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Post by Admin on Mar 13, 2018 13:40:22 GMT
Henri de Lubac
Henri-Marie Joseph Sonier de Lubac SJ (French: [lybak]; 20 February 1896 – 4 September 1991), known as Henri de Lubac, was a French Jesuit priest who became a cardinal of the Catholic Church and is considered one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. His writings and doctrinal research played a key role in shaping the Second Vatican Council.
Early life and ordinationHenri de Lubac was born in Cambrai to an ancient noble family of the Ardèche. He was one of six children; his father was a banker and his mother a homemaker. The family returned in 1898 to the Lyon district, where Henri was schooled by Jesuits. A born aristocrat in manner and appearance, de Lubac studied law for a year before, aged 17, joining the Society of Jesus in Lyon on 9 October 1913. Owing to the political climate in France at the time as a result of the French anti-church laws of the early twentieth century, the Jesuit novitiate had temporarily relocated to St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, East Sussex, where de Lubac studied before being drafted to the French army in 1914 due to the outbreak of the Great War. He received a head wound at Les Éparges on All Saints Day, 1917, which would give him recurring episodes of dizziness and headaches for the rest of his life. Following demobilisation in 1919, de Lubac returned to the Jesuits and continued his philosophical studies, first at Hales Place in Canterbury and then, from 1920-3, at the Maison Saint-Louis, the Jesuit philosophate located at that time in St. Helier, Jersey. De Lubac taught at the Jesuit College at Mongré, in the Rhône, from 1923-4, and then in 1924 returned to England and began his four years of theological studies at Ore Place in Hastings, East Sussex. In 1926, the Jesuit college was relocated back to Fourvière in Lyons, where de Lubac completed the remaining two years of his theological studies. He was ordained to the priesthood on 22 August 1927.
Professor and theologian
In 1929, de Lubac was appointed professor of fundamental theology at the Catholic University of Lyon (the required doctorate having been conferred by the Gregorian University in Rome at the behest of the Father General of the Society of Jesus, without de Lubac's setting foot there or ever submitting a dissertation).[1] He would teach there from 1929 to 1961, though with two interruptions – first during World War II, when he was forced underground because of his activities with the French Resistance, and then from 1950 to 1958, when the Society of Jesus, under pressure from Rome, removed him from his teaching responsibilities and the Fourvière Jesuit residence.
During the 1930s de Lubac spent his time teaching at the Catholic University and researching, as well as teaching (between 1935 and 1940) one course at the Jesuit seminary at Fourvière (where he also lived from 1934 onwards).[2] His first book, the now-classic Catholicisme (English title of the current edition: Catholicism: Christ and Common Destiny of Man) was published in 1938, before the war. In 1940,[3] he founded the series Sources Chrétiennes ("Christian Sources"), co-edited with fellow Jesuit Jean Daniélou, a collection of bilingual, critical editions of early Christian texts and of the Church Fathers that has reinvigorated both the study of patristics and the doctrine of Sacred Tradition.
During the Second World War, the first interruption to this pattern came: de Lubac joined a movement of "spiritual resistance," assisting in the publication of an underground journal of Nazi resistance called Christian Testimony. It was intended to show the incompatibility of Christian belief with the philosophy and activities of the Nazi regime, both in Germany and also under the cover of the Vichy government in southern France, which was theoretically independent of the Reich. De Lubac was often in hiding from the Germans and several of his co-workers on the journal were captured and executed. Even in hiding, he continued to study and write.From 1944 onwards, with the end of the Nazi occupation of France, de Lubac came out of hiding and published a number of texts (many of them begun or completed before the war but not published in the early 1940s because of the shortage of paper) which became major interventions in twentieth-century Catholic theology. These included: Corpus Mysticum, which had been ready for publication in 1939, and appeared in February 1944; Drame de l'humanisme athée, published in December 1944; De la connaissance de Dieu published in 1945; Surnaturel: Études historiques (a book which de Lubac had started at Hastings in his student days), published in 1946 in a print run of 700 copies, because of the ongoing paper shortage.
