CHURCH AND SOCIETY ................. 16811$ $$FM 02-14-08 11:14:48 PS PAGE i ................. 16811$ $$FM 02-14-08 11:14:48 PS PAGE ii CHURCH and SOCIETY R The McGinley Lectures, 1988–2007 AVERY CARDINAL DULLES Fordham University Press New York 2008 ................. 16811$ $$FM 02-14-08 11:14:49 PS PAGE iii Copyright ᭧ 2008 New York Province of the Society of Jesus All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dulles, Avery Robert, 1918– The church and society : the McGinley lectures, 1988–2007 / Avery Dulles. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8232-2862-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Catholic Church—Doctrines—History—20th century. 2. Catholic Church—Doctrines—History—21st century. 3. Christian sociology— Catholic Church. 4. Church and social problems—Catholic Church. I. Title. BX1751.3.D85 2008 282—dc22 2008003277 Printed in the United States of America 10 09 08 5 4 3 2 1 First edition ................. 16811$ $$FM 02-14-08 11:14:49 PS PAGE iv Contents Foreword ix Robert Peter Imbelli Preface xxi Abbreviations xxv 1. University Theology as a Service to the Church 1 Fall 1988 2. Teaching Authority in the Church 16 Spring 1989 3. Catholicism and American Culture: The Uneasy Dialogue 27 Fall 1989 4. Faith and Experience: Strangers? Rivals? Partners? 43 Spring 1990 5. Newman, Conversion, and Ecumenism 51 Fall 1990 6. The Uses of Scripture in Theology 68 Spring 1991 7. John Paul II and the New Evangelization 87 Fall 1991 8. Historical Method and the Reality of Christ 103 Spring 1992 9. Religion and the Transformation of Politics 116 Fall 1992 v ................. 16811$ CNTS 02-14-08 11:14:52 PS PAGE v vi ͉ Contents 10. The Church as Communion 129 Spring 1993 11. The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II 142 Fall 1993 12. The Challenge of the Catechism 157 Fall 1994 13. Crucified for Our Sake: Love, Violence, and Sacrifice 175 Spring 1995 14. John Paul II and the Advent of the New Millennium 191 Fall 1995 15. Priesthood and Gender 205 Spring 1996 16. The Travails of Dialogue 221 Fall 1996 17. The Ignatian Tradition and Contemporary Theology 234 Spring 1997 18. Mary at the Dawn of the New Millennium 248 Fall 1997 19. Should the Church Repent? 262 Spring 1998 20. Human Rights: The United Nations and Papal Teaching 276 Fall 1998 21. Can Philosophy Be Christian? The New State of the Question 291 Spring 1999 22. Justification Today: A New Ecumenical Breakthrough 306 Fall 1999 23. The Papacy for a Global Church 318 Spring 2000 24. The Death Penalty: A Right-to-Life Issue? 332 Fall 2000 ................. 16811$ CNTS 02-14-08 11:14:52 PS PAGE vi Contents ͉ vii 25. Religious Freedom: A Developing Doctrine 348 Spring 2001 26. Christ Among the Religions 360 Fall 2001 27. When to Forgive 373 Spring 2002 28. The Population of Hell 387 Fall 2002 29. True and False Reform in the Church 401 Spring 2003 30. John Paul II and the Mystery of the Human Person 414 Fall 2003 31. The Rebirth of Apologetics 430 Spring 2004 32. A Eucharistic Church: The Vision of John Paul II 443 Fall 2004 33. How Real Is the Real Presence? 455 Spring 2005 34. Benedict XVI: Interpreter of Vatican II 468 Fall 2005 35. The Mission of the Laity 485 Spring 2006 36. The Ignatian Charism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century 497 Fall 2006 37. Evolution, Atheism, and Religious Belief 509 Spring 2007 38. Who Can Be Saved? 522 Fall 2007 McGinley Lectures Previously Published 535 Index 539 ................. 16811$ CNTS 02-14-08 11:14:52 PS PAGE vii ................. 16811$ CNTS 02-14-08 11:14:52 PS PAGE viii Foreword Avery Dulles, Vir Ecclesiasticus robert peter imbelli ne of the most heartfelt accolades the early Fathers could be- stow on a theologian was to praise him as a vir ecclesiasticus:an Oecclesial man. I can think of few theologians of our day who so merit the title as Cardinal Avery Dulles. He merits it not merely because of his rank as a ‘‘prince of the Church,’’ or even because his primary theological focus has been ecclesiology, the theology of the Church. Rather, his whole theological and priestly existence has been in service of the Church, dwelling in its midst, nourished by its tradition, seeking to extend that life-giving tradition to meet the questions and challenges of our time. The Introit for the Mass of a Doctor of the Church surely summarizes his life’s commitment: to speak and write ‘‘in the midst of the Church’’—In medio ecclesiae aperuit os ejus. The Church in Light of Vatican II However, the earthly Church is not some Platonic idea, floating free of history. Like its incarnate Lord, Christ’s Church is immersed in history as it pursues its pilgrim journey to the fullness of the Kingdom, the heavenly Jerusalem, the City of Peace. Every theologian inhabits a specific historical context, speaking and writing a distinctive language within a given social and cultural setting. For the contemporary Catholic theologian a defining characteristic of the context in which he or she labors is the ongoing reception of the Second Vatican Council. In the introduction to his book The Resilient Church (1977), Dulles wrote: ix ................. 