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The Gospel and the Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2024

Cornelius Ernst O. P.
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It has been widely acknowledged that Dr Hans Kiing’s The Council and Reunion (fluently translated by Cecily Hastings in a Sheed and Ward Stagbook) is one of the most important of the vast flood of publications released by Pope John XXIII’s announcement of his intention to summon an ecumenical council. So far, however, this acknowledgment has not been accompanied by any serious examination of the book, at least by Catholic reviewers in England. Its reception has been generally favourable, even rapturous (see The Clergy Review, January 1962, p. 33); but there seems to have been a marked disinclination to enter into detailed discussion. What is particularly unfortunate about this is that the book has become to some extent the manifesto of a party; there is sufficient evidence, though not in print, so far as I know, that a resolute opposition to the book among certain Catholics has been able to take shape in silence. It seems to me that silent opposition and vocal enthusiasm form a particularly vicious combination; and surely the best way of releasing what tension there is is to look at Rung’s book critically.

Criticism ordinarily implies detachment; yet it might be claimed that here if anywhere detachment is out of place. What could demand a more passionate commitment than the reform of the Church? The critical detachment which we shall try to practise here, then, is not a detachment from the profound reforming purpose of Kiing’s book or indeed of the Council itself; but it will be a serious attempt to find a standpoint which is neither simply ‘conservative’ nor simply ‘progressive’, nor for that matter simply ‘middle of the road’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 43 , Issue 505-506 , July 1962 , pp. 301 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © 1962 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 For some interesting notes and references on the ‘time of the Church’, see F. Malmberg, Ein Leib ‐ Ein Geist (Freiburg 1960, pp. 273‐85); on the ‘time of Tradition’ and ‘sacramental time’ some remarks by the present writer, Blackfriars, November 1959, pp. 450‐66.

2 It should be noted here that in virtue of the direct quotation of this decree in the third session of the Vatican Council (ch. 2; Denz 1787), (supernatural) ‘Revelation’ in Catholic theology should correspond exactly to ‘Gospel’. ‘Faith and morals’, similarly, is a way of talking about ‘hearing and doing the Gospel word’.

3 I am not at all enthusiastic about Karl Rahner's attempt to give a Catholic sense to Scripture as ‘norma normans’, as reported in Herder‐Korrespondenz, April 1962, p. 333 (once again in the context of an ‘ecumenical dialogue’). He is reported as saying that Scripture is ‘eine NormJir das Lehramt’. The whole point is what is meant by the ‘für’—‘imposed upon’ or ‘for, and in, the use of?’

4 See J. Ratzinger, in Rahner‐Ratzinger, Episkopat und Primat, Freiburg 1961, p. 49. References to further literaturein Y. Congar, La Tradition et les Traditions, Paris 1960, and J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, London 1960, ch. 2. The outstanding work on the early period is D. van den Eynde, Les Normes de l'enseignement chrktien dans la littkrature patristique des trois premiers siècles, Gembloux‐Paris 1933. I should also like to say here how much I owe to PèreCongar's earlier book, Vraie et fausse Réforme dans l'Eglise, Paris 1950. It is instructive to reflect that this massive book (648 pages) had to be withdrawn shortly after publication.

5 For all that follows see especially Mandonnet‐Vicaire, Saint Dominique, vol. 11, pp. 163‐202, ‘La règle de saint Augustin, maîtresse de vie apostolique’.

6 See the fine essay by Congar, ‘Le Saint‐Esprit et le Corps apostolique, réalisateurs de l'oeuvre du Christ', in Esquisses du Mystère de l'Eglise, Paris 1953; and consider the ‘charismatic Apostle’, St Paul. Malmberg's critique of Congar, op. cit. pp. 185s., is quite unconvincing.

7 In a colophon the letter makes special acknowledgments to Fr E. Schillebeeckx for help given in the composition of the pastoral; it was first published in the first issue of the new periodical Tijdschrift voor Theologie, January 1961.French translation: Le Sens du Concile: une Réforme Intérieure de la vie Catholique. Desclée de Brouwer.