Neo-Orthodoxy, the Crisis of Authority, and the Future of the
Catholic Church in the United States

Joseph A. Varacalli

[Professor Varacalli in this stimulating essay continues the
vibrant discussion initiated by his first essay which was
delivered at the Convention of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars
in Los Angeles. He raises a number of vital questions concerning
the future of the Catholic Church in the United States and the
tensions involved in the development of a "neo-orthodoxy".]

Introduction

This essay can best be understood as a logical and necessary
follow-up to a paper, "The State of the American Catholic Laity:
Propositions and Proposals," published in Faith & Reason (vol.
XIII, no. 2, June, 1987). The latter was primarily concerned with
providing an objective analysis of the present religious state of
affairs in the United States with a specific focus on the American
Catholic laity. Given both my personal faith commitment and that
my analysis did not paint a healthy and vibrant religious picture,
I ended that essay by suggesting and defending certain proposals
aimed at the restoration of an authentic Catholic presence in the
United States. Some of the proposals were "negative" in nature
calling for the exercise of various forms of religious sanction
that are available to the Bishops to be used against prominent
dissenters. Other proposals were "positive" in nature emphasizing
the educational and evangelization opportunities that can be
grasped by today's Church leadership. None of the more "positive"
proposals were more important than my call for:

The emergence and institutionalization of a 'neo-orthodox' center,
loyal to the letter of Vatican II, (which) is a presupposition for
maintaining the unity, continuity, and universalism of the
Catholic Church in the United States. The chances of saving a
larger percentage of American Catholics from heterodoxy and
shortening the upcoming civil war in the U.S. Catholic Church lies
in the development of an updated neo-orthodoxy which incorporates
modern methods from the social sciences and humanities to defend,
propound, and maintain the eternal truths of Catholicism. Such a
neo-orthodoxy represents a 'via media' between traditional and
modern worldviews and provides Catholics with an intelligent and
most persuasive synthesis of faith and reason.1

This essay, then, will attempt to more fully elaborate what I mean
by this "updated neo-orthodoxy." Furthermore, it will be argued
that this updated neo-orthodoxy can provide a plausible, and
perhaps even compelling, solution to the single greatest issue
that today confronts the Catholic Church, to wit: the matter of
"authority." On the one hand, the issue of who legitimately
protects the faith, interprets the tradition, and controls the
internal decision-making of the Church is a perennial one. On the
other hand, the argument made here is that this seemingly
perennial "crisis of authority" has reached its historic highpoint
in the post-Vatican II Catholic Church, especially in the United
States.

This is so, as I've argued in my Toward The Establishment of
Liberal Catholicism in America (1983), because of an "elective
affinity" taking place between, and a pragmatic alliance emerging
among, two powerful contemporary forces. The first is that of a
secular humanism that is both overtly and subtly antagonistic to
Catholicism and to any other supernaturalist religion and that is
increasing its control over the "public sphere" of American life
(e.g. government, education, mass media, etc.). The second is that
of a "new Catholic knowledge class" which -- for reasons of status
and power -- is consciously fostering an erroneous and highly
selective interpretation of Vatican II and post-Vatican II
documents along "progressive" lines. By doing so, the new Catholic
knowledge class attempts to wrest control away from the
Magisterium, or teaching authority of the Pope and of those
Bishops in loyal communion with him, of the right to create,
interpret, and implement religious doctrine and the social policy
programs that emanate from such. Put into neo-conservative
sociological language, a newly emerging knowledge class of
intellectuals -- legitimated in their own minds by their degrees
in theology, philosophy, social science, and the humanities -- is
presently engaging the Magisterium in class warfare. The distorted
new Catholic knowledge class interpretation of Vatican II and
post-Vatican II theology encourages conceptions like that of "the
Church as the people of God," "individual conscience as the
supreme subjective," "collegiality," "ecumenicity," and "justice
in the world" to justify a practical, if not theoretical, merger
of Catholicism, in both her internal organization and relationship
to the world, with the worldview and agenda of secularism and
liberal religiosity, especially with liberal Protestantism.2 This
agenda and worldview is one that aggrandizes, in short, pluralism
and materialism in both thought and action and stands, as such, in
sharp contrast to the Catholic commitment to truth and priority to
otherworldly salvation. Let me immediately add that an orthodox
interpretation of Vatican II must acknowledge the legitimacy of
the modern- day reality of democracy and this-worldliness but
these phenomena must be contained within and be co-opted by the
Catholic tradition.

Given my understanding of the centrality and indispensability of
the role of the Magisterium in Catholic belief and practice, let
me restate my previously published understanding of what
constitutes "orthodoxy" and "heterodoxy":

'Orthodox' Catholics are defined as those who affirm the
legitimacy of both the Catholic conception of the Magisterium and
of what Avery Dulles in his Models of the Church has termed the
'institutional model' of the Catholic Church. Heterodox Catholics
are defined as those Catholics who, in accepting a unilinear
evolutionary understanding of the future of the Catholic Church
that posits the ultimate supremacy of 'individual conscience,'
reject both the conceptions of the Magisterium and of the
institutional model. It is important to point out two things about
the definitions just offered. First of all, they are 'religious'
and not 'political' definitions. Put another way, an 'orthodox' or
'heterodox' Catholic may be either politically liberal or
conservative (although empirically there is a tendency,
respectively, for orthodox religious and conservative political
orientations and heterodox religious and liberal political
orientations to be positively associated with each other).
Secondly, each definition allows a considerably wide spectrum of
alternatives to co-exist within it. Put another way, 'orthodoxy'
includes not only traditional 'propositional literalists' but
'neo-orthodox' who accept modern social scientific and humanistic
methods to obtain traditionally religious doctrinal conclusions.
Conversely, 'heterodoxy' includes those who range from having no
use whatsoever for the concepts of the Magisterium/institutional
Church to those who consider such allegiances to be 'optional' or
non-binding in the exercise of the Catholic faith.3

By an "updated neo-orthodoxy" I mean an approach that utilizes
distinctly modern intellectual disciplines to defend, propound,
and maintain an authentic Catholicism, i.e., a Catholicism
consistent with the traditional teachings of the Church up until,
including, and beyond the second Vatican Council. It is important
here to make three points. First of all, the Angelic Doctor
himself, St. Thomas Aquinas, could be logically labelled a "neo-
orthodox" thinker in his day given that he incorporated the best
of the Aristotelian philosophical tradition for the Church. The
incorporation that I am concerned about in this essay comes mainly
from the social sciences but also includes the various methods and
insights from modern-day philosophies and other humanities.
Secondly, it is important to stress that orthodoxy requires the
subordination of the insights of philosophy (whether classical or
modern) or the social sciences and humanities to "official"
Catholic theology. Put another way, the orthodoxy of St. Thomas is
derived from the fact that he co-opted Aristotle and not the other
way around. Put simply, St. Thomas incorporated Greek reason
within a Christian faith, Greek cyclical thought within Christian
revelation, Greek human nature within Christian grace, Greek fate
within Christian responsibility and freedom and the Greek emphasis
on the eternal within the Christian emphasis on the divine. What
would make any particular tradition of sociology, for instance,
orthodox is the ability of the "Catholic sociologist" to
incorporate the contingent and conditional (e.g. culture, socio-
economic class, geography, race, sex, ethnicity, language, etc.)
within a system of Catholic absolute truths about man and society
in their relationship to God in which the latter "leads" the
sociological research enterprise. Put into the language of
contemporary "cybernetics theory," orthodoxy requires that
philosophy or sociology or other secular disciplines stand in a
"cybernetically subordinate" relationship to a Catholic theology,
as defined by the Magisterium, which occupies a "command post"
position which simultaneously allows a vivifying input from the
former intellectual disciplines while, at the same time,
controlling the nature, i.e., the flow, speed, extent, and
content, of that input. Third and finally, it is crucial to
understand that the contemporary secular age does not encourage
any cybernetic arrangement that favors supernatural religion. The
usual modern-day arrangement, at least in non-communist societies,
is to allow traditional religion to exist but in a flaccid,
secondary, and privatized state. Thus, Max Scheler, in his
Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge, argues against Auguste
Comte's assertion that religious, metaphysical, and scientific
cultures exist in a zero-sum relationship to each other. Rather,
for Scheler, religious and metaphysical knowledge coexist at each
stage of history, although the present age gives primacy (or
similarly, in the language of this essay, "cybernetic
superiority") to science.4 As a matter of fact, a recent book of
importance authored by Timothy Arthur Lines, Systemic Religious
Education, explicitly utilizes cybernetic theory as a vehicle
simultaneously to incorporate and subordinate traditional religion
to social science or, as I've previously put it, "to create an
immanentist religion of social science."5 Regardless of the very
problematic issue of whether or not a cybernetic theory adapted to
defend the eternal truths of Catholicism could ever gain
widespread support in our secular society or even within the
contemporary Catholic intellectual community, the attempt here is
nonetheless to move in such a direction. At the very worst, an
updated neo-orthodoxy could buttress those forces loyal to the
Magisterium in their present battle with Catholic heterodox
intellectuals by "neutralizing" the latter's monopoly on whatever
legitimation is afforded through the mastery and utilization of
the social sciences and other modern scholarly methods.

The locating of an "official" Catholic theology in a "command
post" position vis-a-vis non-Magisterial "input" simultaneously
defends the centrality of the Magisterium and incorporates and
respects, relative to previous doctrinal pronouncements, the
"democratic" and "this-worldly" aspects of Vatican II. The
positing of such a cybernetic relationship allows not only for the
legitimate existence within the Catholic Church of less inclusive
sects/cults and for the exercise of individual conscience but also
for a healthy and vibrant social Catholicism. Such a relationship
allows for an enlivening and, in some cases, Spirit-filled input
from non- Magisterial components of the "people of God" --
including theologians and the other elements of the new Catholic
knowledge class -- provided, once again, that the Magisterium
stands in ultimate judgement over these initiatives.

This essay assumes the following points: 1) Christ is the Truth
and the Way. 2) While all interpretations of the Gospel -- along
denominational and individual lines -- are culturally conditioned,
the specific interpretation of the Roman Catholic Church is the
fullest, but not necessarily the complete, expression of that
Truth. 3) The teachings of the Magisterium represent the fullest
expression of the Truth of Roman Catholicism. "Dissent" from the
Magisterium is allowed if by dissent is meant the mere public
acknowledgement of a "cognitive anomaly" between a finding of an
intellectual inquiry and an official Church teaching. Legitimate
dissent requires, however, 1) much prayer and soul-searching, 2)
an exhaustion of the intellectual attempt to honestly square faith
and reason, and 3) the ultimate subordination of the intellectual
inquiry to the teaching authority of the Magisterium. The
intellectual search and its findings are, in short, 1) encouraged
by the Magisterium, 2) publicly "offered up" as a potential
contribution from a member of the "people of God" to the total
Church and to the society-at-large, and 3) required to stand under
the judgement of the Magisterium -- past, present, and future.6
Such an arrangement is quite similar in form to that of St. Thomas
when he distinguishes between the role of reason in discerning the
"natural law" of God and the role of faith in acknowledging the
revelation, mystery, and paradox in the "divine law" of God. In
such a model, faith is seen as an intelligent, qualified and short
"leap," in contrast, for instance, to the Lutheran understanding
that accentuates the distinction between faith and reason. Where
the latter often drown in the "fiery brook" of relativity,
Catholics can better, and in any intellectually honest way,
navigate the river of uncertainty.

This essay will first place the attempt at providing a neo-
orthodox ceasefire within a contemporary sociological context of a
badly polarized Catholic Church. Then it will be argued that the
centrality of the Magisterium, in at least a "cybernetically
superordinate" sense, is constitutive of any legitimate, i.e.
"orthodox," depiction of the Catholic faith. This will be
executed, both conceptually and historically, in light of the
"Christ and culture" framework propounded by H.R. Niebuhr and the
religious typology provided by Ernest Troeltsch. It will be argued
that the principle Catholic model is the "Christ above culture"
alternative developed by St. Thomas although the post-Vatican II
Church has adapted this model by including elements of the
Lutheran "Two Kingdoms" and Calvinist "Christ the Transformer"
models. The paper then moves on to provide and analyze examples of
"neo-orthodox" methods -- or, more accurately, what could easily
develop into neo-orthodox methods. These include, foremost, my
present efforts at resurrecting the idea of "Catholic
sociologies." Also introduced, again with important qualifications
noted, is the work of Avery Dulles, S.J. on pluralism within the
Church, of Michael Novak on the relationship of "democratic
capitalism" to social Catholicism, of George Weigel on the
understanding of the evolution of the Catholic moral tradition on
the issue of war and peace, and of Paul E. Sigmund in developing a
dynamic conception of natural law theory. The essay concludes with
a brief discussion of the "plausibility" or "conditions of
acceptability" of Catholic "neo-orthodoxy" in the modern world.

Impending Civil War

My attempt to articulate a neo-orthodox solution to the present-
day crisis of authority should be seen in a sociological context
that argues that the situation that the Catholic Church in the
U.S. today faces is nothing less than a full-blown intellectual
civil war that threatens to quickly include the average Catholic-
in-the-pews. The brilliant analyses of Monsignor George A. Kelly,
The Battle for the American Church (1979) and Crisis of Authority
(1982) have more than proved their worth; the forces and figures
involved in the studies have only magnified, leading to, for
practical purposes, a schism of a de facto nature at least for the
Catholic intellectual community.7 It is important to point out
here the important boundary-creating and maintaining functions
performed by intellectuals for the communities that they allegedly
represent. Simply put, the fact that intellectuals have chosen not
to carve out any neo-orthodox center today forces the average
American Catholic to choose from extreme options, that is,
traditionalist and secularist.

