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Pope Francis' Reparative Vision: a Postmodern Hermeneutic of Catholic Uncertainty

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Pope Francis' Reparative Vision: a Postmodern Hermeneutic of Catholic Uncertainty Durham E-Theses POPE FRANCIS' REPARATIVE VISION: A POSTMODERN HERMENEUTIC OF CATHOLIC UNCERTAINTY BURBACH, NICOLETE,MARGARET,NATALYA How to cite: BURBACH, NICOLETE,MARGARET,NATALYA (2020) POPE FRANCIS' REPARATIVE VISION: A POSTMODERN HERMENEUTIC OF CATHOLIC UNCERTAINTY, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13509/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 POPE FRANCIS’ REPARATIVE VISION: A POSTMODERN HERMENEUTIC OF CATHOLIC UNCERTAINTY Nicolete Burbach ABSTRACT Various readers of Pope Francis identify in his papal texts a striking openness to uncertainty, embodied in a rejection of fear and an embracing of alterity. These themes are united to a program of reform touching on doctrinal, ecclesiological, and pastoral matters; as well as attendant wider theological, philosophical, and affective issues. However, the general unsystematicity of both these readings and Francis’ texts themselves makes it difficult to receive those texts in a way that integrates these various themes. The critical theorist, Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick distinguishes between paranoid and reparative hermeneutics. At the heart of this distinction are their respective attitudes towards uncertainty. Paranoid hermeneutics see uncertainty primarily as a source of danger. Consequently, they attempt to foreclose uncertainty by deploying totalised, self-confirming theories which anticipate and determine their objects so as to construct them as manageable threats. In contrast, reparative hermeneutics view uncertainty with hope, looking to it as the source of unforeseen joy. Correspondingly, they are less totalising and determining, instead allowing the unknown to reveal itself. In drawing this typology, Sedgwick integrates affective and epistemological themes in such a way as to provide a powerful tool for understanding the cluster of themes identified in Francis’ writings. This thesis deploys Sedgwick’s typology in order to produce a correspondingly integrated reading of Francis. It constructs a systematic reading of Pope Francis’ key papal documents in order to show how he provides theological resources for a reparative hermeneutics in Catholic theology, contrasting this with more paranoid impulses within the Magisterial tradition as exemplified in John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor. In doing so, it seeks to show how Francis provides the materials for an alternative Catholic imagination, founded on a systematic theology that enables us to embrace uncertainty with hope. POPE FRANCIS’ REPARATIVE VISION: A POSTMODERN HERMENEUTIC OF CATHOLIC UNCERTAINTY Nicolete Margaret Natalya Burbach Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Theology and Religion Durham University 2019 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author's prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. v I. Introduction: five symptomatic questions ....................................................................... 1 1. The need for repair ...................................................................................................... 1 1.1. A problem of reception ........................................................................................ 1 1.2. Two hermeneutics ............................................................................................... 3 2. The paranoid paradigm ................................................................................................ 8 2.1. Some preliminary qualifications .......................................................................... 8 2.2. Veritatis Splendor ............................................................................................... 10 3. Five paranoid questions ............................................................................................. 31 3.1. The dubia ........................................................................................................... 32 3.2. Dubia as paranoid writing practice .................................................................... 33 3.3. Conscience again ................................................................................................ 36 4. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 37 II. Reading Francis .............................................................................................................. 41 1. Three methodological issues, and one misunderstanding ........................................ 41 1.1. The question of authorship ................................................................................ 41 1.2. A systematic approach ....................................................................................... 55 1.3. Abstraction ......................................................................................................... 58 1.4. Reduction ........................................................................................................... 61 2. Selecting texts ............................................................................................................ 63 2.1. Why these texts?................................................................................................ 63 2.2. Authority ............................................................................................................ 66 3. An outline of the project ............................................................................................ 67 III. Knowledge and totality in Lumen Fidei ............................................................................. 69 1. Fullness, limitation, and the ‘logic’ of Lumen Fidei .................................................... 70 2. Faith-knowledge ........................................................................................................ 73 i 2.1. Hearing ............................................................................................................... 73 2.2. Sight ................................................................................................................... 76 3. Totality and ‘sight’ ...................................................................................................... 78 3.1. Interpersonality: the qualitative horizon ........................................................... 79 3.2. The quantitative horizon .................................................................................... 81 4. Touch .......................................................................................................................... 84 4.1. Love .................................................................................................................... 84 4.2. The third metaphor: touch................................................................................. 88 4.3. Knowledge as touch vs knowledge as sight ....................................................... 89 5. The ‘logic’ ................................................................................................................... 91 6. Worked example: mercy and the moral law .............................................................. 92 6.1. The nature of mercy ........................................................................................... 92 6.2. Goodness and rightness ..................................................................................... 95 6.3. The ‘moral security’ of rightness........................................................................ 99 6.4. Mysticism as a guide to morals ........................................................................ 102 6.5. Unselfing and obedience ................................................................................. 105 7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 109 IV. Mystical ecclesiology and historical pluralism ......................................................... 112 1. The Marian Church ................................................................................................... 112 1.1. A communal subjectivity .................................................................................. 113 1.2. Institutions and mystery .................................................................................. 113 1.3. Marian Priority ................................................................................................. 119 2. Pluralism..................................................................................................................
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