"The dark years"
In June 1950, as de Lubac himself said, "lightning struck Fourvière."[4] De Lubac, who resided at Fourvière but actually did no teaching there (aside from the one course he had taught between 1935 and 1940), and four Fourvière professors were removed from their duties (in de Lubac's case these included his professorship at Lyon and his editorship of Recherches de science religieuse) and required to leave the Lyon province. All Jesuit provincials were directed to remove three of his books ( Surnaturel, Corpus mysticum, and Connaissance de Dieu) and one article from their libraries and, as far as possible, from public distribution. The action came through the Jesuit Superior General, Jean-Baptiste Janssens, under pressure from the curial office, and was because of " pernicious errors on essential points of dogma."[5] Two months later,[c] Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Humani generis, widely believed to have been directed at de Lubac and other theologians associated with the nouvelle théologie, an intellectual movement characterized by renewed attention to the patristic sources of Catholicism, a willingness to address the ideas and concerns of contemporary men and women, a focus on pastoral work and respect for the competencies of the laity, and a sense of the Catholic Church as existing in history and affected by it.What de Lubac called "the dark years" lasted nearly a decade. It was not until 1956 that he was allowed to return to Lyon and not until 1958 that the University got verbal approval from Rome for de Lubac to return to teaching the courses he previously taught. Although everything de Lubac wrote during these years was subject to censorship in Rome, he never ceased to study, write, and publish. During these years he brought out a study of Origen's biblical exegesis (1950), three books on Buddhism (1951, 1952, 1955), Méditations sur l'Église (1953 – a text which would have great influence on Lumen Gentium, the document produced at Vatican II on the nature of the church),[6] and Sur les chemins de Dieu (1956).
Return to acceptance
His pioneering study Exégèse médiévale (1959–1965) revived interest in the spiritual exegesis of scripture and provided a major impetus to the development of covenantal theology. Just before and during the conciliar years, with the blessing of his order, de Lubac also began to write and publish books and articles in defense of the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, his older friend and fellow Jesuit, who had died in 1955. Teilhard's ideas had influenced several of the theologians of the nouvelle théologie and had also met with extreme disfavour in Rome.
Second Vatican Council
In August 1960, Pope John XXIII appointed de Lubac as a consultant to the Preparatory Theological Commission for the upcoming Second Vatican Council. He was then made a peritus (theological expert) to the council itself, and later, by Pope Paul VI, a member of its Theological Commission (as well as of two secretariats). Although the precise nature of his contribution during the council is difficult to determine, his writings were certainly an influence on the conciliar and post-conciliar periods, particularly in the area of ecclesiology where one of his concerns was to understand the church as the community of the whole people of God rather than just the clergy.[7] De Lubac's influence on Lumen gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) and Gaudium et spes (Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) is generally recognized.[8]
Late years
In 1969 Pope Paul VI, an admirer of de Lubac's works, had proposed making him a cardinal but de Lubac demurred, believing that for him to become a bishop, as required of all cardinals, would be "an abuse of an apostolic office".[d] Paul VI, having committed to creating a Jesuit cardinal, conferred the honor on de Lubac's junior colleague Jean Daniélou instead. In the years after Vatican II, de Lubac came to be known as a "conservative theologian", his views completely in line with the magisterium – in contrast to his progressive reputation in the first part of his life. Contributing to this reputation, in 1972 de Lubac, alongside Joseph Ratzinger who later became Pope Benedict XVI, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Walter Kasper, and Karl Lehmann, founded the journal Communio − a journal which acquired a reputation as offering a more conservative theology than Concilium.[10] In 1983 Pope John Paul II offered to make de Lubac a cardinal, this time with a dispensation from being consecrated a bishop. De Lubac accepted and became the first non-bishop cardinal since the 1962 rule requiring cardinals to be bishops. In the consistory of 2 February 1983, Pope John Paul II raised de Lubac, at 87, to the College of Cardinals. He was created Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Domnica. On 24 May 1990, de Lubac became the oldest living cardinal. He died in Paris in 1991.
