Daniel Horan OFM.
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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) February 2, 2022: The American Franciscan friar Daniel P. Horan's book Catholicity and Emerging Personhood: A Contemporary Theological Anthropology (Orbis Books, 2019) is a spirited book by a professional theologian, about professional theologians, and primarily for professional theologians.
I am not a professional theologian. Please don't misunderstand me here. The book is accessible to readers who are not professional theologians, provided that they are conversant with the Roman Catholic tradition of thought in general. So within this broad framework, I will offer a couple some brief observations about Horan's 2019 book.
For example, Horan writes of "the current Aristotelian-Thomistic approach to theological anthropology" (page 239). However, because I am not a professional theologian, I do not know just how current the Aristotelian-Thomistic approach to theological anthropology is today. Consequently, I am not going to offer here a strong assessment of the book's merits as a contribution to Roman Catholic theology today.
However, I would call Horan's attention to the later Canadian Jesuit theologian Frederick E. Crowe's fine 1965 article "Neither Jew nor Greek, but One Human Nature and Operation in All" in which he uses the Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan's 1957 philosophical masterpiece Insight: A Study of Human Understanding to work out an updated understanding of human nature.
Crowe's 1965 article is reprinted, slightly revised, in the book Communication and Lonergan: Common Ground for Forging the New Age, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1993, pages 89-107).
The fifth edition of Lonergan's philosophical masterpiece Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, edited by Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran has been published as volume three of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (University of Toronto Press, 1992).
Now, my favorite scholar is the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955). (His family name is English; it may be related to the English name "Yonge.")
Horan discusses a certain point that Ong makes about the etymological meaning of the word catholic (pages 3-5). From Ong's elucidation of the etymology of the word catholic, Horan proceeds to say that he himself in his 2019 book is working with a hermeneutic of catholicity (see, for example, pages 5, 6, 7, 119, 218, and 240). Fine. We could also say that Horan is working with a heuristic of catholicity.
Horan references Ong's article "Yeast: A Parable for Catholic Higher Education" in the Jesuit-sponsored magazine America, volume 162, number 13 (April 7, 1990): pages 347-349 and 362-363.
Ong's 1990 article is reprinted in volume four of Ong's Faith and Contexts, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Scholars Press, 1999, pages 169-176).
Now, because Horan himself is an American Franciscan friar, I was pleased to see him quote and discuss the medieval Italian St. Francis of Assisi's famous Canticle of Brother Sun (pages 109-113).
The Argentine-Italian Pope Francis (born in 1936; elected pope in March 2013), the first Jesuit pope, honors the medieval Italian St. Francis of Assisi and his famous Canticle in his 2015 eco-encyclical titled Laudato Si' (wording from the famous Canticle).
For a fascinating discussion of St. Francis of Assisi, see the French Franciscan Eloi Leclerc's book The Canticle of Creatures: Symbols of Union: An Analysis of St. Francis of Assisi, translated by Matthew J. O'Connell (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1977; orig. French ed., 1970).
Now, I was also pleased to see Horan discuss the medieval Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus at length (d.1308; for specific pages references to Scotus, see the "Index" [page 258]). Horan also discusses John Duns Scotus at length in his earlier book Postmodernity and Univocity: A Critical Account of Radical Orthodoxy and John Duns Scotus (Fortress Press, 2014).
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