situation, acrowd of 200 Chicanos. egged onby a suspended Guatemalan priestand a wandering Puerto Ricanbishop, broke into St. Basil’s duringhis Midnight Mass, the protestersexploding in indignation that someof them were arrested. The Cardi-nal per se was not the problem, buta new mood that violence againstprominent public figures, if thecause involved the underclass, wasjustified as the only way to drama-tize the perceived injustice.

McIntyre had more troublewith in-house Catholic reformersbent on de-sacramentalizing theChurch. On the basis of his experi-ence and personal preferences, hejudged that many proposals comingout of the Washington, D.C. coali-tions were ill-defined, undulyopen-ended, and lacking account-ability. When experiments amongreligious were undertaken so thatstronger ties with the laity might beforged, he pointedly asked: “Whoin all history and in all times andunder all circumstances have beencloser to people than the nun.”With so many consultative groupsalready at work in L.A., he did notfind a Priests’ Senate to be neces-sary. He was accused of being “re-calcitrant in liturgical reform;” yetbefore he moved on any change,he demanded to know whether“the change” was an improvementover “the old.’ McIntyre was op-posed to the wipeout of the Latin,

but so were the Council Fathers.Los Angeles did fairly well withliturgical reform as dioceses went.,and he, no liturgical expert, fol-lowed the advice of his own pro-fessionals, not those of the NCCB.Cardinal Manning later expressedgratitude for his predecessor’scaution. His Archdiocese may havesuffered less priest leakage at thetime than others. “Mean-spirited” Catholic eliteswould give him no credit, evenwhen he was doing the right thing.Working with Rome to bringTimothy Manning back to L.A. ashis successor, he recommendedthat the younger man go to Fresnofirst to gain administrative experi-ence, this was labeled by the un-friendly as “an exile.” The Cardinalfinally retired in 1970. He refusedArchbishop Manning’s offer ofdowntown office space, never hada secretary again, took a monthlypension of 400 one-dollar bills ashandout money to the poor, neverwent back to the Chancery, neversecond-guessed his successor, andbecame a black-robed curate. Saidhe: “To retire from the position ofauthority is one thing, but to abdi-cate the care and concern of soulsis something a priestly consciencecould never endure.” He glorifiedin the first convert he made as aparish priest at St. Basil’s. Cardinal McIntyre’s very deci-siveness., his Churchmanship, andhis intimidability by pressuregroups, made him appear sternerand less thoughtful than he reallywas. He was not “the dinosaur”Robert Blair Raiser thought hewas, and journalists who knew himfound him approachable, compas-sionate, even if the disciplinarian inhim was always in evidence. Hecould be diplomatic when he chose


to be, but cultivating the imagepublic relations experts might likehim to have was not a large priorityin his life. People and priests -especially critics of the Church -worried about him, never he aboutthem, if he was defending theChurch. He could thunder withwords, but he was not impetuous.Indeed, when Cardinal Spellmandug a p.r. hole for himself in 1949over Eleanor Roosevelt and theCalvary Cemetery strike, McIntyreremarked that those mistakeswould not have been made in NewYork had he still been living onMadison Avenue. Nor was he atrickster, especially in his dealingswith fellow bishops. What they sawis what they got. He was not abovethinking that his friend SanAntonio’s Archbishop RobertLucey tended to overemphasizesocial considerations at the expenseof the religious. He fired off aprotesting letter to Chicago’sAlbert Cardinal Meyer for allowingFr. Dubay to use Chicago Studiesas a platform to denigrate L.A. Hedid not hesitate to tell good friendBishop Fulton Sheen to cease anddesist soliciting funds for hisNational Office of the Propagationof the Faith, thus underminingdiocesan directors. Cardinal JohnDearden was his particular nemesis.McIntyre resented Dearden tellinga reporter in Rome (1963) that hewas an enemy of labor, especiallysince he dealt with more laborleaders in L.A., as he did in NewYork, than Dearden ever did. (Hewas opposed, though, to “labor”priests sounding like labor leaders.)When he and Western bishopsdiscovered (1967) that Dearden, asnew NCCB president, wrote toPaul VI expressing concern overRome’s stern directives to L.A.’s

IHM’S, they equivalently told himto mind his own business. LosAngeles also confronted Detroit onthe latter’s failure to pass on to thePope (1968), the AdministrativeBoard’s endorsement of HumanaeVitae and Cardinal O’Boyle.