Adapted from here. [All red font emphasis - The Catacombs] |
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Post by Admin on Mar 13, 2018 14:29:00 GMT
A Dubious Influence: De Lubac & Von Balthasar’s Effect on Catholic Thought
(Image: From left to right, Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar)
Editor’s note: The author of this essay is, according to his own words, “not a certified academic, let alone theologian. These thoughts are simply the opinion of a Catholic artist who, having studied the deprivations of ‘Modern art,’ is concerned about the current state of the Catholic Church and how the same alien, even diabolical influences seen in art, seem to have crept into the Church since the Second Vatican Council.”
As reported in the New Oxford Review online edition of February 22, 2017, the superior general of the Society of Jesus has said that all Church doctrine must be subject to discernment. In an interview with a Swiss journalist, Father Arturo Sosa Abascal said that the words of Jesus, too, must be weighed in their “historical context,” taking into account the culture in which Jesus lived and the human limitations of the men who wrote the Gospels. In an exchange about Church teaching on marriage and divorce, when questioned about Christ’s condemnation of adultery, Father Sosa said that “there would have to be a lot of reflection on what Jesus really said.” He continued: Father Sosa explained that he did not mean to question the words of Jesus, but to suggest further examination of “the word of Jesus as we have interpreted it.” He said that his new process of discernment should be guided by the Holy Spirit. When the interviewer remarked that an individual’s discernment might lead him to a conclusion at odds with Catholic doctrine, the Jesuit superior replied: “That is so, because doctrine does not replace discernment, nor does it [replace the] Holy Spirit.”
The views held by Fr. Sosa did not spontaneously generate out of a vacuum.At the time of the Second Vatican Council (Oct. 1962–Dec. 1965), leaving aside the traditionalists faithful to the vision of Pope Pius XII and his predecessors, the Church split between “Conservative” and “Progressive” factions led by the speculative theology of leading contemporary Catholic thinkers. The progressives, at the closing of Vatican II in 1965, began publication of a scholarly journal titled Concilium featuring the writings of Yves Congar, Hans Küng, Johann Baptist Metz, Karl Rahner S.J., and Edward Schillebeeckx. among others. In contrast, a group of the more conservative modern thinkers, including Joseph Ratzinger, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Walter Kasper, Marc Ouellet, Louis Bouyer and others, founded a counterpart journal in 1972, called Communio. While the writings of the progressives such as Hans Küng, Schillebeeckx, and especially Karl Rahner S.J. have had a heavy influence on contemporary Catholic thought, in order to understand the quote above by the Jesuit Superior General, one must look also to the so-called “conservative” Jesuit theologian, Henri de Lubac S.J. and the ex-Jesuit Hans Urs von Balthasar for the ultimate demolition of pre-Vatican II theology.
Henri de Lubac, who went on to be Cardinal under Pope John Paul II in 1983, had earlier come under suspicion of the pre-Vatican II authorities (Holy Office) and, although not specifically named, was known to be the promoter of the heretical ideas denounced in the encyclicals Mystici Corporis (1943) and Humani Generis[1] (1950) of Pope Pius XII. These following words of the Pope, taken from Mystici Corporis, ... were directed in response to de Lubac’s yet unpublished essays; these had spread especially among his colleagues at the Jesuit Theologate, La Fourvière, and they were summed up in his controversial book, Surnaturel published in 1943. The thesis of these essays was that all men, according to their very nature, possessed one supernatural end with the graces sufficient to attain the Beatific Vision without need of the added gratuitous graces obtained through sacramental incorporation into the Mystical Body of Christ.
