BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Theological commission deals with
how to do theology with the Church,
God in the monotheistic traditions,
and the Church's social doctrine
by John L Allen Jr

Dec. 06, 2010


Rome -- Since its creation by Pope Paul VI in 1969, the International Theological Commission, composed of 30 theologians from around the world who advise the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, often has functioned as a sort of early warning system for the Vatican’s doctrinal concerns.

When the commission kicks around a topic, it can be a hint of things to come – an encyclical, a doctrinal instruction, or something else with real teeth. For just that reason, it’s always worth keeping the ITC on the radar screen.

Last week, the commission held its annual working meeting. (Members had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI on Friday, Dec. 3.) At the moment, three sub-commissions are pondering the following themes:

•Method in theology, with the accent on theology’s relationship with the Church. (The sub-commission is led by Fr. Paul McPartlan, a British ecclesiologist and ecumenist who teaches at the Catholic University of America.)

•The question of the one God in relationship to the three monotheistic religions (led by Fr. Philippe Vallin of the University of Strasbourg, who served from 2003 to 2007 as secretary of the doctrinal commission of the French bishops’ conference.)

•Integration of the Church’s social teaching into the rest of Christian doctrine (led by Italian Fr. Marco Doldi of the Theology Faculty of Northern Italy, whose specialty is bioethics. Doldi is an advisor on bioethics to Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan.)

While members are invited to suggest topics, the themes for each five-year term of the commission (known as a “quinquennio”) are chosen by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and ratified by the pope, so they’re a fairly reliable guide to what church authorities are thinking about.

Depending on how things develop, the sub-commissions could generate draft documents to be submitted to the full commission. Though documents of the ITC in themselves don't carry weight as Church teaching, they could lay the ground work for an official act or document from the doctrinal congregation, or even the Pope himself, somewhere down the line.

Yet it’s one thing to say the commission matters, and quite another to read its stirrings accurately. Speaking on background, one theologian who took part in the meeting last week said afterwards that it’s not clear, even to members themselves, what these sub-commissions might produce.

For one thing, the ITC these days is not quite what it used to be. In the beginning, the commission was an all-star team of Catholic theology; its initial roster in 1969 included Karl Rahner, Louis Bouyer, Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Bernard Lonergan, Joseph Ratzinger and Cipriano Vagaggini.

While it’s never again been quite that loaded, the ITC until recently included a number of figures with strong international reputations, such as Bruno Forte of Italy, Georges Cottier (a Swiss Dominican and the former theologian of the papal household under John Paul II), Roland Minnerath of France, and Herman Pottmeyer of Germany.

Those luminaries are now gone (Forte and Minnerath were both made archbishops in 2004), and as a result, some observers say the prospects for strong leadership or new vision have been reduced.

(As a footnote, the foregoing suggests a keen irony: Benedict XVI is a theologian-Pope, the first former member of the international theological commission to be elevated to the papacy. Yet a case can be made that the theological quality of the commission actually has declined on his watch.)

[Just because the current roster of the ITC does not have any 'stellar' names does not mean that the quality of their theology is necessarily inferior! We can be sure that the members Benedict XVI has named to the ITC would be theologians he respects for their scientific work as well as for thinking 'cum ecclesia', which is just as important for the Church...

And surely there must be a way for theologians who have significant questions to propose to do it in such a way that they don't end up being dissident theologians. From what I have read so far about American theologians, however, no one seems to be humble enough to say, "After much study, I have come to this conclusi0n(s) which is/are not compatible with the teaching of the Church and which, therefore, I will discuss it in public but will not claim it to be what the Church teaches [npr will I teach it to my students if I happen to be a teacher of Catholic theology."

That's not pie-in-the sky at all: The example of Joseph Ratzinger who as a theologian never 'proposed to have my own system' is eminent proof that one can earn great distinction as a theologian by thinking with the Church and not against it! For instance, what dissident theologian in the 1960s achieved as great a worldwide success with his theology as did Ratzinger with his very orthodox Introduction to Christianity, published right after Vatican II even? And it continues to sell today, which is a tribute to the timelessness of orthodox Christian teaching, as opposed to flash-in-the-pan dissident propositions! I daresay the runaway success of Introduction... paved the way for the marketability and popularity of all of Joseph Ratzinger's subsequent books and proves that the audience for orthodoxy is there and not to be slighted or ignored.

There's a reason why the first current task for the ITC specifies 'Method in theology, with the accent on theology’s relationship with the Church'.]

Two of the three topics also present their own difficulties.

In theory, a theme is supposed to be handled within a single “quinquennio,” but the project on theology and the church has been hanging around for seven years. At one stage a sub-commission under Forte produced a draft, which one source described as “mystical” and “lofty”, but it wasn’t completed.

Emphasizing that theology must be rooted in the life and faith of the Church, and is thus not a self-contained academic enterprise, has long been a core concern of Benedict XVI.

The Pope underscored the point in his Dec. 3 remarks to commission members [translated and posted on the preceding page of this thread], insisting that “to be scientific, theology must argue in a rational way, but it must also be faithful to the nature of the ecclesial faith.”

Observers say the subject is a political hot potato, anything the commission says on the relationship between theologians and Church authorities will be carefully read in the theological guild.

One member expressed concern that if there’s no acknowledgment of the creative role of theology – its responsibility to ask new questions, and pursue new answers – other theologians may react negatively.

Meanwhile, the sub-commission on social teaching faces a different sort of headache – not so much what to say, but rather what’s left to say?

Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate dealt at length with the relationship between social teaching and the rest of Christian doctrine, in particular the nexus between the church’s pro-life positions and its peace-and-justice message.

The introduction to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, published in 2005, also covers the same ground in fairly exhaustive detail.

Commission members say that if they’re going to put out a document, they have to push beyond what’s already been said – but it’s not clear what that “beyond” might look like.

[Perhaps Allen should have placed a call to Cardinal Levada to get his side and to answer questions like those he brings up here!]

One member said the sub-commission could be an opportunity to ponder an undeniably front-burner question these days, which is how to define and defend the Catholic identity of church-affiliated institutions such as hospitals, schools, and social service centers.

That, however, is arguably more a question of governance rather than a strictly theological matter, so it’s not clear what contribution the ITC might be able to make.

In sum, the International Theological Commission still merits being tracked on Catholic radar, but it’s a little early to identify exactly what’s in the air.