Msgr. Weber’s Biography

His Eminence of Los Angeles: James Francis CardinalMcIntyre is the story of

how an ordinary man became anoutstanding pastor of souls. Msgr.Weber lets the story tell itself, un-like others who fit the subject intoa schema, which mainly reflects theinterests or ideology of the writer.Granted that an episcopal biogra-phy can achieve Pulitzer Prizestatus if it skillfully dramatizes thepolitical or ecclesial skills of thesubject, and his place in the largerpolitics of Church or State. (Cardi-nal Spellman, however, used tolaugh that no one would do hisbiography, because he did his bestwork on the telephone.) What isdefective in some highly praisedbiographies is that the bishop’schief role as pastor of souls is lightlytreated, perhaps because the day-to-day activity of a bishop is sopedestrian to a bookman. Thereader might never know from thetext whether he was a good or badshepherd at home.

Msgr. Weber’s biography has a“diary” quality to it, unfolding theevents in Mclntyre’s life somewhatas they occurred. Assembled incategories, such as “The EarlyYears.” “Spreading the Faith,”“The Cardinalate,” the pages bela-bor little the cosmic significance ofparticular things McIntyre did.Neither does the author providedepth analysis of the Cardinal’s

psyche. which others sometimes doto explain why their subject was ahero or a menace. Nor does Webercarve out a niche for his one-timeboss as a major figure in AmericanChurch history, Red Hat or no.Substantially, L.A.’s archivist re-counts the life of a diocesan pastorat work “performing an organiza-tional miracle in governing thesprawling Los Angeles Archdioceseand its huge network of schools,”as a one-time enemy said.

Historiographer Weber point-edly leaves other researchers toexplore in depth Mclntyre’s deal-ings with Rome, Spellman, and theNCCB, with the maladministrationat CUA, about how he saved theDiocese of San Diego, or why hewas so friendly with excommuni-cated Will Durant, why he did notforce Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes intothe hierarchy, with the details ofhis inner dealings with L.A.’s mi-norities, or how McIntyre came toreceive an Honorary Doctorate ofLaw from Notre Dame’s TheodoreHesburgh.

One final word about the WestCoast’s first Cardinal: For all hislarger-than-life accomplishments,and his bluster, and in spite of theverbosity of his enemies, whomade him look greater than hemight have been, McIntyre was ahumble man. He never aspired tobe a bishop, and he would haveacted no differently, or with lessenthusiasm, had Spellman madehim a pastor in New York’s Hell’sKitchen. The motto on hisCardinal’s coat of arms was in char-acter: ‘Have mercy on me, 0 Lord.’When he returned home with hisnew Red Hat, he told his welcom-ers: “Any honor that comes to theShepherd belongs to theSheepfold.” To which a reporter,


watching the expression on his faceas he said it, rejoined as if inamazement: “He really believes it!”And he did!

I gave Frank Weber’s manu-script to a wise old priest of mygeneration. He returned it with thiscomment: “They’d never letMcIntyre into today’s hierarchy.Nor John Mitty. Certainly notFrancis J. Spellman.’

Had Bishop McIntyre stayed inNew York he would never havebeen noticed outside, because ofthe large shadow cast by CardinalSpellman. On his own, he was oneof a kind.

