Human Rights and the Catholic Tradition

Journal of Church and State, Spring, 2008 by Joseph E. Capizzi

Human Rights and the Catholic Tradition. By Donald J. Dietrich. Piscataway and London: Transaction Publishers, 2007. 234pp. $59.95.

Especially during its early chapters, Human Rights and the Catholic Tradition seems a misleading title for the book's subject, dealt with such care, depth, and sophistication by Dietrich. The author situates the book in a stream of religious and political ethics consciously to show the narrative quality of certain ethical commitments. Thus, following the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Mark Johnson, Jim Cheney, and others, the book describes the historical narrative out of which emerged the contemporary Catholic commitment to human rights; in particular, the author describes the commitment's roots in common Catholic resistance to the Nazi experience and subsequent German theological reflection on that resistance. Though initially connections between German popular reaction to Nazism and "human rights" in the Catholic tradition may seem unclear if not tenuous, by the end of the book the reader becomes convinced by Dietrich's supple historical analysis, and wonders just how much more could be gained by similar historical narratives in Europe and elsewhere.

In the first three chapters, Dietrich surveys a vast Anglo and German literature on the state of the question concerningGerman responses to Nazism and the nature of the substantive responses to National Socialism Among the very many things learned by readers includes the extreme danger in speaking of any singular "Catholic" response to Nazi racial ideology and brutality. Nonetheless, his historical narrative suggests that at the popular level, resistance drew strength from Catholic Christian values. We read, for instance, of the Bavarian peasantry's indifference toward Nazi propaganda and their refusal to regard their Catholic Polish brethren as inferior. Priests throughout Bavaria challenged Nazi racial ideology agreeing with Father Schuhmann that "regardless of race or ethnic origins, [all men] could come to understand the joy and love that Christ brought ..." (p. 88). At the institutional level, however, Catholic theologians, priests, and bishops straddled resistance and compliance, at times reassuring the Nazi hierarchy that Catholics were reichstreu (loyal to the Reich) and at other times, distancing themselves and the Church from Nazi racial commitments and assumptions.

In response to these experiences, during and especially after the war Catholic theologians developed theological approaches sensitive to assaults on human dignity, ranging from Hermann Schell's progressive notions to Max Scheler's contributions to the development of a "personalist'" philosophy, and later to critical contributions by Rahner, Metz, and Walter Kasper. As Dietrich writes, eventually a consensus formed around the conviction "that 'doing' theology had to be connected to the historical culture of each era." He quotes Rahner: "Theology consists ... in a conscious reflection upon the message of the gospel, in aquite specific situationin terms of the history of the human spirit" (p. 104). The principled abstractions of older scholastic approaches became associated with the abstractions of the Nazi era. Concrete events became critical as a source and test of adequate theological approaches.

Finally, increased attention to the historical nature of the theological enterprise developed an emphasis on the historical nature of the development of human consciousness Thehuman,"the "person, became the focus of much theological study. Political theology turned its attention to the suffering of the person. Metz drew for Dietrich the right and only conclusion: theologians could no longer deny or ignore the defects in Christian theology that contributed to the oppression of the Third Reich. Human rights became the language through which these defects could be corrected as reflection on the person of Christ ennobled moral reflection on the human person.

All in all, Dietrich's story compels. The nuanced approach to history enriches our understanding of the roots of human rights in experiences like those in Nazi Germany. At times, towards the end of the book, Dietrich's loses grasp of his usual historical sensitivity, especially when speaking of neo-scholasticism and the manualist approaches; in those instances he leans too heavily on stock visions and does not sufficiently challenge himself with more deft historical versions of those movements. Nonetheless, this is a significant and very important book.

JOSEPH E. CAPIZZI

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

WASHINGTON, D.C.