On the one side of the contemporary barricades one finds a
somewhat uneasy alliance of Catholic traditionalists -- who see
less need for any intellectual defense and explication of the
truths propounded by the Magisterium to either the Catholic
community or outer society -- with neo- orthodox thinkers who are
more modern in that they have attempted to cross the "fiery brook"
of modern-day relativity without drowning in it. The former can be
represented as the stalwarts of those forces loyal to the historic
and central role that the Magisterium plays in the life of the
Catholic Church. The latter are representatives of a liberal
Catholicism that is consciously attempting to stay within the
boundaries of an orthodox Catholicism while "updating it" by
defending it in light of what is seen to be the religious,
intellectual, and moral realities and needs of the present
situation. On one hand, the alliance is very real; both groups
perceive the Roman Catholic Church to be in a titanic struggle
with the forces of a secularism bent on the destruction of the
Catholic Church. On the other hand, the alliance is very
precarious because of mutual suspicion. The traditionalists are
wary of what they feel are the contaminating effects of modern
methods on the neo-orthodox. The neo- orthodox, for their part,
are all-too-aware of the rejection, suspicion, or at least
indifference afforded modern methods by the traditionalists. Put
into the suggestive typology of Lutheran theologian George A.
Lindbeck, (The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Post
Liberal Age, 1984), Catholic traditionalists take a "pre-liberal"
stance to religious doctrine while what I'm calling an up-dated
neo-orthodoxy takes on something approximating a "post-liberal"
stance to doctrine. Modernist Catholic heterodox tend to take what
Lindbeck refers to as a typically "liberal" stance to doctrine
seeing the latter as merely a symbolic expression of universal and
unchanging religious "experience."8 As uneasy as it may be, the
traditionalist and neo-orthodox alliance is fueled, at least to a
large degree, by their mutually greater repugnance to the liberal
approach to doctrine. As Richard John Neuhaus put it in his The
Catholic Moment (1987):

Postliberals tend to be more critical of liberals than of pre-
liberals. That is because postliberalism shares preliberalism's
suspicion that liberalism ends up in robbing doctrines of their
normative status. On the other hand, postliberalism is convinced
that, even if we wanted to, there is no going back to
preliberalism. In the case of the postliberal, as in the case of
the postmodern, the fiery brook has been crossed.9

The other side of the barricades finds itself united in a purely
negative sense; the unifying cement of the Catholic heterodox lies
precisely in its opposition to the traditionalism and authority
represented in the Catholic heritage. The dissenters include
strong representation from Marxists, feminists, homosexuals, and
most importantly in a numerical sense, "Anglicized" Catholics who
see liberal Protestantism with its positing of the primacy of a
basically anti-institutional, antinomian "conscience" and with its
ultimate reduction of doctrine to "experience" to be the normative
destiny of the Catholic religion.

Without a doubt, it is the work of Father Andrew M. Greeley,
through his celebration of the concept of "communal Catholicism,"
that can best conceptualize and advocate the existing dissent and
potential rebellion in today's Church.10 By a communal
Catholicism, Greeley means a highly selective and individualistic
Catholic expression that picks and chooses pieces of Catholic
doctrine to either accept, reject, ignore or indiscriminately
synthesize with secular/Protestant ideas. At a practical level, a
communal Catholic translates into "anything but an ecclesiastical
Catholic." While I (along with co-author Anthony L. Haynor) have
previously criticized Greeley sociologically precisely on the
grounds of the conceptual fuzziness of his idea, it is clear that
the term can include any number of cultural/individual reductions
of the Catholic faith along ideological, ethnic, socio-economic
class, and psychological lines.11 Thus, U.S. communal Catholics
consist of those whose Catholicism is translated and reduced to,
for instance, Marxism, nationalism, feudalism (ideological), or to
Italianness, Irishness, Spanishness (ethnicity), or to class
(lower, middle, upper), and to human mental and emotional needs
for security (as is the case for some in the cursillo,
charismatic, or other spiritual renewal movements). Put another
way, communal Catholics are examples of what Gordon Allport meant
by "extrinsic" or "immature" religion.12 While it is, of course,
true that all religions, including Catholicism, are inevitably
mediated through both social forms and individual experience (an
important starting point for Catholic neo- orthodoxy), the key to
the question of the authenticity of any religious experience lies
precisely in the balance between religion, on the one hand, and on
the other, culture and the individual. Authenticity requires the
subordination of the latter to the former. In the specific case of
Catholicism, authenticity requires the subordination (although not
the reduction) of both cultural and individual social realities to
that of the Magisterium of the Church, i.e. to that location that
has historically defined the essence of and set the parameters of
the faith. In the case of Protestantism, religious authority
implies the subordination of cultural manifestation and individual
need to an individually interpreted Scriptural basis.

Cultural and individual reduction does not exhaust, however, the
meaning of a "communal Catholicism." It also includes those
nominal Catholics who are, indeed, religious but religious in a
distinctly "liberal Protestant" individualized way. The Protestant
position, played out to its fullest, is exemplified by theologian-
historian Ernest Troeltsch's evolutionary understanding of an
inevitable religious movement from "Church" to "sect" to a highly
individualized "mysticism." In the words of sociologists Nicholas
J. Demerath and Philip Hammond:

Troeltsch contrasted both church and sect to still a third type of
religious expression: mysticism . . . Troeltsch pictured it less
in terms of a withdrawn contemplation of the world and more in
terms of an active antiassociationalism in which the individual
departs organized religion to go it alone within the world rather
than outside of it. Thus, Troeltsch predicted that mysticism would
become a dominant form of religion among the well-educated middle-
classes. He saw it as a liberalizing spirit within Protestantism
that would eclipse both the church and sect as religious molds.13

As Troeltsch put it himself in his The Social Teachings of the
Christian Churches (1931):

We must not forget that the whole of the later Middle Ages, with
the growth of an independent lay civilization in the cities,
itself created a powerful competition with the previous world of
thought which had been controlled by the Church and particularly
by the priests. Its first effort was naturally to limit the power
of the ecclesiastical civilization; that, however, was followed by
an increasing disintegration of the objective side of religion in
general, as it was expressed in the institutional conception of
the Church . . . Through all these movements, however, a
sociological type of Christian thought was being developed, which
was not the same as the sect type; it was, in fact, a new type --
the radical religious individualism of mysticism. This type has no
desire for an organized fellowship; all it cares for was freedom
for interchange of ideas, a pure fellowship of thought . . . In
this type, therefore, . . . the isolated individual, and
psychological abstraction and analysis become everything . . .
This type, however, only attained its universal historical
significance in the latter Protestant Dissenters, and in their
connection with Humanism.14

Monsignor George A. Kelly adds the following critique from the
Roman Catholic perspective:

Protestantism by definition was geared to almost any idea that
accentuated individual religious experience. Lacking magisterium,
by which all new Catholic interpretations must be measured,
Protestantism (except its fundamentalists) was forced by its inner
logic to make faith concepts and moral precepts almost a matter of
scientific determination. Ernest Troeltsch (1865-1923) . . . was
an important contributor to Protestant accommodation. He wanted a
vital Christianity, and thought its survival depends on a
restructured modern dress. 'Absolutes' had to go and 'personal
satisfaction' had to rise as a norm of religious relevance.
Troeltsch does not ask: 'How can I find God?' but 'How can I find
my soul?' He did not even think that Jesus was necessary to
Christianity, since Christ was more a symbol of a community than a
spokesman of God's revelation. Though a Protestant, Troeltsch
thought the reformed churches retained too many features of
Catholic Christianity. The modern age to him meant the religious
autonomy of man -- against both Protestant and Catholic
worldviews, if need be.15

"Communal Catholicism," then, as a concept includes those who have
accepted the so-called "Protestant principle" stressing the
absoluteness of individual interpretation and the idea that the
Church is primarily an "invisible" reality -- a reality that, by
the way, becomes quite visible sociologically when the concept is
interpreted and actualized, as inevitably it must. It also
includes those, as previously analyzed, who have, knowingly or
not, capitulated to any of the too-numerous-to-repeat cultural
forces (and fads) of the contemporary American scene. (Much of
liberal Protestantism, following the logic of Monsignor Kelly, is
really, then, not an "authentic" religious expression as here
defined because of its massive reduction to cultural fads and
individual self-interest; an assertion that should be noted but
cannot be pursued at this point).

The "battle," then, for the Catholic Church in the United States
consists of those who, on the one hand, line up on the side of the
Catholic tradition in one way or another (with its conceptions of
ecclesiastical authority, sacramental grace, otherworldliness, and
individual salvation as mediated through the Church) and those who
either reject the Catholic tradition outright and would secularize
it or those who would, more likely, "protestantize it" through an
acceptance of an evolutionary scheme that posits an ultimate reign
of individual autonomy. The "communal Catholicism" camp of Andrew
Greeley finds its theoretical legitimation in a wide range of
intellectual sources that range from Ernest Troeltsch's analysis
of an ascendant "mysticism" to Georg Hegel's philosophy of
history, to Peter L. Berger's discussion of his "inductive"
theological approach to Robert Bellah's analysis of "religious
evolution."16 The massive reality that must be confronted,
however, is the existence of a huge "gap" between the underlying
worldviews and assumptions regarding man, society, and the Church
that undergird these two camps.17 Put another way, the question
facing U.S. Catholicism today is, "Can anything close the gap
between the understanding of the Church Magisterium and an Andrew
Greeley?"

Christ and Culture:

Continuity and Change Within the Catholic Model

In his justifiably celebrated work, Christ and Culture (1951),
published before Vatican II, H.R. Niebuhr presents five "ideal-
typical" relationships between Christianity and surrounding
society.18 At the extremes are the "Christ of culture" and the
"Christ against culture" options. The first makes, more or less, a
perfect identification between Christianity and the structures and
processes of society. Theologically, this position is best
represented by such gnostic thinkers as Theodotus and Monoimus
and, sociologically, an approximation can be found in the work of
Talcott Parsons who had argued the subtle, but for him real,
influences that Christianity has had on the culture and the
institutions of modern-day American life as well as on the
personality formation of the average American. The individual and
society are influenced by Christianity through the reality, for
Parsons, of an "institutionalized individualism."19 The second
model posits, more or less, a perfect disjunction between
Christianity and the world. Theologically, this position is
represented by the early Christian Tertullian who
characteristically quipped, "What has Athens, i.e., the 'world,'
have to do with Jerusalem, i.e. God?" This early "primitive"
Christian theological perspective, influenced greatly by the
eschatological hopes for an imminent return of the Lord and
subsequent rejection of everything of a this-worldly nature,
cannot by its very logic have a sociological analogue. This option
lives on today in various sect- like versions of the Christian
faith.

In terms of Catholic neo-orthodoxy, neither of these ideal-typical
relationships between Christianity and culture/intellectual
activity have much to offer. The first, as with the previously
noted work of Timothy Lines, subordinates the supernatural to the
natural creating at best an immanentist religion of science or
philosophy or social sciences or the humanities. At the very
worst, this model reduces religion right out of existence. The
nature of such reductions can, of course, vary. For Emile
Durkheim, religion was nothing more than the "collective
conscience" of society. For Karl Marx, religion was only the
"opiate of the masses." For Sigmund Freud, religion represented an
"illusion" for many modern-day individuals who are "super-ego"
controlled. The number of such reductions can be multiplied ad
nauseum.20

Niebuhr posited three intermediate ideal-typical relationships
between Christ and culture: the Lutheran "two kingdoms" model, the
Calvinist "Christ the transformer of culture" model, and the
medieval Catholic "Christ above culture" model. The first option
posits, on the one hand, the absolute majesty and "otherness" of
God and, on the other, the absolute profanity and mundaneness of
things of this world. Sociologically, this position is represented
by the "early" work of Lutheran theologian- sociologist Peter L.
Berger who defined the sociological enterprise in primarily
"negative" terms, i.e. in the debunking of any utopian, God-like
aspirations of man and of his earthly social movements. The
sociological task, at least for the early Berger, aided the
theological one in that the former helped to contain the evil
doings of man in a fallen world.21 The second model posits the
need of Christianity to socially transform the earth, to create,
in other words, "God's kingdom here on earth." Sociologically,
this Calvinist position is represented by the work of the
theologian-sociologist Robert N. Bellah, sympathetic as he is to
the construction of what may be called a "religious
communalism."22

The final and Catholic model posits the existence of a divinely
created institution, the Roman Catholic Church, which is "in" the
world but not fully "of" it, which serves as the nexus between the
other-world and the this-world, which stands both above man and
permeates man through the sacraments and which directs his earthly
activity and without whose assistance individual salvation of an
eternal, otherworldly nature is hard to attain. Sociologically,
this position finds its reflection in the group of Thomistic
Catholic sociologists lead by Paul H. Furfey, who argued that a
sociologically-informed reason must and can be integrated,
although in a subordinate way, with the Catholic faith and that
the earthly concern for the reconstruction of the social order was
an important, although secondary, feature of the preaching of the
Gospel as understood through Catholic tradition.23

While the "Christ above culture" model is still the basic Catholic
approach to the relationship of Christ and culture, it has been
modified somewhat since Vatican II. This modification is basically
along the lines of incorporating certain elements of the
Protestant Reformation. Thus, the two other "intermediate"
alternatives of Niebuhr have something positive to offer the
possibility of Catholic neo-orthodoxy. From the Lutheran model of
"paradox" can be taken the awareness of the potential vanity,
possible sinfulness, and definite incompleteness that results from
a too-heavy emphasis on reason. For instance, Richard J. Neuhaus,
in his impressive The Catholic Moment: The Paradox of the Church
in the Postmodern World (1987), tries to bring the Catholic
Thomist/synthetic and Lutheran/Two Kingdoms models closer together
as follows:

We must never succumb to the love of paradox for the sake of
paradox. We should, for instance, press the work of 'synthesis'
between dissonant truths as far as we possibly can. And here
Protestants have a particular responsibility to critically
retrieve and resume ambitious synthesizing projects such as that
represented by Thomas Aquinas. We have an intellectual duty to do
so, which is to say we have a duty to the truth that is in all
truths. It is the same duty that forbids us to trim truths into a
false fit.24

On the one hand, Neuhaus' Lutheran perspective should be
incorporated into a Catholic neo-orthodoxy as a guard against the
possible Catholic development of an intellectual and religious
understanding of the world that is too "neat," too
"rationalistic." On the other hand, and in opposition to Neuhaus
who would have Catholicism "Lutheranized," his model of the
"Church and world in paradox" can never be definitive for either
the Catholic religion or Catholic scholarship. In the Lutheran
model, that gap between reason and faith is too wide, the paradox
too incomprehensible, the subjectivism too rampant for it to serve
as anything but a corrective -- albeit a needed one -- to the
basic Catholic worldview.

