More on John Paul II/Karol Wojtyła

They are making a big deal out of the 100th anniversary of his birth because of the agenda to canonize him and to protect the "legacy" of Vatican II after the rather disastrous pontificate of Paul VI and the inconsequential pontificate of John Paul I. John Paul II seems larger than life as his pontificate was concurrent with the fall of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc, and some, like Weigel, were eager to attribute being a cause who brought about the fall of Communist states to John Paul II. The conservative ultramontanists who think that John Paul II was traditional and liked him will defend his reputation, regardless of what evidence a more neutral historian might evaluate differently. Unfortunately for the patriarchate of Rome, he was canonized too quickly, and a fair and impartial assessment of his legacy may never be written at this point, unless the patriachate of Rome and its reputation were to suffer such a reversal in the future that all of its actions are called into question.

John Paul the Forgotten? by Richard A. Spinello

While Francis seems to be ignoring or revising the "theological legacy" of John Paul II (his encyclicals), what long-term effects will Francis's papacy have, besides confirming divisions among Latin Catholics and maybe even bringing about more muddle-headedness for those who have not been catechized well?

There are at least two other things at work here:
1. John Paul II's encyclicals can be difficult to read. This is a clear contrast with the encyclicals of Benedict XVI. While seminarians and young priests of the "John Paul II generation" may admire John Paul II, how many of them have the theological education to properly evaluate his writings, or the desire really to engage with them properly?
2. Top-down, centralized teaching of theology is a disservice to theology, which requires a personal relationship between the teacher and the student. It should be no surprise if the transmission of theology by the patriarch of Rome is incomplete and ineffective.

How many of today's current Roman Catholic seminarians were influenced by Pope Francis, rather than Benedict XVI? There are many priests, especially Jesuits, who are vocal Francis adherents, and progressives who see Francis as embodying their interpretation of Vatican II. Whether they will have any long-lasting influence on the patriarchate of Rome remains to be seen, as most of them are older and have limited influence among those who have different opinions about theology and liturgy.

There will be a lot of commentary about his pontificate this week, but it is unlikely that I will do a greater search of links to post them. Maybe Phil Lawler will have an interesting take on the man and his pontificate.

More:
CWR: Wojtyla’s Athenian catechesis: An antidote to the culture of veriphobia by Eduardo Echeverria
A review of Archbishop Karol Wojtyla’s newly discovered and published 1965 reflections on St. Paul’s discourse at the Areopagus, titled Teachings for an Unbelieving World.

Remembering the lens and the life of Pope St. John Paul II by Joanna Bogle
He was an innovator soaked in the rich traditions of the Church, a man of physical courage who found his strength in spiritual truth, and a mystic with a robust and cheerful style which endeared him to non-believers and even to cynics.


First Things:
A Protestant Appreciation of Pope John Paul II by Bruce Riley Ashford
Pope on the World Stage by Peter J. Leithart
My Pope by Julia Yost

Part 2 of Echeverria's Critique of Francis

CWR: Making sense of Pope Francis on faith, evangelization, and proselytizing (Part II) by Eduardo Echeverria

Does Francis recognize that the Church makes determinate truth claims, and hence that the central truth claims of Christianity conflict with the truth claims of other religions about God?

Pope Francis Is No Theologian

But he does theology nonetheless.

CWR: Making sense of Pope Francis on faith, evangelization, and proselytizing by Eduardo Echeverria

Pope Francis diminishes the significance of the fides quae creditur, the beliefs which one holds to be true, affirms, and asserts, in the initial evangelical encounter. However, there is no such thing as a non-doctrinal encounter.

More on the Development of Doctrine

CWR: The Spirit versus the letter: Responding to a false view of doctrinal development by Eduardo Echeverria

Sergio Centofanti’s recent essay for Vatican News claims that the Church teaches, “It is necessary to follow the Spirit, rather than the strict letter.” This opposition could not be further from the truth.

I am not of course suggesting that there is not development. But there is development without change even when there is reversal in Church teaching. Centofanti completely overlooks the distinctions between development, continuity, change, and reversal. He focuses on examples of reversals (unbaptized babies, the exegesis of 1 Timothy 11-12 regarding the place of woman in the Church, and religious liberty) but never refers to the theological notes that qualify certain teachings as infallible such that they possess the highest degree of certainty. This means that he fails to account for development, clarifications, reformulations, while nevertheless maintaining the stable continuity of fundamental meaning and truth of authoritative dogmas/doctrines. I will return to this point below.