16811$ FRWD 02-14-08 11:14:56 PS PAGE ix x ͉ Foreword There are some events in church history so decisive that they set the agenda for an entire historical era. For Catholic ecclesiology the Second Vatican Council seems to have been such an event. More than a decade after the Council the Catholic ecclesiologist has no choice except to frame his ques- tions in the light of what the Council initiated.1 What he wrote in 1977 he doubtless would repeat in 2007. The council continues to set the agenda for our day into the foreseeable future. Few have contributed so magisterially to the elucidation and appropriation of the council’s ecclesial vision as has Avery Dulles. One acknowledges his unparalleled familiarity with the entire range of the council’s documents. One admires his knowledge of the prehistory of the council: from Vatican I through neo-Scholasticism to the nouvelle the´ologie and the pioneering encyclicals of Pius XII. One appreciates his refusal to countenance a facile separation of the council’s supposed ‘‘spirit’’ from the manifest teaching of its texts. Dulles holds together the creative tension that characterized the labors of the council itself: the dynamic of ressourcement and aggiornamento. Res- sourcement was the return to the sources made possible by the flowering of scriptural and patristic scholarship in the decades prior to Vatican II. It uncovered the wellsprings of the Catholic Tradition, much deeper and more nourishing than the relatively constricted forms of post-Tridentine Catholicism. Aggiornamento was the recognition that one could not merely remain in the fifth century with Augustine or even the first century with Paul but had to bring their life-giving words into the present in a way that is intelligible and transforming for men and women of our day. In his book The Reshaping of Catholicism (1988), Dulles has a significant chapter entitled ‘‘Vatican II and the Recovery of Tradition.’’ He articu- lates one of the council’s key accomplishments thus: Getting away from an excessively rigid, conceptual, and authoritarian view of tradition, the Council emphasizes that tradition arises through a real, living self-communication of God in grace and revelation, that it is rooted in the life of the community of faith, and that it adapts itself and develops in changing historical situations.2 This rich, multidimensional sense of tradition permeates Dulles’s work. It owes much to such thinkers as Newman, Blondel, and Polanyi. It ................. 16811$ FRWD 02-14-08 11:14:56 PS PAGE x Foreword ͉ xi stresses that tradition embraces both content and process; that it is both conservative and innovative. This persuasion lends Dulles’s theology both firmness and flexibility. One turns to it confident of finding utmost fidelity to the Catholic sub- stance joined to creativity in the employment of the Catholic imagination. To my mind the deepest reason for this is that, for Dulles, the ultimate anchor of tradition is the person of Jesus Christ himself, the living Lord of the Church. He affirms: ‘‘The true content of Christian tradition is nothing other than Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).’’3 To foster and sustain this encounter with Christ, ever an- cient and ever new, is the whole purpose of the tradition. Beyond proposi- tions and process, the person of Jesus Christ constitutes the very heart of Catholic tradition. Another manifestation of Dulles’s rigorous espousal of the Catholic ‘‘both/and’’ appears in the article ‘‘Institution and Charism in the Church’’ in his book A Church to Believe In (1982).4 The article is vintage Dulles: a clear exposition, historically informed, respectful of colleagues, decisive in affirmation. One is not surprised to find the avowal: The Church, then, would not be truly Church without both the institu- tional features, whereby it manifests its own abiding essence, and the char- ismatic features, whereby God efficaciously transforms the interiority of concrete persons. The relation between institution and charism is a partic- ular instance of the general relation between sacramental signs and the spiritual realities to which they point.5 One delights to follow his elaboration of the reciprocal relations of these two constitutive dimensions of the Church’s life, which often live in cre- ative tension with each other.