Similarly, the Catholic model since Vatican II has been even more
"officially" modified in the direction of the Calvinist
"conversionist" model. A concern for social justice is no longer
"derivative" of the call of the Gospel, but as the Synod of
Bishops 1971 statement, Justice in the World, puts it, it is now a
"constitutive" element. Nonetheless, it is important to argue
against the interpretation of so-called "progressivist" Catholics
who exaggerate the difference between the pre- and post-Vatican II
understanding that the Church has of herself. David Tracy, for
instance, is wrong when he states that "the mainline Catholic
tradition, despite the neo-Scholastic 'Christ Above Culture' model
of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is a 'Christ
the Transformer of Culture' model."25 Similarly, I would argue
that Charles Curran, Richard McBrien, and Dennis McCann have
overemphasized the "horizontal" this-worldly dimension of the
Catholic religion through the priority they give to the Church as
"servant."26 The Tracy, Curran, McBrien, and McCann argument is a
very common one made in the Church today but it is one based, as
I've argued previously, on a very selective misinterpretation of
Vatican II and post-Vatican II documents along liberal, social
activist lines.27

Today, especially if there is any truth to R.J. Neuhaus' reading
of John Paul II as a thinker somewhat in the "paradoxical"
tradition, the Catholic model in the post-Vatican II era is
actually a hybrid phenomenon combining the medieval, Calvinist,
and Lutheran models.28 It must be stressed that the formal
framework of St. Thomas and his "Christ above culture" vision
stands at the "cybernetic hierarchy" of this new model. It is one
thing to say that the Catholic tradition absorbs what is true in
other religions. It is another to assert -- and it would be a
wrong assertion -- to claim that the Catholic tradition as the
single fullest expression of Jesus Christ has herself been co-
opted. This new Catholic model serves as the true "via media"
between all the other models. It rejects either a facile
acceptance or denial of the world and its institutions. It rejects
either overplaying or underplaying the role of faith or reason in
religious and human affairs. It rejects either conception of man
as fundamentally good or as all being equally depraved. It sees
the locus of salvation as otherworldly but as requiring a great
deal of this-worldly effort in the name of Christ.

The contemporary battle for the Catholic Church in the United
States can be profitably analyzed in light of Niebuhr's
classificatory scheme. The orthodox embrace the classical Thomist
model with their neo-orthodox allies accepting the modified
Thomistic model. Heterodox forces in the Catholic Church, for
their part, primarily embrace either the Christ the transformer or
the Christ of culture model or some combination of both. (Because
of the conservative nature of the "Christ against culture" and
"Two Kingdoms" models that stress human finitude and
otherworldliness, the Catholic heterodox have little use for these
models.) The Christ the transformer model sees salvation as
primarily a this-worldly matter while the Christ of culture model
endorses the various cultural and individual reductions analyzed
previously that are available in the modern pluralistic context.
The latter two models are liberal Protestant in their elevation of
the material world and in the acceptance of an unqualified
religious individualism.

Another compatible way of conceptualizing the cleavage in the
contemporary Catholic Church is to once again employ the typology
of religious orientations to the world as discussed by the
Protestant historian- theologian, Ernest Troeltsch. For Troeltsch,
religion can be manifested in either a "Church-like," "sect-like,"
or "mystical," i.e., individualistic, stance to the world. The
traditional, i.e., medieval Catholic, preference is clearly
"Church-like," while the contemporary Protestant options are
either "sect-like" (usually in the form of a world-rejecting
fundamentalism) or "mystical" (in the form of a highly
individuated religiosity that synthesizes bits and pieces from the
outer culture and various religious expressions, that is typical
of liberal Protestantism). Put ever so crudely, the official
version of contemporary Catholicism has swallowed up the
Protestant Reformation without capitulating to it. The "new,"
i.e., Vatican II model of the Church places the once outside
elements into the old model without destroying the integrity of
the old. The present-day Church allows "input" from "sect-like"
and "individualistic" orientations, but nonetheless places the
Magisterium of the Church in a "command post" of a cybernetic
relationship which allows it to control the nature, i.e., the
speed, timing, extent, and content, etc. of such input.

Viewed from either Niebuhr's or Troeltsch's categories, the
contemporary battle for the Catholic Church can be viewed as
between the combined forces of Catholic traditionalism and a
modified or "neo-orthodox" Catholicism, on the one hand, and
those, on the other, for whom recent post-Vatican II modifications
are in line with a unilinear evolutionary theory. For the latter,
put another way, recent modifications represent only a half-way
house to a complete Protestantization, i.e., to a situation in
which it is either the Catholic individual or some Catholic sect
that stands at the controls of the Catholic cybernetic command
post. Either of the latter possibilities is a flagrant violation
of the theological and historical understanding that the Catholic
Church has of herself.

Neo-Orthodoxy as a "Via Media"

In his opening address to the Fathers at the Second Vatican
Council, Pope John XXIII legitimated the idea of an up-dated
Catholic neo-orthodoxy when he stated that "the substance of the
ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way
in which it is presented is another."29 By this, I take the Pope
to have meant that there are many avenues and methods in the
defense of a Truth that is, at least in the final analysis,
unitary. It can be argued that the position of Pope John XXIII is
in tension with, but not in fundamental contradiction with, the
earlier positions of Pope Pius IX in his The Syllabus of Errors
and Pope Pius X in his Pascendi Dominici Gregis. There is no
contradiction in that both John XXIII and Pope Pius IX and Pope
Pius X indicate unswerving faith in the legitimacy and
authenticity of the divine deposit of faith entrusted to the
Catholic Church as the, or at least the principal, church of
Christ. There is tension, however, to the degree that the Vatican
II position, as contrasted to the pre-Vatican II position, is more
open to the various ways by which the absolute truth of the
Catholic faith is mediated through different socio-historical
eras, philosophies and other secular intellectual disciplines,
frames of reference, and other social constructions of reality. In
my Toward the Establishment of Liberal Catholicism in America
(1983), I have precisely argued the latter case, claiming that
there is no intrinsic contradiction between simultaneously
affirming that the world is socially constructed and that the
world and its social constructions can be, have been, and should
be influenced by God and his Church. This position is consistent,
in my understanding at least, with that of St. Thomas's
understanding of the relationship between changeable social,
"human" or "positive" institutions and a, relatively speaking,
more constant natural law itself influenced by eternal law. Any
difference is to be found in the more "dynamic" nature of my more
"modern" theory which highlights the reality that natural law
applications can authentically, from the viewpoint of the
Magisterium, differ throughout time and space.

Catholic Sociology as a Form of Catholic Neo-Orthodox Thinking

The theology of Vatican II and the neo-orthodox idea that Catholic
truth is necessarily socially and individually mediated has
provided the impetus for my recent attempts to resurrect the idea
of Catholic sociology, or more accurately, Catholic sociologies.30
At its simplest, a "Catholic Sociology" is one that, minimally,
consciously relates to maximally, integrates Catholic
theology/philosophy with sociological analysis.

Many of the nineteenth century founding figures of sociology in
Europe were either atheists or agnostics; accepting a "straight-
line" evolutionary schema, they saw religion, and especially
Catholicism, as a backward anomaly that would serve no positive
function in the modern world. Moreover, for many -- such as the
founder of sociology himself, Auguste Comte -- sociology would
become, in essence, the new "scientific" religion of humanity. The
situation at the turn of the century in the United States was
slightly different; many of the American founding figures were
religiously inspired but by a liberal Protestant perspective
termed the "Social Gospel." From the latter perspective, sociology
was to be the vehicle through which "God's Kingdom here on earth"
would be instituted. From the pre-Vatican II perspective, both a
European and American sociology were viewed -- not indefensibly,
to say the least -- with distrust to, at worst, outright
hostility. The 1864 proclamation of Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of
Errors, which declared that "modern civilization as recently
introduced" ought to be opposed, or at least ignored, represented,
quintessentially at the time, the negative attitude of an official
Catholicism to all things modern, especially to that most "modern"
way of interpreting social reality, i.e., sociology.

The exception to the Catholic opposition to sociology existed as a
small part of the intellectual component of the pre-Vatican II
liberal Catholic movement. In general, liberal Catholicism,
whether in its economic, political, or intellectual aspects, has
attempted to integrate what it saw as the best of modern life with
the eternal and absolute truths of the Catholic faith. More
specifically, Catholic sociology was the attempt to reconcile one
aspect of modern life in the form of a (primarily but not
exclusively) "inductive," "empirical," and "this-worldly"
sociology with the more "deductive," "abstract," and "other-
worldly" orientation of the Catholic religion. The assumption on
the part of the liberal Catholic advocates of a Catholic sociology
at the time was that the undeniable anti- religious and anti-
Catholic nature of the sociological profession was of a de facto
nature and not intrinsic to the subject matter. Put another way,
the perception was that sociology should and must be saved for the
Church, both as a vehicle to interpret the Faith in the modern
age, and as an indispensable tool in assisting the Church in her
this-worldly mission to reconstruct the social order. The story of
the failed attempt to institutionalize a Catholic sociology in the
United States (1938-1970) is a fascinating -- and heartbreaking,
in my opinion -- one that cannot possibly be given justice in this
essay.31 Suffice it to say here that the movement failed as it
received, during this pre-Vatican II period, insufficient support
and acceptance from both the institutional Church and the outer
mainstream sociological profession. Given the reality of Vatican
II, however, there are signs that the promise of Catholic
sociology may eventually reach fruition.

There are, in reality, as many "Catholic sociologies" as there are
Catholic and sociological subtraditions that can be cross-cut and
related/integrated with each other. They key, from this author's
perspective, that differentiates a legitimate from illegitimate
"Catholic sociology" is the question of whether or not the
Catholic faith, as protected, and guided by the Magisterium of the
Church, is granted a cybernetically superordinate "control"
position in the overall research enterprise.32

In general, a cybernetic model involves a two-level flow of
downward "control" and an upward "feedback." In the case of any
specific Catholic sociology, a primarily "deductive" Catholicism
and a primarily "inductive" sociology are in continuing
conversation with each other, compartmentalized in a three-stage
sequence yet integrated overall in the cybernetic process. At the
head of the cybernetic hierarchy of a Catholic sociology is a
general attachment to some legitimate subtradition of Catholicism
(e.g. Augustinian, Thomistic, Franciscan, etc.) that can be
modified or mediated by an influence from the bottom upward
through some "objective," inductive sociological analysis. One's
Catholic and sociological commitments are cybernetically related
such that Catholicism "controls" the choice of social research
problems and provides a body of underlying assumptions and
theoretical ideas and concepts (e.g. "natural law,"
"subsidiarity," "proportionality," a "human nature" not completely
malleable or plastic, mankind as having both spiritual and
material needs with the former as more important, salvation as
ultimately an "otherworldly" reality, etc.) that orients one to
the study of a particular problem while the sociological analysis
provides "feedback" in the sense of an awareness that empirical
reality is mediated through a host of social factors (e.g.
culture, class, race, sex, etc.). The three stage process is
completed as Catholicism provides, finally, interpretive tools for
analyzing the ethical implications of, and for formulating
possible social policy in response to, the more narrowly defined
sociological analysis.

A brief example of how such a Catholic sociological cybernetic
model operates will be provided. A Catholic sociologist would, by
virtue of his/her allegiance to the tradition of social
Catholicism, be interested in studying the effectiveness of formal
education in terms of both skills development and character
development. (Conversely, it is hard to imagine a Catholic
sociologist intent on studying any "micro" sociological phenomenon
devoid of "macro" implications such as the study of symbolic
communication between students in a school lunchroom.) In this
first step of the cybernetic process, the stock-of-knowledge of
the Catholic sociologist provides him/her with, among many other
conceptual tools, the basic Catholic principle of "subsidiarity"
as propounded by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno (1931). The
principle of subsidiarity asserts, in short, that all social
functions should be performed by the most efficient and the least
inclusive unit possible. If the educational function of, for
example, skills development can be better handled in the school
and not in the family, then the school should be in charge of such
training. If the moral education of the child can best be
performed by the family, then the family and not the school should
be in charge. If, in more modern contexts the neighborhood can
better handle the educational functions than can larger regional
agencies, then the former should be allocated the task. If a
certain problem can best be handled at the more inclusive federal
level (e.g. protection of the civil rights of minorities), then it
becomes a federalist function. The concept of "subsidiarity," in
short, leads the "Catholic sociologist" in the first step of this
particular investigation.

The second stage of the cybernetic process entails the "objective"
analysis of determining under just what circumstances will skills
education and moral education be best executed. It is important to
note here that the quest for objectivity and the admission that
values -- in this case, "Catholic" values -- influence one's
factual understanding of social reality are not contradictory. The
value or conception of "subsidiarity" serves the quest for
objectivity in the sense that it leads or "opens up" the
sociologist to whatever truth is inherent in the idea. At the same
time, the "Catholic sociologist" has an obligation to acknowledge
that his/her specifically Catholic focus may deny him/her the
insight afforded by, for example and in contrast, a "Marxist"
analysis positing education as merely part of the societal
"superstructure" generating a "false consciousness," a
socialist/federalist analysis emphasizing the virtues of
uniformity and centralization, and a social Darwinist analysis
suggesting the reality and desirability of an individualistic
"survival of the fittest." The "Catholic sociologist" has the
obligation of comparing his/her interpretation of the
effectiveness of the educational system under given situations
with that of the others, of determining why and how the various
interpretations differ, and of deciding honestly if his/her
Catholic perspective can, in an intellectually adequate and
thorough way, respond to the intellectual criticisms of the other
perspectives. In the event that the "Catholic Sociologist"
determines that he/she cannot, with integrity, argue the
superiority of the Catholic cognitive claims, there is the
obligation to make this discrepancy known publicly and to then
defer to the ultimate judgement of the Magisterium.

In the more likely event that the cognitive discrepancies in
analysis can be satisfactorily explained by the Catholic
sociologist, the third step of the cybernetic process starts. On
the completion of the second step of the "sociological
investigation" in which objectivity as best as humanly possible
has been pursued, the Catholic sociologist becomes, once again,
more obviously "Catholic," noting this or that ethical implication
and arguing that some particular social policy be pursued and
implemented. It is important to stress that the social policy that
is being advocated can be called "a" but not "the" Catholic
position. The point is, of course, that there is a wide range of
potential policy solutions that can be consistent with Catholicism
just as there will be some solutions that clearly fall outside of
the scope of an authentic Catholic vision. It is also important to
note that the cybernetic model just outlined imposes bounds on the
nature and extent of the integration between the roles of Catholic
and sociologist. The second stage of the cybernetic process is, by
far and away, the most complicated for the Catholic sociologist.
On the one hand, he/she must bracket, as best as one can,
considerations of commitment to Catholicism when involved in the
more routine tasks of studying empirical reality (questionnaire
construction, interviewing, tabulation of data, etc.). On the
other hand, the Catholic sociologist is simultaneously aware that
his/her research is being led by Catholic postulates and that the
research of secular colleagues on the very same data and phenomena
is being led by postulates that can possibly carry with them
atheistic, agnostic, materialistic, etc. implications. All of this
must be taken into account in the Catholic sociologist's attempt
to arrive at the truth of the investigation. Finally, when
carrying over the findings of his/her research in the attempt to
create Catholic social policy, the Catholic sociologist must be
wary about bringing in assumptions that are implicitly
secularistic or have secularizing implications. The cybernetic
relationship outlined above views Catholicism and sociology as
neither autonomous from each other nor directly dependent on each
other; they are interdependent spheres of reality with the former
being the more diffuse, inclusive, and ultimate attachment.

The Promise of Avery Dulles as a Neo-Orthodox Thinker

Perhaps the single greatest scholar whose work potentially shares
an affinity with an up-dated Catholic neo-orthodoxy is that of the
Catholic theologian, Avery Dulles, S.J. Throughout his vast
published intellectual corpus, Dulles provides fascinating
historically grounded and comparative typologies of the various
elements of the Church and forms by which it -- defined most
inclusively to include Protestantism but with a major focus on
Catholicism -- has manifested itself throughout the ages. On the
one hand, the scholarship of Dulles is consistent with an up-dated
neo-orthodoxy in that it makes excellent use of, in an
interdisciplinary way, the various secular intellectual
disciplines to understand and promote the Catholic tradition. On
the other hand, Dulles is only "potentially" a neo-orthodox
thinker given certain criticisms of his work. Most importantly,
Dulles fails to place the "institutional" model of the Catholic
Church in a superordinate position vis-a-vis other possible ways
of understanding the Church. Simply put, Dulles goes too far in
acknowledging the limitations of the institutional Church and its
anchor and focal point, the Magisterium or, conversely put, he
does not go far enough in acknowledging the significantly greater
limitations of any single individual non-Magisterial
interpretation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

On the one hand, Dulles is correct in acknowledging 1) that the
Roman Catholic Church does not exhaust the meaning of the Church
of Christ and 2) that the Church of Christ is, in part, an
"invisible" reality incapable of being completely conceptualized
and totally understood by mankind. Put another way, one can accept
a kind of "concentric zone" theory that logically argues that 1)
there is the ultimate Truth which is Jesus Christ; 2) there is the
Church of Christ; 3) there is the fullest expression of the Church
of Christ which is the Roman Catholic Church; and 4) there is the
most accurate interpreter and guardian of Roman Catholicism in the
form of its Magisterium. For Dulles, furthermore, the net
difference between the "invisible" Truth of Christ incapable of
being assimilated by a finite mankind and the "visible" Truth of
Christ as captured and concretized by the Magisterium is seen,
following the terminology of Vatican II, as "mystery." Similarly,
Richard J. Neuhaus, following his own Lutheran "two kingdoms"
model, would refer to the "mysterious" by another label, that of
the "paradoxical." Given that no human agency, even that of the
Magisterium in a special relationship with the Holy Spirit, can
perfectly interpret the Christian message, the question becomes,
then, from the logic of Dulles, "who interprets the mystery of
paradox?" Given his own Lutheran perspective which exaggerates the
amount of mystery and paradox there is in the universe and which
is constitutively anti-institutional and antinomian in nature, the
locus of authority for Neuhaus is, predictably enough, the
"individual." This explains the unsatisfactoriness from an
orthodox Catholic perspective of Neuhaus' understanding of the
Magisterium and of the need for some supra-individual authority in
his otherwise important treatise, The Catholic Moment. On the
other hand, however, what is surprising and disappointing is the
failure of the Catholic theologian, Dulles, to acknowledge that,
for Catholics at least, "when in individual doubt, go with the
understanding and interpretation of the Magisterium." The best
that Dulles can offer here is a conceptually unclear and vague
call for a kind of triangularization in terms of authority between
Magisterium, theologians, prophets, and other components of the
"people of God." The major criticism here is not so much that
Dulles advocates a model with too many chiefs and not enough
Indians but a model in which there is no clear ultimate and chief
authority. For Dulles to argue as he does that the various
components of the people of God dialectically influence each other
does not suffice; only a "cybernetic" model can prevent utter
chaos from reigning within the Church. The neo-orthodox model
offered in this essay does, indeed, allow for many chiefs but only
for one ultimate authority, the Pope and those Bishops in loyal
communion with him. On the one hand, one can grant to Dulles and
Neuhaus that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is always interpreted in a
culturally conditioned manner. On the other hand, Roman Catholics
should have little trouble in deciding the issue of the ultimate
superiority of interpretations of the Gospel, between that of any
single individual interpretation -- whether it be the Gospel of a
Richard John Neuhaus, a Charles Curran, or an Avery Dulles and
that of the Magisterium. That the latter is the correct Catholic
choice can be defended theologically in light of the special
relationship existing between the Holy Spirit and the Bishops as
propounded in both Scripture and tradition and social-
scientifically on the grounds that the recorded, protected, and
developed insights of a 2,000 year old traditional theological
vehicle better protects against culturally determined thought vis-
a-vis the greater frailty, finiteness, and ethnocentrism of any
one individual trapped within a particular moment in time and
space. The excessive emphasis on the Church as "mystery,"
"invisible" reality, and "paradox" and the almost complete
obliteration of any distinction between the "sacred" and the
"profane" argued for by Dulles that legitimates a de-
centralization of authority within the Catholic Church is
consistent with what Thomas Sowell would call an "unconstrained"
vision of mankind.33 This is a utopian model that posits the
possibility of significant progress for both mankind, society, and
Church in the future short of the second coming of the Lord and is
opposed to a more "constrained" or "classical" understanding that
underscores the constant limitations of both mankind and society
across time and space and the corresponding need for an eternally
vigilant Church authority to set appropriately high and stern
religious and moral standards for human thought and conduct.

There are other criticisms of the work of Dulles that complicate
and compliment the aforementioned major criticism. They all have
to deal with the ideal-typical analyses of Dulles. First of all,
in Dulles' hands, this mode of analysis has a tendency to produce
an almost "formless" or "disembodied" Catholicity.34 In his
attempt to provide balance and throw an intellectual rope around
an admittedly complex picture, Dulles seemingly submerges the
Catholic portrait into the background landscape, religious and
otherwise. His position, likewise, that all of his ideal-typical
"models" of the Church are dialectically related to each other
similarly avoids the necessary question of what is definitive and
constitutive of the faith. His "provisionality," in other words,
borders on religious paralysis. His attempt to incorporate the
more Protestant models of "community," "herald," and "servant"
seemingly co-opt the more Catholic models of "institution" and
"sacrament." Relatedly, one can question the utility of separating
into two types the "institutional" and "sacramental" components of
the Catholic Church. This leads to the false, and Protestant, bias
which sees institutions as opposed to, by very definition, a
vivifying presence of God and exaggerates the degree, conversely,
of the authenticity of any individualized and unmediated
religiosity.

The following brief excursus on Dulles' work starts with his The
Dimensions of the Church (1967) published almost immediately after
the conclusion of Vatican II.35 Dulles initiates his investigation
with a question and then follows with a short and general answer:
"Let us ask ourselves what the true dimensions of the Church are.
We shall find it a much larger and more inclusive reality than
most of us have been accustomed to imagine."36 Dulles downplays
the historic role given to reason in the Catholic tradition and
sounds almost Lutheran when he states that: "What is most
distinctive of the Church, therefore, is not subject to human
verification but accessible only to the eyes of faith. We might
expect as much if the Church is by nature a mystery."37 Dulles
similarly underemphasizes the divine side of the Church when he
argues that "the theology of Vatican II is, on the whole, concrete
and historical rather than abstract and metaphysical. Accordingly,
the Council prefers to speak of the Church not as the bare essence
of 'what Christ instituted' but rather as what results when men of
flesh and blood gather in such an institution."38 Dulles affirms
the asymmetry between the concepts of the "Church of Christ" and
the "Roman Catholic Church" as follows:

Until Vatican II, most Catholics were content to say that the
Church of Christ is the Roman Catholic Church, and that it
includes only those who are joined to it by the triple bond of
creed, code, and cult specified in Bellarmine's definition.
According to this view, no one would be in the Church of Christ
unless he professed the Catholic faith, was subject to the Roman
pontiff, and had access to the sacraments.39

After approvingly quoting the German exegete, Heinrich Schlier,
Dulles offers his own understanding of the almost isomorphic
relationship between "sacred" and "profane" and "Church" and
"universe":

So close are the relations between the Church and the world that
it seems hardly possible to make a sharp distinction between their
goals. If all mankind were created for salvation, and salvation
means an authentic fellowship of men in the Body of Christ, the
Church really exists to remind the world of its own nature and to
help achieve itself.40

After providing readers with numerous examples of ideas that are
heterodox in either their emphasis or lack of subordination to the
Magisterium, Dulles typically qualifies himself as follows:

It would be fatal to ignore either the institutional Church or the
mystical Church, either the human Church or that which is God. It
would be disastrous to divide or separate what God has bound
together.41

Unfortunately, Avery Dulles, through the artificial distinctions
made in his "ideal-typical" analysis, does "divide or separate
what God has bound together," with at least partially disastrous
results. This reality can be seen clearly in Dulles' next major
work, The Survival of Dogma (1971).42 In this work, he argues not
only for a pluralization of authentic authorities within the
Catholic Church -- which in and by itself is acceptable -- but
refuses to grant the Magisterium any special or privileged status
among the various other authorities. On the one hand, Dulles
states boldly: "The official Magisterium is only one of the many
elements in the total witness of the Church."43 On the other hand,
Dulles is clearly correct when he argues that:

Christianity recognizes only one absolute authority -- that of God
himself. This means that all the secondary authorities are subject
to criticism and correction. Every created channel that manifests
God and brings men to him is capable also of misleading men and
turning them away from God.44

For Dulles:

In most Christian bodies, several types of authority exist
concurrently. On the one hand, there is the juridical and public
authority of the highest officers -- whether pope, bishops, or
ruling bodies, such as assemblies, synods, and councils. These
officials make their authority felt, normally by issuing
documents, which are regarded as normative for the group. On the
other hand, there are private authorities, which in their own way
are no less important than the officials. Under this heading one
would have to include, first, scholars, who speak on the basis of
their research and professional competence. Secondly, there are
"charismatic persons" who seem to be endowed with a more than
common measure of the true Christian spirit. Like the prophets of
old, these charismatics often feel impelled to criticize the
officials and scholars, to rebuke them for their infidelity and
insensitivity. Finally, there is the authority of consensus. In
the Church, public opinion is definitely a force to be reckoned
with, especially in the democratic age.45

The benefit of "this plurality of authentic Christian sources,"
for Dulles, is that it:

protects the believer from being crushed by the weight of any
single authority; it restrains any one organ from so imposing
itself as to eliminate what the others have to say. It provides a
margin of liberty within which each individual can feel encouraged
to make his own distinctive contribution, to understand the faith
in a way proper to himself. And at the same time it provides the
Church as a whole with the suppleness it needs to operate in
different parts of the globe and in a rapidly changing world.46

What is Dulles' response to the criticism levied here to the
effect that a pluralism not controlled from within a cybernetic
framework creates chaos and confusion in the Church? It is a far
too cheery, optimistic, and naive one:

Some, discontented with the intellectual untidiness generated by
the recognition of such diverse authorities, seek to reduce
everything to unity by arbitrarily exalting one authority above
all the others . . . As against all such simplistic solutions, we
should prefer to say that the 'word of God' is best heard when one
maintains a certain critical distance from any given expression of
that word. By holding a multitude of irreducibly distinct
articulations in balance, one can best position himself to hear
what God may be saying here and now. To recognize the historically
conditioned character of every expression of faith is not to
succumb to historical relativity, but rather to escape
imprisonment within the relativities of any particular time and
place. Unless relativity is recognized for what it is, it cannot
be transcended.47

Unfortunately, Dulles does not indicate how, in a babble of
conflicting and equally legitimate voices, relativity can be
transcended nor does he point out the disastrous consequences for
the Church of an unnavigated swim in the "fiery brook of
relativity." As is typical of Dulles, he carefully hedges his
bets, giving ad hoc and after-the-fact legitimacy to the central
concept of the Magisterium. Dulles admits, for instance, that:

notwithstanding all the merits of pluralism, we must, I think,
acknowledge that it has its limits and dangers. If the word of God
cannot be totally identified with any particular expression, it by
no means follows that every human attitude and expression is
consonant with the gospel of Christ . . . Thus it remains an
important task of ecclesiastical authority to see to it that . . .
the ongoing transformations of Christian life do not undermine the
apostolicity and catholic unity essential to the Church.48

Surprisingly, given his previously enunciated logic, Dulles can
also simply state that "only the bearers of the official
Magisterium can formulate judgements in the authoritative way.
They may, of course, accept and approve the work of private
theologians, but when they do so it is they -- not the theologians
-- who give official status to the theories they approve."49 Thus
can one, occasionally, "tease out of" Dulles a position not far
afield from the cybernetic one outlined in this essay.

The severe limitations and consequences of Dulles' most obvious
understanding of pluralism can be seen through an examination of
his next work, the immensely popular and influential, Models of
the Church (1974).50 In this work, Dulles argues that the Church
has historically presented to the world five major ecclesiastical
models: "institutional," "mystical communion," "sacramental,"
"herald," and "servant." Dulles argues, correctly I think, that a
full-bodied and rich Catholicism must utilize all five models. It
is clear, however, that Dulles refuses to grant any one of these
five models a superordinate position. He states that:

The peculiarity of models . . . is that we cannot integrate them
into a single synthetic vision on the level of articulate,
categorical thought. In order to do justice to the various aspects
of the Church, as a complex reality, we must work simultaneously
with different models. By a kind of mental juggling act, we have
to keep several models in the air at once.51

Dulles admirably analyzes the social context under which any one
respective model gains societal plausibility or, conversely,
appears as obsolete. He provides, for the most part, a balanced
assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each model. This
book, as with those previously analyzed, straddles the line, as
this reviewer sees it, between a contemporary authentic Catholic
neo-orthodox approach and a contemporary heterodox one - - albeit
an exceedingly sophisticated and nuanced version of the latter.
Consistent with the former approach, Dulles is authentically
attached to, enormously knowledgeable about, and sympathetic (for
the most part) toward the Catholic tradition. Consistent with the
former, his approach to defending and propounding the faith has
consistently been one that utilizes the best that objective
historical, humanistic, social-scientific, and theological
perspectives can offer. Yet this work fails to fully fall within
the parameters of a Catholic neo-orthodoxy -- as defined in this
paper -- because of its refusal to grant the Magisterium a
cybernetically superordinate position in the Catholic tradition.
Similar to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's criticism of contemporary
biblical exegesis to the effect that it approaches liquidating the
reality of the Bible itself, Dulles' analysis comes close to
liquidating the Catholic tradition itself.52 Dulles' discussion of
the institutional model in Models of the Church is more analytical
than empirical; one can analyze the institutional Church in a
purely sociological sense only qua secular sociologist. As my
previous discussion of what it means to be a "Catholic
sociologist" has argued, any empirical analysis of the Catholic
Church must cybernetically relate Catholic theological
considerations (e.g. Magisterium, grace, charism, etc.) with more
narrowly secular sociological concepts (e.g. power, social
control, socialization, etc.) in order to avoid the sin of
sociological/historical reductionism.

As Dulles would note in a latter work, A Church to Believe In
(1983), "of all the paradigms considered, only the first -- the
institutional -- corresponds to the common Roman Catholic
experience of Church . . ."53 In his Models of the Church, he
states, however, that "one of the five models, I believe, cannot
properly be taken as primary -- and this is the institutional
model."54 For Dulles, it is the case that:

There is something of a consensus today that the innermost reality
of the Church -- the most important constituent of its being -- is
the divine self-gift. The Church is a union or communion of men
with one another through the grace of Christ. Although this
communion manifests itself in sacramental and juridical
structures, at the heart of the Church one finds mystery.55

Dulles is here to be criticized on several counts, all essentially
intertwined. First of all, he seems intent to side-step or ignore
what Vatican II clearly enunciated about the guardian role and
ultimate authority of the Pope and Bishops in constituting the
Church's Magisterium. As Lumen Gentium, No. 22, puts it, "The
order of Bishops is the succession to the college of the apostles
in teaching authority (magisterio) and pastoral rule."56 Secondly,
he reads Vatican II as too much opposed to Pope Pius XII's Mystici
Corporis (1943) when the latter asserted that "there can, then, be
no real opposition or conflict between the invisible mission of
the Holy Spirit and the juridical commission which the rules and
teachers (of the Church) have received from Christ. Like body and
soul in us, they complement and perfect each other, and have their
source in our one Redeemer . . ."57 Thirdly, Dulles is far too
quick to grant equal status to the essentially Protestant models
of "herald," "community," and "servant" vis-a-vis the
constitutively Catholic models of "institution" and "sacrament."
The former models can be grafted into the Catholic tradition but
cannot co-opt it. Fourth, his distinction between the
"institutional" model as primarily a sociological reality and the
"sacramental" model as primarily a theological reality is a false
one; rather, following both Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis
(1943) and Hans Urs von Balthasar in Church and World (1967), they
are aspects of the same reality.58 Von Balthasar speaks here
correctly of the Church hierarchy as "crystallized love."59 One
can, of course, and at the same time, acknowledge that the
"institutional- sacramental" model of the Church may veer off
either toward an "institutional" or "sacramental" direction during
certain socio-historical periods and for whatever theological and
sociological reasons. The point, however, is that these respective
directions are oriented to endpoints on the same continuum.
Fifthly, Dulles can be criticized for failing to realize that a
Church defined primarily as "mystery," as "paradox," or as
"invisible reality" would quickly, if unintentionally, turn into,
referring once again to H.R. Neibuhr's categories, a "Christ of
culture" Church that mirrors the secular, this-worldly,
materialistic environment.60 Given his essentially "unconstrained"
vision, that tends to collapse the "sacred"- "profane" dichotomy,
that is overly optimistic short of the second coming of the Lord,
and that doesn't fully appreciate the human tendency to fall
toward sin, Dulles fails to realize the absolute necessity of the
Magisterium of the Church providing guidelines for social and
individual thought and action.

It is crucial to reassert here that an up-dated neo-orthodoxy, as
defined here, does respect what the Church teaches about
"mystery," i.e., that the Church must always be open to ever
greater exploration. And such exploration means an openness both
to input from the Catholic laity and from the non-Catholic
surrounding world. However, Magisterium must have the "final say"
or, again put cybernetically, must control the content, flow, and
tempo of such input if the Church is not to drown in this
"mystery."

Dulles' next major work, The Resilient Church: The Necessity and
Limits of Adaptation (1977), apparently does move slightly in the
direction of protecting the Church from drowning in the religious
and secular seas of "mystery."61 While still arguing that "reform
must, I contend, be accepted more radically than in the past," he
follows almost immediately:

Yet reform must not be allowed to introduce ideas and practices
foreign to the true spirit of Catholicism. Whatever is taken in
from the outside must be assessed by this criterion: Does it make
the Church more than previously a society of faith, of hope, and
of love? In other words, does it make the Church more the Church?
. . I call attention to the danger that the Church might become
so politicized or psychologized as to lose sight of the
transcendent or divine dimension of its own mission . . . Let it
not become a therapeutic society, a political party, or even a
public interest group.62

Only three years after arguing that the "institutional" model of
the Church was the least important of his five models, Dulles
states that:

In the anti-institutionalism of the postconciliar years, secular
theologians were convinced that they had rediscovered the true
mission of the Church. I would argue, on the contrary, that their
view of the Church was not only practically suicidal -- since it
seriously undermined devotion to the Church -- but theologically
false.63

While not repudiating his previously enunciated conception of a
plurality of irreducible authorities within the Church that is
defined primarily as mystery, Dulles nonetheless seems to back off
somewhat from his previously argued sharp distinction between the
"institutional" and "sacramental" models of the Church:

The Catholic Church, I submit, has a rightful place in the modern
world if, or rather because, it continues to bear witness to its
own tradition of faith and builds upon its own sacramental,
priestly, and hierarchical heritage. What is at stake here is the
fundamental concept of the Church. The Church, as I have already
contended, is essentially a mystery of grace, a wonderful
encounter between the divine and the human. Even in its visible
structures, the Church is not a mere organization to be judged on
the grounds of efficiency, but a sacrament of God's saving deed in
Jesus Christ. From this it follows, in my judgement, that the
Church's forms of speech and life, and indeed its entire corporate
existence, must be such as to mediate a vital communion with
Christ the Lord.64

Where Dulles had previously seen himself, in the immediate post-
conciliar period, as a "progressive," he now sees himself as
neither liberal nor conservative. Speaking of his The Resilient
Church (1977) he argues:

A twofold critique runs through the following pages -- the first
directed against those conservatives who through fear or
complacency balk at adapting the doctrines and institutions of the
Church to the times in which we live; the second, against those
liberals whose programs of adaptation are based on an uncritical
acceptance of the norms and slogans of western secularist
ideologies. My positions cannot easily be labeled as either
conservative or liberal, though on some points I am in sympathy
with each of these tendencies. My aim is to combine, as far as
possible, the daring of the liberal with the caution of the
conservative, the openness of the liberal with the fidelity of the
conservative.65

Given the obvious intellectual nonsense and religious flaccidity
brought on by the selective misinterpretation of Vatican II
theology by self- proclaimed progressives in the decade after the
Council, it is no surprise that Dulles has moved "to the right."
He maintains this newly acquired "centrist" position, for
instance, in his next work of importance, A Church to Believe In:
Discipleship and the Dynamics of Freedom (1983).66 In the second
chapter, "Institution and Charism In the Church," Dulles denies
that "charisma" and "institution" or "spirit" and "structure"
stand in a zero- sum relationship to each other:

A sacrament, in the Catholic theological tradition, has two
aspects: it is a sign of present grace and a symbolic cause or
transmission of grace. The Church as a whole is a sign of Christ
and his grace. The institutional features of the Church -- such as
its apostolic ministry, its baptism, its eucharistic worship, its
rites of absolution, as well as its Scriptures and creedal
formulations -- externally signify what the Church represents and
effects in the world. The institutional in the Church, therefore,
is never merely institutional. It is essentially linked to the
presence and promise of grace. It is misleading to assert that
ecclesiastical institutions are a substitute for the absent
Spirit. They may be, should be, and normally are to some extent,
symbolic manifestations of the present Spirit, for the risen Lord
has promised to be present with his disciples to the end of the
age (Mt 28:20).67

Very importantly, Dulles here sees a special role for the
Magisterium, vis- a-vis the plurality of other charisms in the
Church that is not so different from the cybernetic model
advocated in this essay. For Dulles:

The pastoral office, charismatically exercised, fosters other
charisms in the Church while correcting their deviations. The
special charism of the pastoral office is not to replace or
diminish other charisms but to bring them to their fullest
efficacy. This involved several distinct functions. First, the
pastoral office must authenticate genuine charisms and distinguish
them from false charisms . . . Second, hierarchical leaders have
the function of stimulating and encouraging the charisms . . .
Third, the pastors must direct the charisms according to the norm
of apostolic faith and thus bring them into subjection to the law
of the cross . . . Finally, office, as a kind of general charisma,
has the responsibility of coordinating all the particular charisms
so that they may better achieve the goal of building up the total
body of Christ. The pastoral office prevents the prior unity of
the Church from being fragmented by the free responses of the
enthusiasts, and reminds the spiritually gifted of their duty to
obey the one Lord of the Church. The characteristic temptation of
the free charismatic is to follow the momentary impulses arising
out of transitory local situation, without sufficient regard for
the established order and for universal, long-term need. The
pastoral office therefore integrates the possibly distorted self-
sufficiency of the particular charisms into the greater unity of
ecclesial love.68

Dulles, again with his usual qualifications, reasserts the special
guardian function of the Magisterium:

It is often said that the last word lies with the office-holders,
since it is their function to discern between true and false
charisms -- a point made more than once in the Constitution of the
Church. The presumption does lie with the hierarchy, but the
presumption cannot be absolutized. . . Thus there is no ultimate
juridical solution to collisions between spiritually gifted
reformers and conscientious defenders of the accepted order. The
Church is not a totalitarian system in which disagreement can be
ended by simple fiat.69

In another major work published in 1983, Models of Revelation,
Dulles analyzes the five major methods by which revelation, that
is, the truth of and about God as presented in Scripture and
through the teaching of the Church, has been approached in the
Christian tradition.70 Utilizing the same kind of "ideal-typical"
analysis of his previous Models of the Church, he proposes the
five models of revelation of, respectively, "doctrine," "history,"
"inner-experience," "dialectical presence," and "new awareness."
Similar to his 1974 understanding of the "institutional" model,
Dulles is too harsh in his understanding of the "revelation as
doctrine" model which, translated into the Catholic situation,
means a criticism of Catholic neo- Scholastic thought with its
stress on a body of "propositional truths" contained in Scripture
and in Church tradition as propounded by the Magisterium.
Supernatural revelation, in this model, is given in the form of
words having a clear propositional content. Assent to such
propositions, Dulles points out, is not considered blindly but is
viewed as a reasonable act resting on external signs of
credibility. Dulles' primary criticism of the propositional model
is that the "propositional model rests on an objectifying theory
of knowledge that is widely questioned in our time. In
communications, propositions play a rather modest part."71 He
continues:

If one admits that the definitions cannot be accepted at face
value, but are subject to reinterpretation, one had already
abandoned the objectivist concept of truth that underlies the
propositional model. Contemporary hermeneutics, without
necessarily abandoning every kind of inerrancy or infallibility,
seeks to achieve fidelity to the given without rigid adherence to
the approved verbal-conceptual formulations.72

According to Dulles, revelation can best be approached through his
method or "symbolic mediation" or "symbolic realism." For Dulles,
"revelation never occurs in a purely interior experience or an
unmediated encounter with God. It is always mediated through
symbol -- that is to say, through an externally perceived sign
that works mysteriously on the human consciousness so as to
suggest more than it can clearly describe or define."73

Dulles argues that his own theory of symbolic mediation or
symbolic realism:

does not deprive revelation of its clarity and stability. The
symbols are not indefinitely pliable. It is possible to submit
oneself to their power, rather than wresting the symbols to one's
purposes. The Christian symbols, taken in the entire network that
forms their context, and interpreted in the living community of
faith, give secure directives for thought and conduct. Interpreted
against the background of the symbols and of Christian life,
certain conceptual formulations can be put forward as bearing the
authority of revelation.74

On the one hand, Dulles is, again, consistent with the spirit of
neo- orthodoxy in that he is attempting to utilize the fruits of
objective philosophical and linguistic research to elucidate and
make real the faith of the Catholic religion. One can certainly
argue for the reality and usefulness of his nuanced "symbolic"
approach which doesn't deny the "realism" and "absoluteness" of
the truth claims of Catholicism. Furthermore, one can argue that
it is the appropriate duty of theologians, both clerical and lay,
to suggest and make public various intelligent and plausible
interpretations of the Faith through the use of such a symbolic
analysis. On the other hand, however, Dulles again shows too
facile an acceptance of the power of individual human reason and
of the ability of individuals to make the right decisions and lead
the holy life unaided by the supernatural power of the
Magisterium. He also fails to sufficiently address the "short-
term" issue of who has the ultimate right and authority to define
what are orthodox and heterodox interpretations of the faith at
any specific moment in time and space. While it is true that the
Holy Spirit informs both Magisterium and Catholic individual, it
is clear that the Catholic Church has historically and
constitutively -- up to and including the present -- claimed a
special "guardian" role in the protection of the faith. Put
another way, it is possible to agree with Dulles' criticisms of
the limitations of the "propositional model" of revelation and
still be willing to provisionally submit to contemporary Catholic
doctrinal truth on grounds of faith, tradition, pragmatic
reasoning, and practical necessity. Again, Dulles overstates the
distinction between the Church as "hierarchy" and as "mystery," as
the generator of "objective," propositional truth and as the arena
for competing, more subjective truths. A cybernetic model, to the
contrary, includes all such elements.

In the last major volume of his to be considered, The Catholicity
of the Church (1985), Dulles explores four facets of Catholicity
which he labels those of "height," "depth," "breadth," and
"length."75 This most recent book of his, while still stopping
short of accepting something equivalent to a cybernetic approach,
comes closest to being classified as neo- orthodox. In this work,
he speaks in a more positive fashion of Catholic Christianity's
"reliance on institutional or sacramental structures to mediate
the truth and grace of Christ."76

Such structures, in the Catholic view, are necessary to sustain
all four of the dimensions of Catholicity: the height, because the
divine presence must be continually mediated in order that God's
gift in Christ be made accessible; the depth, because the fruits
of Christ's redemptive action must be applied to the human and the
cosmic; the breadth, because without such structures the world-
wide Church would break apart; and the length, because these
structures are needed to preserve continuity amid change. Without
visible mediations even the spiritual aspects of redemption would
be comprised by being isolated from the material. The
institutional, according to the Catholic view, is not just
tolerated as a necessary evil; it is positively cultivated as
having intrinsic religious value.77

Speaking more specifically of the Church's Magisterium, Dulles
states:

Catholic Christianity, with its doctrine of the apostolic
succession, attributes to the hierarchy, and those commissioned or
approved by them, a genuine teaching authority, technically called
"Magisterium." The faithful may and must presume that when the
bishops define the faith, as they can do by their corporate
action, they are trustworthy witnesses.78

Dulles, characteristically notes, however, that "there are limits
to hierarchical authority."79 In this regard, Dulles accepts
Cardinal John Henry Newman's argument in his Via Media (1877) that
the Church inherits from Christ three distinct offices, the
priestly, the prophetic, and the royal. For Dulles, "the overall
performance of the Church results from a continual interaction of
the three offices, whose bearers, having different abilities and
concerns, cooperate and occasionally check one another's excesses
. . The royal power of the pastors, Newman concluded, must
function in tension with the unofficial authority of saints and
scholars, who in turn stand in some tension with one another."80

The issue, at this point, that must be raised is the question of
whether Dulles sees the pluralistic components of the Church as
equal in authority or whether he grants the Magisterium a
cybernetically superordinate position. Dulles' response, I argue,
is quite compatible with neo-orthodoxy in that he argues for the
absolute necessity of input from the non- magisterial elements of
the Church but sees the latter's role as one "to recognize,
encourage, coordinate, and judge the gifts and initiatives of
others." The complete text is as follows:

The Church is greatly blessed by her sacramental structures, which
mediate to her members the fullness of God's gift in Christ. But
these structures must be rightly used. They are intended to help
the faithful develop their personal powers and gifts, whether of
prayer, of understanding, or of action. If all initiative is left
to the highest office-holders -- the bishops -- not even they can
function well. Their proper role is not to initiate all action,
but rather to recognize, encourage, coordinate, and judge the
gifts and initiatives of others. Where the community is inert, the
hierarchy becomes paralyzed. Having no material on which to work,
it is forced to be idle or to assume functions not properly its
own.81

Finally, mention should be made of an essay of Avery Dulles
entitled "Community of Disciples as a Model of the Church" which
was published in 1986.82 In this essay, Dulles, building on
Chapter One of his previously referred to A Church to Believe In
(1983), offers yet a sixth model of the Church, i.e., the
"community of disciples," that, in Richard McBrien's words,
"retrieves and synthesizes the positive features of the other five
models without carrying forward their respective liabilities."83
This model is basically a variation of the more sect-like, Christ-
against-culture, and Protestant "mystical communion" one presented
in Models of the Church and hence is of no particular interest to
an up-dated Catholic neo-orthodoxy. Brief mention can, however, be
made of this reviewer's belief that Dulles' advocacy of this model
is a reflection of the "dialectical" (as compared to "organic")
theory of social change that he embraces.84 The acceptance of such
"dialectical" thinking, given the heavy secularist dominance of
the present age forces Dulles to accept an understanding of the
Catholic Church that woefully neglects its potential ability to
influence the outer society and to serve, referring to a term
coined by Peter Berger and Richard J. Neuhaus, as an effective
"mediating structure" between God and society and God and man.
What is, however, of interest in the present attempt to construct
an up-dated neo-orthodoxy is Dulles admission in this essay that
in 1974, "writing in a moment in our history when institutions of
all kinds were under hostile scrutiny, I may have been somewhat
too severe on the institutional model."85 Dulles continues:

Pastoral leadership, as we know from the New Testament and from
Christian tradition, involves something more than the formal
authority of office -- i.e., the mere fact of being duly
installed. Those selected for pastoral office are previously
judged to have both the vocation and the aptitude, and if they are
ordained they receive in addition the grace of the sacrament. They
therefore possess not only the juridical authority of office but
personal and charismatic authority.86

It is interesting to speculate that the movement in Dulles'
thought from "progressive" to "moderate" to now, perhaps,
something approaching "neo- orthodoxy" is the result of Dulles'
acknowledgement of the rotten religious fruit borne by those who
have misused the theology of Vatican II. Regardless of this
speculation, it could very well be the case that Avery Dulles is
now prepared to accept the mantel and responsibility of becoming
the pre-eminent Catholic neo-orthodox thinker of the day.

The Promise of Michael Novak as a Neo-Orthodox Thinker

If Avery Dulles represents perhaps the greatest conceptualist,
synthesizer, and centrist of contemporary Catholic theologians,
then Michael Novak may well represent the most creative present-
day Catholic theologian. His creativeness is particularly manifest
in his recent theological investigations of what he calls
"democratic capitalism." In his most major work to date, The
Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (1982), he argues the case that a
tripartite system of political economy termed "democratic
capitalism" consisting of a democratic polity, a market-based
economy, and a pluralistic and liberal culture best meets the
this-worldly goals of the Judaic-Christian heritage.87 The sub-
systems, for the author, are both interdependent and independent,
thus influencing each other in a positive way, but providing
checks and balances that guard against the absolutism
characteristic of either traditionalist or socialist systems.
Democratic capitalism, for Novak, is neither the Kingdom of God
nor without sin. Nonetheless, the author argues that it is
superior to all other forms of political economy because it alone
has devised a successful technique for mastering the material
world, producing wealth, raising the standard of living,
alleviating poverty, as well as extending human liberty and
freedom. That democratic capitalism meets the requirements of the
this- worldly goals of the Judaic-Christian vocation only
indirectly and, at times, unintentionally, is, for the author, a
small price to pay. The religious and moral superiority of
democratic capitalism over socialism (and feudalism) lies in
empirical results and not in lofty, but unworkable and hence false
ideals.

In the follow-up volume, Freedom with Justice (1984), Novak
specifically examines the relationship of democratic capitalism to
Catholic social thought.88 He states his thesis clearly:

Although the Catholic Church during the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries set itself against liberalism as an ideology,
it has slowly come to support the moral efficacy of liberal
institutions. Most clearly, it has come to support institutions of
human rights. But it has also -- more slowly -- come to support
institutions of democracy and market-oriented economic
development. There is a profound consonance (although not
identity) between the Catholic vision of social justice and the
liberal institutions which, in this poor and broken world, have
better than others allowed the human spirit to flourish. Catholic
social thought, learning from experience, will almost certainly
continue in this direction.89

It will continue in this direction, for Novak, because "the logic
of Catholic social thought has, through trial and error, already
set in place the basic liberal benchmarks: the dignity of the
human person, the interdependence of all peoples, the economic
development of all nations, institutions of human rights, the
communitarian personality, and the vocation of each human being to
become a co-creator with God in unlocking the secrets so lovingly
hidden in nature by nature's God."90 Novak ends his volume with
what is essentially a Catholic benediction of democratic
capitalism: "The task before Catholic social thought is to
identify the institutions through which these ideals, common to
Judaism, Christianity, and liberalism, become routinized in this
poor world of sinful but aspiring mankind."91

Novak argues the case that Catholic social thought has been unduly
shaped by a European heritage that has pitted the liberal and
Catholic traditions over and against each others. One result is
that Catholic social thought is unnecessarily biased against
American institutional arrangements which, to a large degree for
the author, reflect the practical wisdom and moral realism of
Catholic social thought, especially in the figure of Thomas
Aquinas. It is within the ever reformable and ever more
perfectible institutional arrangements of democratic capitalism
that the two ancient enemies of the human race, that is, poverty
and tyranny, can best be overcome. Catholic social thought has
been too concerned with the issue of the distribution of wealth
and not enough with the question of how wealth can be generated
and with the practical institutional arrangements that both
encourage and protect freedom and creativity. Furthermore, for
Novak, classical liberalism and Catholicism can serve for each
other a vitally important self-correcting function. As he puts it:

Liberalism need(s) the Catholic sense of community, of
transcendence, of realism, of irony, of tragedy, of evil. And
Catholicism need(s) the institutions of liberalism for the
incarnation in society of its own vision of the dignity of the
human person, of the indispensable role of free associations, and
of the limited state respectful of the rights of conscience.92

Substantively, Novak's thesis will grate on these Catholic
thinkers intent on continuing to experiment with Marxism. Novak's
thesis may also, quite frankly, offend those traditionalists who
refuse to acknowledge the historically "conditioned" (as
contrasted to historically "determined") nature of Catholic social
thought. Novak, from the viewpoint of this reviewer, seems quite
faithful to the words by which his book is dedicated: "To all
those who love, and wish to advance, Catholic social thought."93
The author obviously knows and loves the insights and truth
embodied within the Catholic tradition while, at the same time, he
searches honestly in his attempt to understand its evolution in
reaction to a changing environment. Combining audaciousness,
learnedness, and inspiration in about equal measure, Novak is
quite consciously trying to contribute to and shape the direction
of Catholic social thought. From the perspective of the neo-
orthodox approach of this paper, all of this is perfectly
legitimate for a Catholic lay theologian given that such
intellectual contributions are, again, placed in a cybernetic
framework. Such a framework guarantees two things: 1) that culture
and society remain subordinate to the Catholic faith in any
dialogue and 2) that the Magisterium, while freely encouraging
(and needing) the insights, arguments, and claims of individuals
like Michael Novak, retains the short-term right to control the
nature, i.e., the content, flow, and tempo, of such input.

The Promise of George Weigel as a Neo-Orthodox Thinker

Mention should be made of an important treatise dealing with the
history of American Catholic thought on war and peace recently
published by George Weigel. In his Tranquillitas Ordinis (1987)
the author argues that systematic Catholic social thought on the
moral problems of war and peace started in the patristic period
with St. Augustine's just-war theory and was subsequently
modified, most prominently, by St. Thomas Aquinas, by such later
neo-scholastic commentators as Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco
Suarez and, on the American scene, by John Courtney Murray.94
Adapting and modifying St. Augustine's definition of the term,
Weigel labels this constantly developing Catholic tradition that
of "tranquillitas ordinis" defined as "the peace of public order
in dynamic political community." Tranquillitas Ordinis, for
Weigel, is a tradition of "moderate realism" that stands between
Hobbesian and utopian thought. As Weigel himself puts it:

Recognizing the beast in the human heart, the tradition yet
affirmed that we are not, at bottom, beasts, even under the
pressures of the quest for political power. Understanding that
conflict is a constant of the human condition -- the political
meaning of the doctrine of original sin -- the tradition still
claimed that political community, rightly ordered, provides a
morally worthy means for resolving conflict on this side of the
Kingdom of God. Political community and the Kingdom must never be
confused; all the works of our hands, and particularly our
political works, which are so fraught with ambiguity, stand under
judgement. But the sinner who takes up the burden of creating and
sustaining political community ordered to the common good is,
simultaneously, a spark struck from the creativity of the Godhead.
We are, in the end, the image of God in history, and the task of
history is one we cannot lay down.95

Weigel argues, furthermore and to his chagrin, that the classical
Catholic heritage of tranquillitas ordinis was largely abandoned
in the post-Vatican II Church in the United States. It has instead
been replaced by a new vision, itself a blend of secular ideas
legitimated by a selective reappropriation of Biblical passages
which has acquired plausibility given a host of specific
historical, social-structural, and cultural factors of the post
1966 era. Weigel argues, in essence, that this recent worldview is
neither authentically Catholic or effective as a method of
securing a peace with a freedom that is indivisible. The author
ends his analysis by stating the belief that the classical
Catholic heritage of tranquillitas ordinis can be resurrected and
further developed in light of future experience.

Where Novak would add to the Catholic tradition, Weigel chastises
because of its abandonment. But what was said of Novak can be
repeated in the case of Weigel vis-a-vis the issue of neo-
orthodoxy. Weigel knows and loves his Church well. He understands
how her social thought has been affected throughout time and
space. He is willing to make prudential judgements about the
direction she is presently taking on the legitimately debatable
issues of social policy. What Weigel -- like Novak -- has yet to
do but should do -- is consciously place his intellectual
contribution into a cybernetic relationship with that of the
Magisterium acknowledging that the latter is the final arbiter of
Catholic truth and practice.

The Potential of Paul E. Sigmund as a Catholic Neo-Orthodox
Thinker

One final volume will be analyzed because it deals so clearly and
centrally on an issue of great importance to Catholics in the
modern world. This is the issue of the plausibility and
applicability of natural law theory in contemporary contexts that
stress historicity and relativity. Natural Law in Political
Thought is authored by Paul E. Sigmund and was first published in
1971 and then reissued in 1982.96

Sigmund starts his analysis by noting that:

One of the prime targets of the current ferment in higher
education is the irrelevance of much contemporary social science
to fundamental moral problems. Current student concern is focused
on the issues of authority, legitimacy, equality, war, sexuality,
and community. These problems are not new to the history of moral
and political theory. They have been discussed and analyzed before
-- and one of the principal methods used to resolve them, at least
until the end of the eighteenth century, has been through the
appeal to certain basic principles or values inherent in human
nature - - the theory of natural law.97

Sigmund elaborates on his understanding of "natural law" as
follows:

While it may appear that the variety of forms and content
attributed to natural law in the last 2500 years has resulted in
considerable confusion about its meaning, there seems to be a
central assertion expressed or implied in most theories of natural
law. This is the belief that there exists in nature and/or human
nature a rational order which can provide intelligible value-
statements independently of human will, that are universal in
application, unchangeable in their ultimate content, and morally
obligatory on mankind. These statements are expressed as laws or
as moral imperatives which provide a basis for the evaluation of
legal and political structures.98

Sigmund presents two purposes for his volume. The first is to
demonstrate how natural law has been used as a standard by which
to judge legal and political actions from fifth century B.C.
Greece throughout the ages up through the present. He starts his
analysis by arguing that Plato and Aristotle laid the foundations
of a theory of natural law, but that it was in the writings of the
Roman Cicero that one finds the earliest statement of a
comprehensive theory of natural law. Sigmund gives special
attention to the relationship of natural law to three important
historical developments -- Rome's extended influence over Western
Europe, the fusion of Christianity and classical culture in the
Middle Ages, especially in the form of the great synthesis of
Thomas Aquinas, and the emergence of liberal individualism from
the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. His survey also
includes many authors who, at least up until recently, were not
considered natural law thinkers such as Burke, Rousseau, Kant, and
Marx. Speaking of a major watershed era in the history of natural
law, Sigmund notes that:

