This blog explores both historical and current events guided by the thought of the leading thinkers, past and present, of this school or movement of theology. Refer to the Classic Posts, Great and Contemporary Thinkers, various links of all kinds, in addition to the Archives themselves. David is the founder and manager of this website, but many friends contribute to it on a regular basis.
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Sunday, April 24, 2005
thoughts of a seminarian on la nouvelle theologie
Here are his thoughts. Click on go to jpthe2nd's site and then read the post entitled "Part 1 - Historical Ratzinger." I find his remarks there very interesting. Refer to the comments on this post as well.
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I'm not sure if I should be commenting here or at Marty's blog.
Truthfully, Marty, and I mean no disrespect, but I question whether your readers really knew what you meant by "liberal" and "conservative" in that context. Because I have some familiarity with the authors you were talking about and the time period and I couldn't figure it out.
Distinctions are fine, if they are meaningful. Since you are going to post a second piece, it might be helpful to take a stab at defining what you mean by "liberal" and "conservative", as that would help people understand what you mean by those terms (especially if you reach some conclusions like some others that an individual was one and became another later in life.) If you find it difficult to define them for your context, I would suggest that maybe a different approach would be better.
Actually, Matty's use of the liberal/conservative labels is just fine. He is just using them analogically, to attempt to make a working model of the historical situation. Father Richard Neuhaus uses them as well in his essay called "The Catholic Center," which you can get here:
Once again let me state, as I did on your blog, that even talking about these great thinkers is a beautiful thing. So keep up the great work!
I would recommend that everyone read the scanned in article by Douglas Bushman, in addition, to the Keith Fournier's article "Paleo-con, Neo-con, None of the Above," which are all provided on my blog. I think you will both of these articles helpful in regards to this topic.
Listen Matty, I have no problem with you using these terms if you do what Jack asks above. Define what you mean by these terms. Different people mean different things by them, be it secular or theological. Continue to give clarifications as you did in your response above.
An interesting side-note - Santi, I and others have talked about the similarities and differences of thought between various thinkers in the "conservative" (using your term here) camp. The various sides of these camps also have titles associated with them, i.e. Neocon, Theocon, Whig Thomists, and Augustinian Thomists. Over the history of my blog, I have gone into some detail on this topic.
An interesting topic to discuss would be the division between the neo-Thomists like Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange (whom I noticed Matty is reading) and the Thomists (traditional?) of the Ressourcement like de Lubac, Balthasar, etc. One could also discuss the Thomistic formation of Pope JPII and the impact of personalism on his thought and others as well. There are differences especially in the area of anthropology. These were "hot" topics in the late 30s through the 50s, which help cause the Second Vatican Council.
Maybe he was trying to make his reader consider what side they fit on? I had no problem following Matty's article...and like he said it was his first stab. I see a lot of people complaining but not much action on their parts!
You can't IMO define liberal/conservative because if you did you'd end up pissing everyone off. Many liberals consider themselves conservative and vice-versa. The terms evolve constantly and weren't intended to be politically correct. Besides, no two people are going to share the exact same opinions in either camp.
But since everyone seems to want to define it here goes...
-A liberal is someone who does not agree 100% with the teachings of the Church Magesterium and/or the Holy Father past or present. This applies especially to people trying to push their own agenda into the Church (women priest, homosexuality, etc).
I'm with Santi on this one. He uses the terms for illustrative purposes. Though the terms should have limited use, they are misleading. They are too black and white, and rigid for that matter, and don't grasp the dynamic nature of the Catholic tradition.
6 comments:
I'm not sure if I should be commenting here or at Marty's blog.
Truthfully, Marty, and I mean no disrespect, but I question whether your readers really knew what you meant by "liberal" and "conservative" in that context. Because I have some familiarity with the authors you were talking about and the time period and I couldn't figure it out.
Distinctions are fine, if they are meaningful. Since you are going to post a second piece, it might be helpful to take a stab at defining what you mean by "liberal" and "conservative", as that would help people understand what you mean by those terms (especially if you reach some conclusions like some others that an individual was one and became another later in life.) If you find it difficult to define them for your context, I would suggest that maybe a different approach would be better.
JACK
Actually, Matty's use of the liberal/conservative labels is just fine. He is just using them analogically, to attempt to make a working model of the historical situation. Father Richard Neuhaus uses them as well in his essay called "The Catholic Center," which you can get here:
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0304/catholic-center.html
Neuhaus, like Matty, is using the terms only analogically. They are very useful.
Christ is Risen!
Once again let me state, as I did on your blog, that even talking about these great thinkers is a beautiful thing. So keep up the great work!
I would recommend that everyone read the scanned in article by Douglas Bushman, in addition, to the Keith Fournier's article "Paleo-con, Neo-con, None of the Above," which are all provided on my blog. I think you will both of these articles helpful in regards to this topic.
Listen Matty, I have no problem with you using these terms if you do what Jack asks above. Define what you mean by these terms. Different people mean different things by them, be it secular or theological. Continue to give clarifications as you did in your response above.
An interesting side-note - Santi, I and others have talked about the similarities and differences of thought between various thinkers in the "conservative" (using your term here) camp. The various sides of these camps also have titles associated with them, i.e. Neocon, Theocon, Whig Thomists, and Augustinian Thomists. Over the history of my blog, I have gone into some detail on this topic.
Looking forward to reading Part Two.
An interesting topic to discuss would be the division between the neo-Thomists like Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange (whom I noticed Matty is reading) and the Thomists (traditional?) of the Ressourcement like de Lubac, Balthasar, etc. One could also discuss the Thomistic formation of Pope JPII and the impact of personalism on his thought and others as well. There are differences especially in the area of anthropology. These were "hot" topics in the late 30s through the 50s, which help cause the Second Vatican Council.
Maybe he was trying to make his reader consider what side they fit on? I had no problem following Matty's article...and like he said it was his first stab. I see a lot of people complaining but not much action on their parts!
You can't IMO define liberal/conservative because if you did you'd end up pissing everyone off. Many liberals consider themselves conservative and vice-versa. The terms evolve constantly and weren't intended to be politically correct. Besides, no two people are going to share the exact same opinions in either camp.
But since everyone seems to want to define it here goes...
-A liberal is someone who does not agree 100% with the teachings of the Church Magesterium and/or the Holy Father past or present. This applies especially to people trying to push their own agenda into the Church (women priest, homosexuality, etc).
Schmitey
I'm with Santi on this one. He uses the terms for illustrative purposes. Though the terms should have limited use, they are misleading. They are too black and white, and rigid for that matter, and don't grasp the dynamic nature of the Catholic tradition.
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