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Catholicism, History and Culture: a Dawsonian Synthesis Catholicism, History and Culture: A Dawsonian Synthesis Submitted by Michael Richard Lynch B. Arts, B. Ed. Studies, M. Ed. Studies. Thesis submitted for total fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Arts and Sciences Australian Catholic University Date of submission: April 2008 Declaration This thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. ……………………….. Michael Richard Lynch DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my parents Margaret Mary Lynch and Bernard Drayton Lynch ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am particularly indebted to my Co-supervisor, Dr. Tracey Rowland, for inspiring and encouraging me in this work and for deepening my understanding of the relationship between theology, culture and history. I am also grateful to my Principal Supervisor, Dr. Greg Munro, for agreeing to this proposal and for his enthusiastic approach to the topic. Dr. Rowland and Dr. Munro have both provided invaluable assistance and advice to me during the period of this candidature and I am deeply appreciative of their time and effort. ABSTRACT Catholicism, History and Culture: A Dawsonian Synthesis At present the Church is confronted by two major problems, specifically, its marginalization within Western society, and the difficulty of transmitting the faith to the young. This confusion has had a particularly severe impact on Catholics within English-speaking countries such as Australia, where a dominant secularized Protestant culture has repudiated its Catholic roots. Catholics have had limited opportunities to appreciate the depth and richness of their heritage or to understand the forms and substance of a flourishing Catholic culture. There have been two major responses to the dilemma of the Church’s interaction with modern culture. The first, which predominated before 1960, drew largely upon neo-scholastic philosophy, a major proponent of which was the prominent French Catholic intellectual, Jacques Maritain (1882-1973). However, a sole reliance on this approach has proved unsatisfactory in countries such as Australia, where the Catholic cultural and historical understandings remained underdeveloped. The second major response, which has dominated the period since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), has interpreted the term aggiornamento to mean accommodation by the Church to the modern world. This response has been particularly problematic for Catholics in Australia, which has experienced substantial social and cultural changes in the last forty years. Consequently, major declines in religious practice and the marginalization of Christian understandings and beliefs within the broader society are indicative of a need for new ways to respond to modern culture and the challenge of secularization. Since the early 1970s, Communio scholars have explored the relationship between theology and culture. Their perspectives have i also led to a renewed awareness of the importance of tradition, memory and history in understanding culture. This thesis will build on this renewed awareness, to argue that the confusion about the rôle of culture has resulted from a failure to recognize the challenge posed by modernity’s breach with the Christian past, and the accompanying distortion of the historical narrative. A solution to these difficulties draws upon the historical and cultural understandings of the English Catholic historian, Christopher Dawson (1889-1970). He sought to emphasize the essential quality of the spiritual dimension in culture and history. In particular, Dawson’s understanding that religion forms culture gave him a unique insight into the importance of memory and tradition in the survival of a culture. Thus, his work addressed such themes as the rôle of Christianity in forming the West, and the need to analyse the forms and substance of a Christian culture. During the 1950s, Dawson became increasingly convinced of the importance of education in transmitting the spiritual and cultural heritage of society. He advocated the idea of a Christian culture course that would teach students about their Christian past and help them to understand that religion provides the most vital aspect of society. In particular, this thesis will propose that Dawson’s historical and educational framework is an important way to respond to the amnesia of modern culture and to transmit the faith to the next generation. Specifically, this thesis will use the Dawsonian perspective as well as the cultural analysis of the Communio school, as a means to focus on the importance of culture, history, the European heritage and education, in order to argue for new catechetical and educational directions. A focus on Europe would benefit Australia not only because it has a European heritage, but because it ii would allow a greater knowledge of a culture that was formed by Christianity, and of the challenge that arises from a secularization of the Christian ethos. The Dawsonian proposal for a Christian culture course provides an alternative to historical and cultural perspectives that are based on secular and Whig versions of history. Instead of focusing on the three-fold division of history into Ancient, Medieval and Modern eras, Dawson’s course developed an understanding of the impact of Christianity by developing a knowledge of six stages of Christian culture: The Apostolic Age; the Patristic Age; the Formation of Western Christendom; the High Middle Ages; Divided Christendom, after the Reformation; and finally, Secularized Christendom. Thus, the Dawsonian course with its emphasis on the formative rôle of Christian culture within Western society is an important means to address the problems of the marginalization of the Church, and the urgent need to find more effective ways to transmit the faith to the next generation. iii CONTENTS Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… 1-16 PART I Catholicism and the Modern World Chapter I The Church and Culture ……………………………………. 18-67 Chapter II Modernity’s Breach with the Past ………………………….. 68-119 PART II Historical Memory and Forms of Catholic Culture Chapter III Religion as the Soul of Culture …………….……………. 121-158 Chapter IV Religion as the Key to History …………….….....……… 159-194 Chapter V Understanding the European tradition ……..……………… 195-236 PART III The Dawsonian Educational Solution Chapter VI Christopher Dawson and Christian Culture ………………. 238-294 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………… 295-309 Abbreviations …………………………………………………………………….. 310-311 Bibliography ……………………………………………….…………………… 312-338 INTRODUCTION At the beginning of the third millennium the Church is confronted by what Pope Benedict calls a ‘clash of cultures’.1 This clash is particularly evident in the West, where the continuing impact of secularization has brought to prominence the need for the Church to have a developed understanding of the relationship between theological principles and cultural analysis. This is a comparatively recent intellectual need in the life of the contemporary Church. Indeed, prior to the 1960s, very few Catholic scholars with the notable exceptions of the English historian, Christopher Dawson (1889-1970), and the Polish-German Jesuit theologian, Erich Przywara (1889-1972), had investigated the importance of culture. However, the theme was to be addressed in Part II of the Second Vatican Council's document, Gaudium et Spes.2 As this particular section of the document has subsequently been the subject of scholarly criticism for its terminological looseness and variety of interpretations, there exists a continuing need within the Church for a clearer understanding of what has come to be known as the ‘theology of culture’.3 The present crisis for the Church is evident in two areas. The first concerns the marginalization of the Church within the modern West. This issue is particularly problematic for Catholics within the English-speaking countries of Australia, Britain and the USA, which are historically Protestant in culture. Many Catholics in these societies were part of the diaspora from Ireland, where Catholic culture had been truncated by centuries of persecution.4 In a desire for social acceptance within their new lands, these Catholics tended to accept archetypically 1 Joseph Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006), p. 27. 2 Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, 7 December, 1965, ed. Austin Flannery, (Dublin, Ireland: Dominican Publications, 1992). 3 Tracey Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II, (London: Routledge, 2003), p.18. (hereafter CTT). 4 Norman Davies has described how restrictions on land ownership for Catholics after the victory of William III in Ireland, in 1690, were ruinous in a predominantly peasant society. Norman Davies, The Isles: A History, (London: Macmillan, 1999), p. 629. 1 Protestant divisions between religion and culture. This meant that there was no development of a theological framework for understanding both Catholic culture and the alternative ontology of modern culture. This complexity about the relationship between religion and culture is one of the main factors impacting on the second crisis, that of the transmission of the Catholic faith to the next generation. In countries such as
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