His Eminence of Los Angeles:James Francis Cardinal McIntyre isthe story of a bishop being a bishopto his people. ✠

1. Published by the St. Francis HistoricalSociety, Los Angeles, 728 pp., $35.00; Msg.,Weber is Archivist for the Archdiocese ofLos Angeles.2. Spellman offered hirer his choice of LosAngeles or Washington, D.C.. but recom-mended the West Coast. His classmate,Patrick A. O’Boyle, confirming the story,remarked: “I got what was left.”3. A noteworthy sidelight to his appointmentwas the attitude of San Francisco’s Arch-bishop John Mitty (1884-1961), who hadtaught McIntyre in Dunwoodie Seminary,following his entry there in 1916. Mitty, apotential Cardinal in his own right, hearingthe rumor in 1947 of Mclntyre’s coming,said: “We have enough New Yorkers inCalifornia now.” Interestingly, Mitty thefirst one McIntyre informed of his appoint-ment (and later of the Cardinal’s hat), alwayscalled McIntyre “Frank,” while the L.A.newcomer, out of respect for his one-timeprofessor, never called Mitty anything but“Archbishop.”

A TALE ...

T he last time I spoke withCardinal McIntyre wasduring the Christmas season

1975 in St. Basil’s Church where he,now retired, was serving as a curate.We spent three hours that morningtalking about New York, and some ofmy best recollections of him. He roaredover one story in particular, whichwent something like this:

Back in 1947 we chaplains of theAssociation of Catholic Trade Union-ists were told we were in your dog-house because ACTU supported theWall Street strike, and thereby lost alot of money for the Catholic CharitiesCampaign going on at the same time.Later that year, when the TelephoneWorkers went on strike, you tele-phoned me at my rectory with a re-quest that I represent the Archdioceseof New York at a strike meeting of2,000 of what you called “our girls.”I agreed, but then said to you: “But,Bishop, I might not say to them whatyou might say to them if you wererepresenting the Archdiocese.” Towhich you responded: “I don’t carewhat you say. They tell me a Jesuitfrom Brooklyn is going there, and ifanyone is going to got credit for beingon the side of the workers, it isn’tgoing to be a Jesuit from Brooklyn!”

The old Cardinal laid back in hischair and roared with laughter at anincident he had no reason to remem-ber, but warned: “Don’t tell that storyout here; I’m in trouble enough!”

Jahrbuch fur Philosophiedes Forschungsinstituts furPhilosophie Hannover, Band 7by Peter Koslowski and RichardSchenk (Eds.), 1996, PassagenVerlag, Vienna, 1995, 334 pp.

This is the, annual report ofthe Hannover Institute ofPhilosophical Research.

This institute was inaugurated inSeptember of 1988 by the Bishopof Hildesheim (Lower Saxony),Dr. Josef Homeyer. As stated in itsConstitutive Document, this insti-tute “is an ecclesiastical foundationunder public administrative law.Its aim is to contribute to a com-prehensive and normative theory ofthe overall dynamics in whichhuman persons and societies exist.The means by which this goal is tobe pursued are the methods offundamental philosophical researchwithin the horizon and spirit of theCatholic faith.” The institute iscomposed of two entities, a Centerof Research and a CollegiumPhilosophicum. The former isgoverned by a Presidium made upof three members, one of whomrules it for a two year period: Thecurrent governing body includesPeter Koslowski, the actual direc-tor, Richard Schenk, O.P., and thethird is unoccupied due to Rein-hard Low’s death. The secondorganization is an advisory councilto the Presidium. Its memberinclude diverse authorities in thefield of philosophy, such as RobertSpaemann, Karl-Otto Appel,Martin Kriele, Odo Marquard,Wilhelm Vossengohl. The insti-tute was recognized by the Depart-ment of Culture of the LowerSaxony State and has its seat at thestate capital, Hannover.

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MOVING?Tell the Fellowship.

Call (219) 631-5825Fellowship of Catholic Scholars

PO Box 495Notre Dame, IN 46556


The articles collected in thisissue of the annual report are repre-sentative of the areas of interest ofthe institute and are published inGerman and English. The first section of articles inthis issue is entitled “Europeviewed from without.” It begins,with a lecture given by a SyrianProfessor in the institute, Dr. SadikJ. Al-Azm. In this paper, “Is IslamSecularizable?”, Dr. Al-Azm main-tains, contrary to many specialists’opinion, that the refusal to secular-ization in the religious environ-ment should he distinguished fromthe fact that islamism has alwayspragmatically found a modus vivendiwith diverse contexts. The second article, “Contem-porary Europe and the Transitionto New Controversies in Socio-logical Issues,” was written by Dr.Naoshi Yamawaki, Professor of theUniversity of Tokyo. With the endof the Cold War, different alterna-tives that have arisen regarding theprocess of European union, have,been evaluated; universalism andpluralism, social economy or ofmarket and mere market economy,the abandonment or continuationof the illustration ideas. He alsomaintains the need for a newreflection on the true message ofChristianity and the recognition ofits historic mistakes in order toimprove dialogue with other cul-tures. The next article was written byRichard Schenk, one of the editorsof the Review. It deals with thecontribution of churches to theunion of Europe, which would notbe possible, maintains the author, ifthe diverse histories and temporarydimensions there implied were notrespected. The second section titledHomo Faber, begins with an article

by the other editor, Peter Koslow-ski. He analyzes Ernst Junger’sinterpretation of our century.Junger’s work, says Koslowski,constitutes an epic myth of moder-nity. It represents its tragedy as atragic conflict of the opposition ofdivine law and human claim topower. An irreversible transforma-tion from the warrior, as a figure ofhumanity, to the worker, which iscommon to Bolshevism, fascismliberalism and national-socialism,has taken place. Bettina Lohnert, also of theinstitute, is the author of a paperdealing with the present situationof business ethics in the UnitedStates. In spite of a certain state ofconfusion, a positive evolution canbe noted. Ethic consciousness isgaining ground and being inte-grated into the performance ofbusinesses. This is being promptedby factors such as legislative initia-tives and other macro demandsfrom outside. The following article is a lec-ture given by Richard Toellner,“Philosophical Questions of Medi-cine and the History of Science.”Philosophy, says Toeliner, has theresponsibility of indicating thelimits and the unity of medicineand science. This professor at theInstitute of Theory and History ofthe Medicine of the University ofMunster clamors for the need of areintegration of the diverse disci-plines by means of paying attentionto facts through a living praxis. This section concludes with anarticle by Reinhard lbw (+),”TheQuestion of the Sense of Being.Remarks on Martin Heidegger’sThought and Terminology.” Theact of being cannot be thought ofsimply as a concept, but must bereconstituted by returning to the

actual events in which the struc-tures of human existence realizethemselves. The final section of articles,“Freedom and Otherness’, beginswith one by Dr. Thomas Freyer,‘Freedom as a Theme TheologicalAnthropology. The Intersection ofWestern and Jewish Thought inthe Question of Human Being”.He suggests giving special attentionto the comprehension of humanliberty by Franz Rosenzweig. Thissection continues with the paper byNorbert Fischer, Professor of theKatholische Universitat Eichstadt,‘Autonomy and Theonomy. TheLogic of Augustine’s Doctrine ofFreedom’. He relates the Kantianconcept of autonomy with theAugustinian notion of liberty in hisDe libero arbitrio. The next article,by Gunter Kruck and FriedrickeSchick is on the criticism of thejudgment theory of Hegel. Then,Dr. Claudia Bickmann analyzessome aspects of the Kantian episte-mology in her interesting worktitled ‘The Human Condition andthe Awareness of Trascendence in aPost-metaphysical Age’. Dr. PeterNickl, of the Philosophical Instituteof Investigations of Hannover,deals with the Pascalian argumentconcerning the existence of God,concluding that it establishes theneed of man to act as if God existsmore than the existence of GodHimself. Liubava Moreva, of theCultural and Philosophical Centerof Investigation Eidos, Saint Peters-burg, considering the ecologicalcrisis, raises doubt concerning themethods of science and technique,and also the traditional separationbetween faith and reason. Theclosing article by Dr. Eilert Herms,Professor at the Evangelical Theol-ogy Faculty of the University of


Tiibingen, maintains the need for asystematic discussion on the rela-tionship between revelation andfaith in order to continue the ecu-menical dialogue. The last 50 pages of this annualreport are devoted to a review ofthe academic year of the institute,of their activities and those of theirmembers. This section helps usrealize how vital this institution is.