In June of 1950, as de Lubac himself said, “lightning struck Fourvière.”[3] He was removed from his professorship at Lyon and his editorship of Recherches de science religieuse, and he was required to leave the Lyon province. All Jesuit provincials were directed to remove three of his books – Surnaturel, Corpus Mysticum, and Connaissance de Dieu – because of “pernicious errors on essential points of dogma.” In 1962, well after the death of Pius XII, de Lubac wrote the book Teilhard de Chardin: The Man and His Meaning,[4] extolling the writings of the pantheist paleontologist whose notes he had studied along with his colleagues at La Fourvière. De Chardin himself had been censured and stripped of his teaching position already in 1925 for denying Original Sin and the existence of Hell. His writings are still officially proscribed,[5] but remain, however, immensely popular today among Jesuits and even within some of the highest ranking circles of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church. Following the above-mentioned books, in 1979–1981 de Lubac wrote an enthusiastic book on the 12th-century monk and mystic Joachim da Fiore, entitled La Posterité Spirituelle de Joachim de Flore. While this book, written in French, and as yet untranslated into English, remains relatively unknown to the general readership, most “conservative” commentators speak favorably of it as a denunciation of secular utopian dreams. Joachim da Fiore’s dream was, however, anything but materialistic. His vision was that there existed a divinely inspired historical progression, as noted by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: “From the Church visible to the Church of the spirit. From the historic Gospel to the eternal one. Not “anti-” but “trans-Catholic.”[6] According to Joachim, salvation history was divided into three periods: the Old Testament or age of the Father with its rigorous Mosaic law; the New Testament as the age of the Son embodied in the Roman Sacramental Church founded on Peter; and a final age of the Holy Spirit, a “ tempus amplioris gratiae,” a time of universal convergence and freedom from the law, symbolically identified with St. John the Evangelist, “the apostle of love.”[7] In this vein, de Lubac’s book speaks, enigmatically but more or less favorably, of an 1884 speech to the College de France by the Polish historian of Slavonic literature (occultist Martinist and Freemason) Adam Mickiewicz, on his vision of the future Church: This passage clearly relates to Joachim’s historical vision, taken up by Hegel and the pantheistic Freemasons Friedrich Schelling and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wherein, prior to the end of the world, there would be a final immanent “Age of the Holy Spirit” composed of absolute freedom wherein all would have direct access to the guidance of the “Holy Spirit” without the necessity of recourse to the doctrinal or moral teachings of Holy Mother Church. Is this not what Fr. Sosa is proposing? Adapted from here. [All red font emphasis- The Catacombs] |
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Post by Admin on Mar 14, 2018 14:33:31 GMT
They Think They've Won! Part III
HENRI DE LUBAC: A MASTER WHO HAD NEVER BEEN A DISCIPLE: HIS LIBERAL INCLINATIONS AND THEOLOGICAL DEFORMATION Let us now turn our attention to the father of the " new theology," Henri de Lubac, SJ. We shall begin with his philosophical formation, for this will clearly underscore his scornful attitude and contempt for authority, as well as for all the directives coming from Roman officials who were truly Catholic. All this took place even in those early years when the present day crisis in the Church was only being prepared. In order to combat the modernists' attacks against the Church, Saint Pius X had ordered the "immediate removal of any and all modernist (or suspected modernist) members of teaching staffs, in seminaries or houses for the formation of members of religious orders. He also commanded to be excluded from ordination "anyone who could even be in any way suspected of having the least attachment to doctrines (already) condemned by the church, as well as anyone favoring harmful novelties. ( Motu Proprio, November 18, 1907)" If these orders had been duly complied with, the young de Lubac would never have been ordained. He, himself, in his book, Memoire autour de mes oeuvres, (Jaca Books, Milan), acknowledges his sympathy or liking for " Catholic liberalism," which had already been repeatedly condemned by several Roman Pontiffs. This fondness for liberalism prompted him to "run after those turbulent systems and tendencies of modern thought" (P. Parente, La theologie, ed. