In one discursive footnote, Czerny and Barone say, "The vast and varied magisterium of [the long-reigning Pope] John-Paul II includes fourteen encyclicals, forty-five apostolic letters, fifteen [apostolic] exhortations, and eleven constitutions, in addition to innumerable addresses and homilies" (p. 32n.8).
The "Index" includes the term "Inductive method" both as a main entry and a sub-entry under other main entries. But the contrasting term "deductive method" does not appear either as a main entry or as a sub-entry. In the "Index," the see-judge-act practice also appears as a main entry (p. 207) and as a sub-entry. In the "Index," the main entry on the Fratelli Tutti encyclical includes a number of sub-entries that are instructive to look over as an overview of Czerny and Barone's overall discussion (p. 202).
To orient ourselves to Czerny and Barone's wide-ranging discussion of Fratelli Tutti, the documents of Vatican II, and other church documents, I will set forth here the titles of their eight chapters:
Chapter One: "A Teaching That Continues or Breaks with Tradition?" (pp. 3-21);
Chapter Two: "After the Council, Two Approaches to Social Questions Emerge" (pp. 23-42);
Chapter Three: "Criteria for Discernment: Reading the 'Signs of the Times'" (pp. 43-63);
Chapter Four: "Reflecting on the Problems, Analyzing the Causes (Fratelli Tutti, ch. 1)" (pp. 67-88);
Chapter Five: "Scrutinizing the Present: Letting the Word of God Enlighten Us (Fratelli Tutti, ch. 2)" (pp. 89-98);
Chapter Six: "Generating an Open World: Discerning and Judging (Fratelli Tutti, chs. 3-4)" (pp. 99-111);
Chapter Seven: "Building a Better and More Open World (Fratelli Tutti, chs. 5-7)" (pp. 113-145);
Chapter Eight: "The Church and Religions Serving the Universal Call to Be Siblings (Fratelli Tutti, ch. 8)" (pp. 147-170).
In any event, in Czerny and Barone's Chapter One: "A Teaching That Continues or Breaks with Tradition?" they say, "from its very first decisions, Vatican II reversed the direction and orientation that had marked the Church's posture toward modernity for more than four centuries" (p. 8).
The Church's posture toward modernity is aptly expression in the main title of the lay American Catholic historian Philip Gleason's book Contending with Modernity: [American] Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 1995).
Czerny and Barone also say, "What distinguishes [Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World] Gaudium et Spes [Latin for "Joy and Hope"] is precisely the spirit or ethos that underlies its proposals: the courage with which the Council Fathers proposed a way of addressing the relationship between the Church and the world that in no way claimed to be exhaustive but instead anticipated further and deeper developments of the issues in question. The transition from an ahistorical paradigm to a historico-salvific reading of contemporary events also entailed a change of method [i.e., a change of the way of proceeding]" (p. 9).
The Canadian Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984) wrote his succinct 1966 essay "The Transition from a Classicist Worldview to Historical Mindedness" about the Church's transition from an ahistorical paradigm in Vatican II. It is reprinted in his book A Second Collection, edited by William F. J. Ryan, S.J., and Bernard J. Tyrrell, S.J. (Westminster Press, 1974, pp. 1-9).
A Second Collection, edited by Robert M. Doran and John D. Dadosky, has been reprinted as volume 13 in the 24-volume Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (University of Toronto Press, 2016).
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