But does Echeverria make enough distinctions between theological opinion (even if it is of the bishop of Rome) and dogma? Let us look at the two examples of reversals: religious liberty and ecumenism. Was religious liberty (or anything pertaining to the political community and the laws that it may or may not issue) part of Divine Revelation? No -- religious liberty, like contemporary Roman Catholic Social Teaching, pertains to moral theology, and so papal theological opinion on this point isn't "reversed" as if it were dogmatic (even if some Latins think it is) but contradicted.

As for ecumenism -- precepts concerning whom to admit to worship, or with whom one can pray is more a human determination that is (ecclesiastical) positive law than a precept of Divine Law, something taking into consideration goods secondary to God Himself. And so in so far as we are dealing with ecclesiastical positive law, that can be changed. As for human judgments as to who is a heretic or schismatic, those judgments can be erroneous and are not protected by an Latin notion of infallibility.

In order for theories of doctrinal development to be taken seriously, we must talk about doctrine, what constitutes doctrines, whether there are levels of doctrine, and if historically what has been understood to be doctrine was mistaken.

CWR Dispatch: History, unchanging truth, and Vatican II by Eduardo Echeverria

The “pastorality of doctrine” approach, of which one can hear echoes in some interventions at Synod 2018, is a form of Neo-Modernism because it expresses merely an instrumentalist view of doctrine.

The Spirit of AL

CWR Dispatch: “The Greatest Sin is losing the sense of Sin” by Eduardo Echeverria

Related: CWR/CNA: Cardinal Cupich launches “Amoris Laetitia” seminars for US bishops

Echeverria on the Douthat-Faggioli Debate

CWR: Douthat-Faggioli debate highlights two key, contested issues of Francis’ pontificate by Eduardo Echeverria

Two major issues—the meaning and significance of Vatican II and the doctrinal implications of AL’s moral logic of pastoral reasoning—will continue to present the Church with challenges until such time as the Magisterium makes clear where the Church is headed.

CWR: Pope Francis and Ideology by Eduardo Echeverria

It is unfortunate that the Holy Father’s overall emphasis on legalism is such that he never addresses the antithesis of legalism, namely, antinomianism, leaving us with a lopsided picture of contemporary culture.

Echeverria Responds to Faggioli

A Critique of Faggioli’s interpretation of early Ratzinger’s view of Scripture, Tradition, and Authority by Eduardo Echeverria

Massimo Faggioli’s naïve biblicism cannot account for different levels of authoritative Church teachings in Catholicism, with some being foundational, irreformable, and definitive, and others being […]

Pope Francis on Capital Punishment

Pope Francis, the Lérinian legacy of Vatican II, and capital punishment by Eduardo Echeverria

Ed Feser

Ultramontanism's Death Sentence

Still Operating Within Latin Theological Constructs

Catholic World Report: Pope Francis on Mercy and Justice: A Short Primer by Eduardo Echeverria
The Holy Father explains that justice and mercy "are not two contradictory realities, but two dimensions of a single reality that unfolds progressively until it culminates in the fullness of love”.

Eduardo Echeverria - "Catholic and Reformed Ecumenism: Basis, Boundaries, and Benefits"

Eduardo J. Echeverria

Ressourcement

While in the past I may have been wary of the nouvelle théologie to one degree or another, their attempt to re-engage with the Church Fathers was praiseworth in intent, if not in execution. In the last year I've gradually drifted away from "Thomism of Strict Observance," not that I ever really considered myself a member of that school of Thomistic theology, though I was willing to read its texts. Having had a chance to delve into the Church Fathers more in the last year, it may be time for me to re-evaluate nouvelle théologie the 20th century Ressourcement movement and its members. (I have been a fan of Fr. Bouyer for quite some time, so I am thinking more of the Jesuits.)

Ressourcement theology, aggiornamento, and the hermeneutics of tradition by Marcellino D'Ambrosio

“Ressourcement,” “Aggiornamento,” and Vatican II in Ecumenical Perspective by Eduardo Echeverria

Related:
A Theologian for Our Times – Rediscovering Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange

I didn't know the Salve Regina website is associated with the FSSP, though I had been aware of the website's existence not too long after it was created. "It figures."