Ricardo F. CrespoUniversidad Nacional de Cuyo,Mendoza, R. Argentina

Under Full Sail:Reflections and TalesDr. Frederick D. Wilhelmsen259 pages, $14.95,ISBN 0-9641150-9-3,Alcuin Press c/o American Councilon Economics and Society, 34152Doreka Drive, Fraser, Michigan,48026, Also available at the Univer-sity of Dallas Bookstore, phone:972-721-5320

The late Dr. Frederick D.Wilhelmsen, a professoremeritus at the University

of Dallas, published his last work,Under Full Sail: Reflections andTales, only a few months before hisdeath on May 20, 1996, at age 72. Observing Dr. Wilhelmsencrossing the campus with his col-leagues, formally dressed and lean-ing on a silver-headed cane, onewould not guess at his keen interestin maritime history, or at his pas-sion for adventure. In his book, Wilhelmsenobserves that the TwentiethCentury, while an era of aggressiveexperimentation and technologicaladvances, is also an era that abrupt-ly turned its back on a piece oftechnology that was approachingnear perfection in the early days ofthis century: the sailing ship.Wilhelmsen explains how combi-

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nations of sailing rigs and hulldesigns matured from the rudimen-tary merchant men of Romantimes to the caravels of Venice, tothe East Indiamen of the eigh-teenth century and on to theAmerican schooners of the nine-teenth, culminating in today’sGerman baroque Preussen, “thegreatest sailing ship ever built,” inwhose “construction was summedup a history of sailing going back tothe dawn of time.” In the ‘mostdifficult passage a ship could face —the rounding of Cape Horn to gainentrance to the Pacific — themassive Preussen had no equal,employing her five tall masts todrive her at speeds up to seventeenknots into bitter headwinds andsixty foot seas. The Preussen andher kind have all but vanished intohistory, and Wilhelmsen observesthat a skilled class of men, and adistinctly colorful part of the hu-man experience, have vanishedwith them. Under Full Sail: Reflectionsand Tales, recounts two ofWilhelmsen’s excursions into theworld of “tall ships.” In 1953, hetraveled to Peru to sail on one ofthe world’s last commercial square-rigged vessels, the Omega. TheOmega was ending its days incoastal trade, hauling to the main-land pernicious ammoniac cargoesof guano, which could “blind, killand madden” seamen too longexposed to the fumes. Wilhelm-sen’s portrait of the aging vesseland her crew is humorous andmemorable. In a second voyagethirty five years later, Wilhelmsenis aboard the brigantine omance inthe Caribbean, again experiencingthe subtle thrill of broad canvas sailsfilling with the wind. Throughout his work — reallytwo short books joined into onevolume — Wilhelmsen reflectsagain and again on how machines,

while offering man certain free-doms, offers too a bland corrosionof man’s independent, spiritual self.Blue water sailing is honest laborthat requires utter self reliance.Under its demanding regimen, aman may develop his personalcharacter, and pare away at his ownsophistries and delusions, comingcloser to truth and to God. Of course, looking to the windfor Locomotion assumes an ele-ment of chance and of danger, andthe historical record is full of refer-ences to the perils of shipwreck onthe open sea. Wilhelmsen’s bookcalls to mind Joseph Conrad’s“Rulers of East and West,” inwhich Conrad wrote that the WestWind is a barbarian, of a northerntype. Violent without craftiness,and furious without malice, onemay imagine him seated masterfullywith a double-edged sword on hisknees upon the painted and giltclouds of the sunset, bowing hisshock of golden locks, a flamingbeard over his breast, imposing,colossal, Taighty-limbed, with athundering voice, distendedcheeks, and fierce blue eyes, urgingthe speed of his gales.” And of thepale, smooth shaven East Windthat out of his black and mercilessheart he flings a white blindingsheet upon the ships of the sea. Hehas more manners of villainy, andno more conscience than an Italianprince of the seventeenth century.His weapon is a dagger carriedunder a black cloak when he goesout on his unlawful enterprises.”Under the dominion of suchforces, the faith of a sailor cannothelp but be sharpened.

