Blessed John Paul Panel Talks

2 Responses to Blessed John Paul Panel Talks

1. Father Jason says:

   June 1, 2011 at 3:55 PM

   Again, it was a pleasure to participate in this event – I left some comments on the original page. I also wish to share some thoughts regarding Ania’s presentation on the moral thought of Blessed John Paul II.

   While his contributions are no doubt original and profound, I think that many commentators have over emphasized the “novelty” of Bl. John Paul’s thought. The idea that Christ “reveals man to himself” is no doubt rooted in the patristic tradition of Christ as the new Adam – the archetype of the redeemed man and woman not a new idea. Certainly Bl. John Paul II’s work includes both ressourcement and aggiornamento but I think we want to be careful that we do not present it as revolutionary. This will lead some to distrust it as a betrayal of tradition and others to misunderstand it by failing to read it within the context of our theological patrimony. Theology of the Body has faced both these reactions within the Church.

   Other thoughts?

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2. John Redmond says:

   June 3, 2011 at 4:01 PM

   I would agree Father, in fact I was recently reading this very interesting article by the Archbishop of Granada and he says effectively the same thing regarding the origins of this insight:

   In his first book, Catholicism, published in 1938, a work in which he wanted to bring to the foreground “the social aspects of the dogma” as they are expressed in the Christian Tradition, De Lubac wrote: “By revealing the Father and by being revealed by him, Christ completes the revelation of man to himself” This sentence was then almost literally taken by the Council Vatican II in a passage now famous because it has been very frequently quoted by John Paul II, and I think can be considered one of the cues to understand his own teaching and ministry: “Christ … in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling”. Now, this is, in every sense, just what tradition has always said about Christ and mankind, what was already in the Creed of Nicaea and the New Testament.

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