In the writings of the seventeenth century theorists, natural law
was transformed from a basic order in the universe which depended
on God's sovereign will and the inherent rationality of the cosmos
into a guarantee of individual rights and a ground for political
equality. The rational individual, rather than the ordered
universe, was now the starting point. The old hierarchies had
disappeared. The earlier assumption that in all but the most
obviously unjust societies the existing order represented God's
will and reflected the order of the universe was now challenged by
a new awareness of the possibilities of a restructuring of society
by autonomous, rational, and equal individuals. The eighteenth
century, the period in which these ideas gained nearly universal
acceptance, was also the period in which the doctrine of natural
law began to be attacked and belief in its validity began to
decline.99

The second purpose of the volume attempts "to point toward the
possible construction of a more dynamic and viable theory based on
human needs and potentialities. A reconstruction of the natural
law theory (which will suggest that its terminology be abandoned
but that its method and goal be retained) will be undertaken
because it seems that man can never give up the search for a
rational justification of political and moral values."100 In his
conclusion, Sigmund provides a rudimentary analysis in terms of
"human needs and potentialities" which "could be used to develop
standards and principles which are related to human nature without
making the ontological claims that most natural law theorists
make."101 For Sigmund:

An attempt to specify these needs and potentialities somewhat more
concretely may produce a result which is remarkably similar to
what natural law theorists have been saying all along. Starting
from a universally-felt need for survival, it can be argued that,
in order to survive, man must live in a society under common
rules, which are necessary to protect human life and to defend the
community . . . security, social cooperation, equality, freedom,
and more difficult of accomplishment, community and love -- these
are some of the human needs and potentialities by which social,
political, and economic institutions may be evaluated. The use of
these goals as standards preserves something of the attempt of
natural law theory to develop universal and objective norms
related to human nature. It avoids, however, the 'essentialism'
implied by the older formulation.102

The criticism of Sigmund's work from an up-dated Catholic neo-
orthodox perspective is rather straightforward. His examination of
the place of natural law thinking in political theory, past and
present, is lucid, balanced, and reasonable. Similarly, his
understanding of the social and individual reasons for both the
evolution and current attenuation of the idea of natural law is
invaluable. His commitment to somehow bridge the fiery brook of
relativity and to overcome the accepted present day Machiavellian
maxim that "might makes right" is both commendable and perhaps an
indicator that his own Catholic heritage is not, for him,
completely dormant.

On the other hand, Sigmund gives no evidence whatsoever of placing
his insights and prudential judgements into a cybernetic framework
placing the Magisterium of the Catholic Church in a superordinate
position. Like many contemporary sociologists of Catholic
background, the political scientist Paul Sigmund is apparently
unaware of his surrender to the authorities of modernity. He has
no use for the "essentialism" of the classical thinkers nor for
their "ontological aspirations" or "old hierarchies." Under the
guise of an escape from Catholic "authoritarianism" and a move
toward "objective," "universal" scholarship, Sigmund, like so many
other young and promising modern-day "communal Catholics," has
actually trapped himself in the narrower, more particularistic
confines of present day fads and tyrannies. There is much of value
in Sigmund's book, however, for orthodox Catholics to save and
utilize in their attempts at updating, invigorating, and making
more "dynamic," natural law theory.

Conclusion: Neo-Orthodoxy and the Future of the Catholic Church in
the United States

The dispersion of authority within the elite liberal intellectual
circles of the Catholic Church of the United States is today,
admittedly, at a much more radical stage than it is for the
average Catholic-in-the-pews. At least this is the finding of a
fascinating one-shot, static analysis comparing the religious
beliefs of Catholic theologians and Catholic laity.103 In their
analysis, "Are There Two Catholicisms?," scholars Byron Johnson,
Michael H. Barnes, and Dennis M. Doyle suggest significant
differences between theologians and parishioners, but belie the
notion that any irreconcilable chasm exists between the two
groupings. The findings indicate, more specifically, that
theologians showing a considerable amount of diversity, most often
tend to offer "nuanced" interpretations of traditional religious
beliefs with "traditional" and "highly liberal" responses coming
in, respectively, second and third place. Showing somewhat less
diversity, parishioners tend, on the other hand, to most often opt
for traditional understandings of religious reality but also
include, secondly, a considerable percentage registering the
nuanced response and, finally, a small but not insignificant
percentage taking the highly liberal perspective. In sum,
theologians and parishioners do differ on religious beliefs but
there is, again, much overlapping of perspectives with neither
group taking the highly liberal response as model. Whether the
"nuanced" approach of the majority of present theologians
represents a "half-way" house to the complete capitulation of the
faith to the secular age or a legitimate adaptation of the faith
to the present social context remains to be seen.

At first reflection, the Johnson-Barnes-Doyle study might seem to
contradict the notion, propounded at the outset of this essay,
that the Catholic Church in the United States is presently
bordering on an out and out intellectual civil war between
"orthodox" and "heterodox" factions. After all, doesn't the study
indicate that there is a strong middle population of theologians
and laity that opt for a central road between Catholic
traditionalism and a capitulation of Catholicism to modern secular
themes?

While the findings of the study are heartening in one sense, it
doesn't address the issue as to whether or not the Catholic Church
in the United States today has a religious, moral, and
intellectual "center" that provides form and articulation to the
moderate positions expressed by the theologians and laity
questioned by the researchers. Put another way, there is a
significant difference between an aggregate of individuals holding
centrist positions in terms of belief and activity and a well-
institutionalized middle-of-the-road option that is available for
such individuals to attach themselves to in an intellectual and
emotional way. Put very crudely, there is a civil war taking place
in today's U.S. Catholic Church and it is one, for the most part,
that involves the Church's religious and intellectual leadership.
The balkanization of U.S. Catholicism's elite leadership sector,
furthermore, does very much have implications for the future of
Catholicism in the United States. Simply put, it is precisely the
task of our intellectual leadership to create categories of
thought, to provide "mental hooks," if you will, for the "average"
U.S. Catholic layperson in the pews. That our present-day
intellectual leadership has failed to sufficiently provide a fully
articulated and clear method of being a "modern, orthodox,
American Catholic" tends to tear the U.S. Catholic Church apart
and forces the everyday Catholic to make unpopular, extreme, and
unhealthy choices of a religious nature. Eventually, for better or
worse, intellectuals do make a difference and hence the need for
an up-dated neo-orthodoxy.

An updated neo-orthodox perspective featuring a cybernetic
approach that grants an ultimate status to the Church Magisterium
would have no fear of a Monsignor George A. Kelly when he
acknowledges that the Church does not "consider it unseeming to
borrow from Protestantism or secularism, as once she did from
Judaeists, Stoics, and Greeks."104 Neither would such an approach
disagree in the slightest with a Monsignor Eugene V. Clark who
calls for a return to:

A vision of the practice of centuries . . . whereby an educated
and informed layman could be aware that he had more information or
perception in ecclesial subjects than a particular Bishop and, at
the same time, recognize that the bishop performs a function as
guardian to 'word and sacrament,' a function guaranteed by Christ
and radical to the Church's existence. With that Catholic vision
he could advise and share his wisdom with an open Bishop and
indeed urge his conclusions or reforms in the public forum without
damaging or pretending not to see the Bishop's role as local
teacher of the universal Magisterium. Of course, this assumes that
the expert, as a Catholic, recognized doctrinal authority in the
hierarchy.105

Such a cybernetic approach would be quite consistent with the
ideas of Catholic theologian William E. May in his essay on the
"Catholic Principles of Scholarship and Learning." For May:

Because the Magisterium always teaches with an authority that the
Catholic respects as more than human in origin, the committed
Catholic will have a connatural eagerness to accept all that the
Magisterium teaches . . . This connatural eagerness and a
willingness to give a 'religious assent of soul' do not, however,
at least in my opinion, exclude the possibility of raising
questions and suggesting hypotheses that may be in contradiction
to Magisterial teachings, provided that in raising questions and
suggesting alternatives the Catholic scholar 1) can appeal to
other Magisterial teachings more certainly and definitively taught
with which the scholar thinks the teachings questioned are
incompatible, and 2) is willing to submit his conclusions to the
judgment of the Magisterium. Moreover, in proposing hypotheses and
alternatives, the Catholic scholar must not claim that fellow
Catholics are free to set aside Magisterial teachings and put his
own opinions in their place. One's own opinions are surely not
infallible, and Catholics ought never to prefer the opinions of
scholars, however learned, to the authoritative teachings of those
to whom our Lord has given the right and responsibility to speak
in his name.106

And finally, such a cybernetic approach would be consistent with
Gaudium et Spes which grants the Catholic scholar his/her "lawful
freedom of inquiry and of thought, and of the freedom to express
their minds humbly and courageously about those matters in which
they enjoy competence."107 The fact, however, that the Catholic
Church in the United States desperately requires the
institutionalization of a neo-orthodox perspective in order to
gain and maintain authenticity and vitality is no guarantee of the
crystallization of such a development, at least in the short run.
While all Catholics are firmly convinced that Christ protects his
Church from ultimate failure, this by no means guarantees that any
national division of the Church Universal shall endure. The
question, then, remains: What is the likelihood of a neo-orthodox
perspective being institutionalized? The answer, as I've
previously argued, depends on the degree to which the Catholic
Church in the United States is able to strengthen the internal
consistence and coherence of its "plausibility structure," of its
ability to establish itself as a "mediating structure" between
Catholics and the outer society and between God and man.108 This,
in turn, depends on the ability of the Church leadership to
socialize, maintain, enforce, and evangelize the faith. Since the
pontificate of his Holiness, John Paul II, the results have been
mixed but there are promising signs of a resurgent neo-orthodox
Catholicism. Among these are the appointment of dynamic,
sophisticated orthodox Bishops, the creation of new institutes of
higher education like Christendom College, the emergence of
exciting Catholic publishing ventures like Ignatius Press and
Crisis magazine as well as the steady growth of orthodox
intellectual forums like The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.
Another positive development is the recent creation of a Catholic
Academy of Sciences founded in the United States in 1987, based on
principles very closely associated with what has here been termed
"neo- orthodoxy." The Academy is "to be a proponent of future
scientific advancements that are consonant with reasoned
understanding of Roman Catholic teachings" while the Academy's
policy is "to support the Magisterium . . . of the Church, but if
truth requires it, to advise through the consensus of the Academy
to whomever it may apply, that a scientific incongruity
exists."109

After almost twenty-five years of searching for "ecumenical"
agreement with other religions and worldviews -- oftentimes at the
expense of the integrity and effectiveness of the faith, -- the
time has now come for the Catholic Church to reverse priorities.
The Church, while not turning its back to the world, must
rediscover the truth, beauty, utility, and glory of her own now
neglected traditions. In this sense, a Catholic neo-orthodoxy
stands directly opposed to a Richard John Neuhaus when, in his
deceptively titled The Catholic Moment, he states that:

John Paul, Joseph Ratzinger, the Extraordinary Synod -- they
represent to some an effort to turn back; to others an effort to
rescue the institutional remains of an authority that is no longer
plausible; to yet others an effort to chart a course of
faithfulness in the absence of false certitudes that once put
their leadership beyond question. From an ecumenical perspective,
one must hope that the last is the accurate reading of what they
intend.110

Contrary to Neuhaus for whom the issue of the "crisis of
authority" within the Catholic Church is a "theologically
uninteresting question" and for whom the issue of ecumenicity on
distinctly Lutheran terms is paramount, the Catholic Church must
first be the Catholic Church. This means a central commitment to
the supernatural authority of the Magisterium and to the
"tightening up" of her "institutional," i.e., theological and
structural, integrity. Only then should the principle Church of
Christ engage in the important, but secondary and derivative,
activity of ecumenical endeavor. Will such a "tightening up"
inevitably produce positive results? Might it save the Catholic
Church of the United States? Could we actually, then, see a true
"Catholic moment" in America? Sociologically all of this is
possible, but, in the final analysis, these issues lie in the hand
of God.

ENDNOTES

1. Joseph A. Varacalli, "The State of the American Catholic Laity:
Propositions and Proposals," Faith & Reason, vol. XIII, no. 2,
June, 1987, p. 16.

2. For more along this line, cf. Joseph A. Varacalli, Toward the
Establishment of Liberal Catholicism in America (Lanham, Maryland:
University Press of America, 1983); "To Empower Catholics: The
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights as a 'Mediating
Structure'," paper read at the joint annual meeting of the Society
for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research
Association, November 14, 1986; and Ibid., 1987.

3. Varacalli, op. cit., 1987, p. 127.

4. Max Scheler, Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge, translated
and with an Introduction by Manfred S. Frings (Boston: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1980). Also see my review of the book in
Contemporary Sociology, vol. 11, no. 2, March, 1982, pp. 198-9.

5. Timothy Arthur Lines, Systemic Religious Education (Birmingham,
Alabama: Religious Education Press, 1987). The quote is from my
review essay on the book in Religious Education, vol. 82, no. 4,
Fall, 1987, pp. 649-51.

6. I am in general agreement with the understanding of dissent
propounded by Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., in his Magisterium
(Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1983). According to Sullivan, "If,
in a particular instance, Catholics have offered their 'religious
submission of mind and will' to the authority of the magisterium,
by making an honest and sustained effort to achieve internal
assent to its teaching, and still find that doubts about its truth
remain so strong in their minds that they cannot actually give
their sincere intellectual assent to it, I do not see how one
could judge such non-assent, or internal dissent, to involve any
lack of obedience to the magisterium. Having done all that they
were capable of doing towards achieving assent, they actually
fulfilled their obligation of obedience, whether they achieved
internal assent or not" (p. 166). See also my review of the book
in Religious Education, vol. 81, no. 1, 1986, pp. 148-150.

7. Monsignor George A. Kelly, The Battle for the American Church
(New York: Doubleday, 1979) and The Crisis of Authority (Chicago:
Regnery Gateway, 1982). I reviewed the former in the Christian
Sociological Society Newsletter, vol. 9, no. 1, October, 1981 and
the latter in the New Oxford Review, October, 1982.

8. George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and
Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984).

9. Richard John Neuhaus, The Catholic Moment: The Paradox of the
Church in the Postmodern World (New York: Harper and Row, 1987, p.
151).

10. Andrew M. Greeley, The Communal Catholic: A Personal Manifesto
(New York: Seabury Press, 1976); The American Catholic: A Social
Portrait (New York: Basic Books, 1977); and American Catholics
Since the Council: An Unauthorized Report (Chicago: Thomas More,
1985).

