How Catholic is the CTSA? Three views

Commonweal, March 27, 1998 by Avery Dulles, Mary Ann Donovan, Peter Steinfels

Much of the historical work presented by speakers is dismissed by Dulles's judgment: "These views were set forth with a certain display of historical erudition, as though doctrines could be invalidated by tagging them chronologically." He does not address the work seriously on its own terms and interprets the purpose of historical exposition as invalidating doctrines. One must then ask what is the theological significance of earlier practices, teachings, or beliefs? Critical history leads to the interpretation of doctrinal developments in a contextualized fashion. It is true that the vocabulary of "priesthood" began to be taken seriously in its application to Christian leadership in the third century. To affirm this is not to attack the priesthood. It is true that in his own day Thomas Aquinas and his teaching on transubstantiation were not given great weight. To affirm this is not to deny real presence. The first evidence currently available to link ordination and consecration in official church teaching is in 1215; in ending this section the speaker says "much more research is needed before any firm conclusions can be reached...." Here we have an area clearly identified as needing study. To adduce historical evidence for earlier stages of doctrinal development is not to attack doctrine. If Dulles holds this to be the case, he must establish it.

According to Dulles, the CTSA wishes to set itself up as a "kind of alternative magisterium." I can assure him that this is not its intention. The CTSA simply wishes to perform the service proper to members of the Catholic theological community. As the history of Vatican II shows, work of Catholic theologians which at first might seem to some to be incompatible with official doctrine, can, on further study, come to be seen as soundly based on the church's authentic tradition. The theology of the Eucharist is an area where sound scholarship, based on serious research, is reaching a consensus that post-tridentine Catholic doctrine is too narrowly focused on the words of consecration pronounced by the priest. A more authentic tradition emphasizes the entire eucharistic liturgy as celebrated by the whole gathered people of God. To present and explain this growing consensus, in scholarly papers presented at a theological convention, is the proper work of the Catholic theologian. It does not involve any claim to be an alternative magisterium.

If there are fault lines in U.S. Catholicism they are the fruit of a spirit of antagonism inappropriate to the community of disciples. Incorrect and misleading interpretations of the kind Dulles has given can only augment suspicions and divisions in the church. Why does disagreement among Catholics have to deteriorate into charges of heresy? We ought rather put into practice the "presupposition" with which Saint Ignatius began his Spiritual Exercises: "It should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor's statement than to condemn it."