Many thanks to Luke Gormally who pointed me in the direction of Sandro Magister's column today. Magister offers a thoughtful and well-informed analysis of the appointment of Archbishop Bagnasco as the head of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) which we reported on Wednesday.He says that Bagnasco is loyal to his predecessor, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, and is fully committed to the mission of Pope Benedict to "restore full citizenship to the Christian faith." The article contains plenty of information about Bagnasco himself, his humble background, his experience of teaching philosophy and his good work as military archbishop for Italy. In that post, he gave the gospels and the Catechism to Italian soldiers throughout the world. Magister is also a magisterial "Vaticanista" and he offers insights into the process of appointment. As with many such Italian journalists, we are left wondering how on earth he got his information but fairly sure, given his track record, that it is likely to be accurate.
Magister points particularly to the dialogue between the Pope, Cardinal Ruini and the atheist philosopher Jürgen Habermas whom Magister describes as
a proponent of an alliance between secular reason and religion, against the “defeatism” that modern scientism harbors within itself.In this weekend's Catholic Herald, Clifford Longley has a letter concerning the article written by John Allen about British religious journalism. (See John Allen on the British Press) He says that Allen is "guilty of misreporting too" because his attack is based mainly on one piece of journalism. He goes on to give his own view of the Gledhill article: the fair and sober character of his critique makes it all the more telling.
Reading Magister today, it struck me that his article could be taken as a model of good religious journalism. He writes with detachment, conveys good deal of of accurate, publicly available information, includes some nuggets from his own carefully nurtured sources, and offers an intelligent, theologically aware analysis.
Magister's article: The Bishops of Italy Have a New Leader: Angelo Bagnasco
2 comments:
I look forward to reading Clifford Longley's article. However, Miss Gledhill recently followed up her "Times" scoop(!) with a piece on her own blog "Antichrist is an ecumenist, Cardinal tells Pope" for which she did not have the excuse of someone else writing the headline.
This stirred up a heady brew of the Antichrist (complete with "wrong" Durer woodcut), Soloviev, Nietzsche and an "oddly timed" internal attack on ecumenism, which simultaneously sensationalised and trivialised Cardinal Biffi's lenten retreat homily. But, of course, all this is so much more interesting, newsworthy and relevant than actually quoting Cardinal Biffi's central point: "there are relative values, such as solidarity, love of peace and respect for nature. If these become absolute, uprooting or even opposing the proclamation of the event of salvation, then these values become an instigation to idolatry and obstacles on the way of salvation."
Cardinal Ruini's article strikes me as significant, and not only because of what it says directly. I have the sense, perhaps incorrect, that for a long time now the Catholic hierarchy has tended to stay aloof from - or at any rate, refrain from direct dialogue with - the contemporary secular philosophical establishment. Certainly, when I was reading Philosophy & Theology in the early 1970s, that was the perception. On more than one occasion, when I answered polite enquiries about what I was reading at university, I received spontaneous reactions such as "goodness - aren't they incompatible?"
I think that there was a perception in those days not only that religion was irrational, but that Christianity and philosophy were somehow opposed, or in different realms, so that a Christian philosopy seemed to be an impossibility. This was not helped by a dearth of interest in mediaeval philosophy. About the only Catholic thinkers ever mentioned in the theological context at Oxford were modernists like Loisy and problematic figures such as Teilhard de Chardin and (inevitably) Hans Kueng. But I don't think it was solely because these men were sensed to be unorthodox, and thus embarrassing to the Catholic establishment. Rather, it was because these people were engaging in dialogue with the secular academic establishment.
Things are changing. I think it made an impression when the catholic Michael Dummett succeeded AJ Ayer as Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford, and Richard Swinburne has done much to redress the balance after the heady positivist days.
But with the rise of a theology professor to the chair of Peter, perhaps we are going to see further progress. I think it would be of enormous value in the revitalising of Catholicism in Europe if the hierarchy were to be more engaged with the secular philosophical establishment.
Perhaps part of the reason why this has been the exception rather than the rule is that the Church has been risk-averse, and has seen the role of its bishops as primarily shepherds of the faithful rather than as missionaries to an unbelieving world. Inevitably, when drawn into dialogue with unbelievers, there is the risk that some things may be misunderstood as, or indeed drift perilously close to, unorthodoxy. (The self-styled ultra-traditionalists love dredging up snippets from Ratzinger's writings and claiming that they are heretical.)
But perhaps it would be good for the Church to foster an atmosphere in which its clergy - and particularly its senior bishops, some of whom are men of formidable intellect and larning - can feel more free to participate as individuals (rather than as official teachers) in the disputed questions of philosophy and theology too. We should not be shocked if occasionally, in an academic context, a thoughtful prelate comes up with a misguided opinion. We should only be shocked if either (a) the SCDF cannot, by the force of reason, convince him that he is mistaken; or (b) he presents such academic opinion as if it were official teaching.
Instead, we should I think recognize that if we equate intellectual freedom with the risk of heresy, we aren't doing justice to what should be an article of faith: that the true faith must always pass the test of reason, because our rationality is our participation in the life of the incarnate God, who is essentially rationality itself.
A consequence of this would be that, I believe, the Church could resume its role, perhaps lost since the renaissance, of setting, rather than following, the philosophical agenda - and I think Cardinal Ruini's paper is a step in that direction.
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