11. Joseph A. Varacalli and Anthony L. Haynor, "Communal
Catholicism: An Analysis of Greeley's Thesis," Free Inquiry in
Creative Sociology, vol. 9, no. 1, May, 1982.

12. Gordon Allport, The Individual and His Religion (New York:
Macmillan, 1960).

13. Nicholas J. Demerath, III and Philip Hammond, Religion In
Social Context (New York: Random House, 1969, p. 70).

14. Ernest Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the Christian
Churches, translated by Olive Wyon (London: George Allen and
Unwin, Ltd., 1931, vol. I, pp. 376-7).

15. Monsignor George A. Kelly, op. cit., 1979, p. 40.

16. Ernest Troeltsch, op. cit., 1931; Georg W. F. Hegel, Lectures
on the History of Philosophy, vols. I-III, translated by E.S.
Haldane and Frances H. Simon (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
Ltd., 1955); Peter L. Berger, A Rumor of Angels (New York:
Doubleday, 1970); The Heretical Imperative (New York: Doubleday,
1979); and Robert Ballah, "Religious Evolution," American
Sociological Review, vol. 19, no. 3, 1964, pp. 358-74. Some
sociological and theological criticisms of mine on the work of
Berger can be found in my review of his The Heretical Imperative
in Cross-Currents, vol. XXX, no. 3, Summer, 1980; in my review of
his co-authored book with Hansfried Kellner, Sociology
Reinterpreted: An Essay on Method and Vocation (New York:
Doubleday, 1981) in the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars
Newsletter, vol. 7, no. 1, December, 1983; and in my article,
"Peter L. Berger and the Problem of Modern Religious Commitment"
in The New England Sociologist, vol. 5, no. 1, October, 1984.

17. See my review essay comparing Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's The
Ratzinger Report (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1985) and Andrew M.
Greeley's American Catholics Since the Council (Chicago: Thomas
More, 1985) in Religious Studies and Theology, vol. 6, no. 3,
September, 1986 and my article, "The Constitutive Elements of the
Idea of an 'American' Catholic Church," in the Social Justice
Review, forthcoming.

18. H.R. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row,
1951).

19. Cf. Talcott Parsons, "Christianity and Modern Industrial
Society," pp. 385-421, in his Sociological Theory and Modern
Society (New York: Free Press, 1967) and also his co-authored
article with Winston White, "The Link Between Character and
Society," pp. 183-235, in his Social Structure and Personality
(New York: Free Press, 1964).

20. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
(New York: Free Press, 1965); Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marx
and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, Lewis S.
Feuer, ed. (New York: Anchor, 1959); Sigmund Freud, The Future of
an Illusion, translated by W.D. Robson- Scott (London: Horace
Liveright and The Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1928).

21. See especially Peter L. Berger's Invitation to Sociology: A
Humanistic Perspective (New York: Doubleday, 1963) and his non-
secularized version of the same perspective, The Precarious Vision
(New York: Doubleday, 1961).

22. See especially Robert Bellah, et. al. Habits of the Heart
(California: University of California Press, 1985). See my review
essay of Bellah's book, "Charting Religious Commitment in American
Life," in Books and Religion, vol. 13, no. 8 and 9,
November/December, 1985.

23. Furfey and his students wrote extensively in, among other
places, The American Catholic Sociological Review, especially in
the 1940's and 1950's.

24. Neuhaus, op. cit., 1987, p. 24.

25. Cf. chapter eight, "Theological Reflections on Local Religious
Leadership," pp. 156-7 in Andrew Greeley, Mary Durkin, John Shea,
David Tracy, and William McCready, Parish, Priest, and People: New
Leadership for the Local Church (Chicago: Thomas More, 1981).
Tracy was the primary author of chapter eight. See also my review
essay, "A Plea for the Local Church," in Cross-Currents, vol.
XXXII, Spring, 1982.

26. Charles E. Curran, "Relating Religious Ethical Inquiry to
Economic Policy," pp. 42-54 in The Catholic Challenge to the
American Economy, Thomas M. Gannon, S.J., ed. (New York:
Macmillan, 1987); Richard P. McBrien, Do We Need the Church? (New
York: Harper and Row, 1969); and Dennis P. McCann, New Experiment
in Democracy: The Challenge for American Catholicism (Kansas City,
Missouri: Sheed and Ward, 1987). See my review essay of McCann's
book in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review, forthcoming.

27. I refer you to the overall argument in my Toward the
Establishment of Liberal Catholicism in America, op. cit., 1983.

28. Neuhaus in his The Catholic Moment, op. cit., 1987, makes the
argument that the theology of Pope John Paul II and Joseph
Cardinal Ratzinger is consistent, in many respects, with the
Lutheran "Two Kingdoms" or "paradoxical" model as discussed by
H.R. Niebuhr in his classic work, Christ and Culture, op. cit.,
1951.

29. This statement can be found in The Documents of Vatican II,
Walter Abbott and Joseph Gallagher, eds. (New York: America Press,
1966, p. 715).

30. I am presently writing a manuscript tentatively titled,
"Catholicism and Sociology: The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of
'Catholic Sociologies'."

31. See my "The Resurrection of 'Catholic Sociologies': Toward a
Catholic Center" in the Social Justice Review, vol. 78, no. 5 and
6, May/June, 1987.

32. See an early attempt of mine, co-authored with Anthony L.
Haynor, "Manifesto: What It Means to be a Catholic Sociologist,"
in Free Inquiry in Creative Sociology, vol. 9, no. 1, 1981.
Sociologists who are Catholic too often exclusively argue for what
"sociology can do for Catholicism, not what Catholicism can
contribute to sociology." See the following book reviews of mine
regarding this point: David Lyon's Sociology and the Human Image
(1983) in Review of Religious Research, vol. 28, no. 2, December,
1986; Arthur J. Vidich's and Stanford M. Lyman's American
Sociology (1985) in Review of Religious Research, vol. 29, no. 3,
March, 1988; and William H. Swatos, ed., Religious Sociology
(1987) in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
forthcoming.

33. Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions, (New York: William
Morrow, 1987).

34. Ironically, I picked up the claim that Dulles' analysis
produces a "disembodied Catholicism" from the title of a review by
Paul Lakeland of Dulles' The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford:
The Clarendon Press, 1986) in Cross-Currents, vol. XXXVII, no. 1,
Spring, 1987, pp. 112-114. Lakeland, an advocate of liberation and
feminist theologies, is critical of Dulles because, in the
former's position, Catholicism fails to actualize the ideal state
of affairs posited by the latter. Orthodox Catholics can claim,
conversely, that an ideal state of affairs does not even
approximately exist, in part, precisely because of the conceptual
confusion caused by Dulles' understanding and advocacy of a
disembodied pluralism.

35. Avery Dulles, S.J., The Dimensions of the Church: A post
Conciliar Reflection (New York and Paramus: Newman Press, 1967).

36. Ibid., p. 1.

37. Ibid., p. 6.

38. Ibid., p. 8.

39. Ibid., p. 9.

40. Ibid., p. 15.

41. Ibid., p. 20.

42. Avery Dulles, S.J., The Survival of Dogma (New York:
Crossroad, 1971).

43. Ibid., p. 100.

44. Ibid., p. 84.

45. Ibid., p. 84.

46. Ibid., p. 88.

47. Ibid., pp. 88-9.

48. Ibid., pp. 90-1.

49. Ibid., p. 101.

50. Avery Dulles, S.J., Models of the Church (New York: Doubleday,
1974).

51. Ibid., p. 14.

52. Cf. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "Biblical Interpretation in
Conflict: The Foundations and Directions of Exegesis Today," paper
delivered at St. Peter's Church, Citicorp Center, New York City,
on January 27, 1988 and sponsored by The Rockford Institute Center
on Religion and Democracy. Also see my book review of Lester
Kurtz's The Politics of Heresy (1986) in Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 27, no. 1, March, 1988.

53. Avery Dulles, S.J., A Church to Believe In: Discipleship and
the Dynamics of Freedom (New York: Crossroad, 1983, p. 6). Dulles
completes his sentence with the following, ". . . but for many
this image accents the very features they find least admirable and
attractive." Given that the Catholic Church is not run by opinion
polls and that this dissent is specific to what I've previously
termed the "new Catholic knowledge class" (cf. Varacalli, Toward
the Establishment of Liberal Catholicism in America, op. cit.,
1983) and to a certain upper-middle class Catholic "Yuppie"
constituency (cf. Varacalli, "The State of the American Catholic
Laity," op. cit., 1987), this qualifier means very little. If
Catholic individuals feel that they no longer have any use for the
Catholic tradition; that they, in effect, have "outgrown" it, they
are obviously free to leave it.

54. Dulles, op. cit., 1974, p. 205.

55. Dulles, ibid., 1974, p. 21.

56. Lumen Gentium, in The Documents of Vatican II, Walter Abbott
and Joseph Gallagher, editors (New York: America Press, 1966), no.
22.

57. Mystici Corporis, 3rd edition (New York: America Press, 1957),
article 79.

58. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Church and World (New York: Herder and
Herder, 1967).

59. Ibid., 1967, p. 27.

60. Even Richard P. McBrien, Caesar's Coin: Religion and Politics
in America (New York: Macmillan, 1987, p. 45) comes close to my
understanding here. As he states, Dulles' "sacramental model
presents the Church as 'a reality imbued with the hidden presence
of God' . . . it is closest in meaning to H.R. Niebuhr's Christ of
culture (model)."

61. Avery Dulles, S.J., The Resilient Church: The Necessity and
Limits of Adaptation (New York: Doubleday, 1977).

62. Ibid., p. 2.

63. Ibid., p. 18.

64. Ibid., p. 39.

65. Ibid., pp. 5-6.

66. Dulles, A Church to Believe In, op. cit., 1983.

67. Ibid., 1983, p. 31.

68. Ibid., pp. 35-6.

69. Ibid., pp. 37-8.

70. Avery Dulles, S.J., Models of Revelation (New York: Doubleday,
1983). For an uncritically positive review of mine of the book,
cf. Religious Education, vol. 79, no. 2, Spring, 1984, pp. 313-
314.

71. Ibid., p. 49.

72. Ibid., p. 49.

73. Ibid., p. 131.

74. Ibid., p. 145.

75. Avery Dulles, S.J., The Catholicity of the Church (London: The
Clarendon Press, 1985).

76. Ibid., p. 107.

77. Ibid., p. 107.

78. Ibid., p. 121.

79. Ibid., p. 121.

80. Ibid., p. 122.

81. Ibid., pp. 125-6.

82. Avery Dulles, S.J., "Community of Disciples as a Model of
Church," in Philosophy and Theology, vol. 1, no. 2, Winter, 1986,
pp. 99-120.

83. Richard McBrien, Caesar's Coin, op. cit., 1987, p. 46.

84. Dulles accepts a "dialectical" theory of social change and,
conversely, rejects an "organic" conception in chapter three,
"Doctrinal Renewal: A Situationist View," in A Church to Believe
In, op. cit., 1983.

85. Dulles, op. cit., 1986, p. 101.

86. Ibid., 1986, p. 101. Also see Dulles' response to James
Gaffney's heterodox use of Models of the Church, "A Nuanced
Institutionalism," America, January 24, 1987, p. 60.

87. Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (New York:
Touchstone, 1982). See my review of the book in Religious Studies
and Theology, vol. 5, no. 3, September, 1985, pp. 74-5.

88. Michael Novak, Freedom with Justice: Catholic Social Thought
and Liberal Institutions (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984).
See my review of the book in Religious Studies and Theology, vol.
6, nos. 1 and 2, January/May, 1986, pp. 51-3.

89. Ibid., 1984, p. xiii.

90. Ibid., p. 218.

91. Ibid., p. 218.

92. Ibid., p. 33.

93. Ibid., p. v.

94. George Weigel, Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and
Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). See my review of the
book, Sociological Analysis, forthcoming.

95. Ibid., 1987, p. 45.

96. Paul E. Sigmund, Natural Law In Political Thought (Winthrop,
1971, reissued University Press of America, 1982.

97. Ibid., p. v.

98. Ibid., p. viii.

99. Ibid., pp. 88-9.

100. Ibid., p. ix.

101. Ibid., p. 209.

102. Ibid., pp. 209-10.

103. Byron Johnson, Michael H. Barnes, and Dennis M. Doyle, "Are
There Two Catholicisms?," paper read at the Joint Annual
Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and
the Religious Research Association, Washington, D.C., November 15,
1986. For more information about this study, write to Professor
Michael Barnes, Department of Religious Studies, University of
Dayton, 300 College Park, Dayton, Ohio, 45469-0001. Also see my
"State of the American Catholic Laity," op. cit., 1987, pp. 144-5.

104. Monsignor George A. Kelly, op. cit., 1979, p. 19.

105. Monsignor Eugene V. Clark, "Formal Doctrinal Dialogue: A
Proposal for Bishops and Theologians," Fellowship of Catholic
Scholars Newsletter, vol. 11, no. 2, March, 1988, p. 13.

106. William E. May, "Catholic Principles of Scholarship and
Learning," Homiletic and Pastoral Review, February, 1988, pp. 14-
15.

107. Gaudium et Spes in The Documents of Vatican II, Walter Abbot
and Joseph Gallaghers, eds., op. cit., 1966, no. 62, p. 270.

108. See Varacalli, "The State of the American Catholic Laity,"
op. cit., 1987, pp. 156-7; "To Empower Catholics," op. cit., 1986;
and "A Catholic 'Plausibility Structure': The Social-Structural
Prerequisite for the Maintenance of the Faith," unpublished paper
read at St. John's University, March 4, 1988.

109. "Catholic Academy of Sciences Founded in United States," The
Long Island Catholic, vol. 26, no. 33, December 3, 1987, p. 13.

110. Richard J. Neuhaus, op. cit., 1987, p. 125.

This article was taken from the Fall 1989 issue of "Faith &
Reason". Subscriptions available from Christendom Press, 2101
Shenandoah Shores Road, Ft. Royal, VA 22630, 703-636-2900, Fax
703-636-1655. Published quarterly at $20.00 per year.

Copyright (c) 1997 EWTN Online Services.

-------------------------------------------------------

  Provided courtesy of:

       Eternal Word Television Network
       PO Box 3610
       Manassas, VA 22110
       Voice: 703-791-2576
       Fax: 703-791-4250
       Web: http://www.ewtn.com
       Email address: [email protected]

-------------------------------------------------------

You are viewing proxied material from gopher.ratthing.com. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.