Communio Circle of the Diocese of Hamilton

This month as well readers may wish to be on the outlook for the fall 2010 edition of the Newman Studies Journal 7/2, which promises to contain an article by Adam Stewart, whom some of you will remember from his presentation to us in July on Pentecostalism and his comments on John L. Allen, The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church (Doubleday, 2009). Adam’s article is entitled “John Henry Newman and Andrew Martin Fairbairn: Philosophical Scepticism and the Efficacy of Reason in The Contemporary Review Exchange.” This essay examines the contrasting conceptualizations of reason in the thought of John Henry Newman and the Congregationalist theologian, Andrew Martin Fairbairn in their articles published in The Contemporary Review in 1885. This piece articulates both Fairbairn’s charge of philosophical skepticism against Newman as well as Newman’s defense of his position, and concomitantly details Fairbairn’s and Newman’s competing notions of the efficacy of reason to provide reliable knowledge of God. The positions developed by Fairbairn and Newman remain two of the most important perspectives on the role that reason plays in the acquisition of knowledge about God in nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first century Christian theology.
Peter Erb

I suppose that the English Dominican, Timothy Radcliffe, Master of the Order of Preachers 1992-2001, is a “liberal.” After all, as someone once pointed out to me, intending the remark to be negative: “Radcliffe’s most recent Why go to Church? The Drama of the Eucharist (Continuum, 2008) was designated by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury’s as the 2009 Lenten reading book.” But open his What is the Point of Being a Christian? (Continuum, 2005) and the significance of labelling someone as liberal or conservative, if such labelling has any significance at all, quickly disappears. A highly readable volume, the book is accessible to senior high and university students as well as the reading public at large. It is packed with anecdotes and concrete examples for support, its eleven chapters treat such topics of the good news of the faith: hope, freedom, spontaneity, courage, the body, community and truth. In his chapter on “Root Shock” he outlines the so-called division among Catholics between the Concilium and the Communio groups, (his terms “Kingdom” and “Communio” Christians).
A useful comparison and contrast on this “divide” is that of Tracey Rowland, Dean of the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne Australia, in her Ratzinger’s Faith: The theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Oxford, 2008), chapter 1, a book that is must reading for anyone seeking a clear outline of Benedict’s central concerns, unmuddied by infomercialised news bites or the “stories” of self-proclaimed “unbiased” investigative reporters. Following her treatment of contemporary theological circles (“circles” for her, not “divisions”), Rowland continues with a treatment of Gaudium et spes – usually most closely linked with Radcliffe’s “Kingdom,” not Ratzinger’s “Communio” group which is usually characterized as seeing Lumen gentium as the central Vatican II text. . As in her stimulating Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II (Routledge, 2003), Rowland focuses on the christological centre of Gaudium et spes, continuing her reflections with chapters on “Revelation, Scripture, and Tradition,” “Beyond Moralism: God is Love,” “The Structure of the Communion,” “Modernity and the Politics of the West,” and “Liturgy since Vatican II.”
Peter Erb

At the beginning of the “new school year” Paul Griffiths, Intellectual Appetite: A theological Grammar (Catholic University of America Press, 2009) will well repay even a quick review. As with his earlier work, it is crisply written and accessible to all. There are no footnotes, but a thoughtful reader will immediately grasp the wealth of learning that stands behind the piece. In the first chapter, Griffiths explains his intentions, and university students in particular will find his reflections on the traditional distinction between studiousness and curiosity well worth consideration as they face the forced-deeding frenzy that will mark most of courses they are required to “take.” Christian students struggling with the complex issues relating faith and reason will have even more to consider with this volume and may well wish to turn also to an earlier much shorter book by Griffiths on The Vice of Curiosity: An Essay on Intellectual Appetite (Winnipeg: Canadian Mennonite University, 2006).
Griffiths’ book and the beginning of the academic year necessitates serious students to consider once again the question posed by the great Dominican scholar, Antonin Gilbert Sertillanges, “Do you want to do intellectual work?” in his classic The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods, first published in 1920, revised in 1934, and still, thankfully, in print. Sertillanges’ question, although not always consciously asked, often lurks ominously in the back of many students’ minds. For those who allow it to come\to the fore, his volume offers a good many defensive practices to face the digital realities and mass of information delivery systems many of us need to face. And if the Sertilanges’ question proves stimulating, a number of equally important questions on the topic can be found in The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education (Baker Academic, 2006), co-authored by Norman Klassen (an active member of our Communio Circle and Chair of the English Department at St. Jerome’s University, Waterloo, ON) and Jens Zimmermann. These questions are available at http://www.marshillaudio.org/catalog/Study_Booklet.pdf and will make useful conversation points for university chaplaincies.
Peter Erb