The reviewer is Michael T. Dougherty,an Administrative Judge with the fed-eral government in Dallas, Texas.Telephone number is (214) 767-0555. Address is 9444 E. ValleyRanch Parkway, ‘No. 1002, Irving,Texas 75063.


No Higher Court:Contemporary Feminism andthe Right to AbortionGermain Kopaczynski,Scranton: University ofScranton Press, 1995, 246 pp,with index and bibliography.

Father Kopaczynski immediately takes up the feministcharge that he as a male is ill-

equipped to write about womenand abortion. Since that is a two-way street, the objection falls of itsown weight. The author is morepatient with the charge and it isperhaps well that he addressed it.That there should be women whothink than men cannot understandthem is part of the problem thatthis book addresses. But its heartlies in its argument that feminismand abortion go hand-in-hand.“The right to abortion begins totake shape when Simone deBeauvoir articulates the feministculturalist credo: ‘One is not born,but rather becomes, a woman.’ Allcontemporary feminism is a com-mentary on this single sentence.”

The plan of the book isstraightforward. Four leading femi-nists are discussed, beginning withSimone de Beauvoir, the compan-ion of Jean-Paul Sartre (they areburied in a single grave inMontmartre), Mary Daly, CarolGilligan and Beverly Harrison.These four are taken to provide,respectively, the epistemology, themetaphysics, the psychology andthe theology of abortion. Therefollows a discussion of “Pro-Choice Feminism” and then “Pro-Life Feminism.” There are thosewho object to the last, but theauthor makes a good case for amore acceptable sense of the term

BOOK NOTES

“feminism.” Certainly the HolyFather has paid particular attentionto drawing attention to theChurch’s views on the dignity andequality of men and women.Whether the term can be rescuedfrom its connotations in main-stream feminism is arguable. Per-haps, as Aquinas said, one shouldnot even have terms in commonwith the Gentiles.

This is a solid, informative andvaluable book. It can serve as agood introduction to the theoriesunderlying militants in the publicsquare. Highly recommended.

At the Limits of PoliticalPhilosophy: From ‘BrilliantErrors’ to Things ofUncommon ImportanceJames V. Schall,Washington, Catholic Universityof America Press, 1996, 272 pp.With index and bibliography.

The country’s leading Catho-lic political philosopher,Father Schall has written on

a wide range of topics for a varietyof audiences. The book is dividedinto four sections, the first ofwhich deals with the history ofpolitical philosophy. Schall gives aremarkable panorama of the fieldthat attests to his profound andbroad knowledge of ancient, medi-eval and modern political theories.He then turns to the treatment ofthe grounds of political realism.“‘Political realism’ holds that death,evil, and suffering are permanentrealities in this world. They cannotbe eliminated by human means,although certain types of ideologi-cal political thinking has sought todo so.” A third section is called “At

the Limits of Political Philosophy.”Using the deaths of Socrates andChrist as points of reference, Schalldiscusses happiness and virtue. Inthe trials and deaths of Socrates andChrist the ultimate issues arise inparticular historical circumstancesbut the lessons to be learned haveuniversal application. A final sec-tion deals with science, law andfriendship.

In this book, Father Schallbrings to bear on his disciplineyears of reflection on the sourcesand the problems. His faithful read-ers will know what a faithful readerhe himself is, but the erudition isworn lightly, though sufficiently tovalidate the positions taken. Thereare many learned books. There arefewer inventive books, that castnew light on old issues or old lighton new problems. But a wise bookis rare. This is a rare book. It isFather James Schall’s chef d’oeuvre.

IGNATIUS PRESS, 2515 McAllisterStreet, San Francisco, CA 94118

Called to Communion:Understanding the Church Today,Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, sewnsoftcover, ISBN: 0-89870-578-9.

The Letter To The Ephesians, AdrienneVon Speyr, 269 pages, sewn softcover,ISBN: 0-89870-570-3.

Bernanos: An Ecclesial Existence. HansUrs von Balthasar, sewn softcover,ISBN: 0-87870-576-2.

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Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly · 2 FCS Quarterly • Fall 1996 Catholics ought to accord it a strong presumption of support. When the undertaking comes with the endorsement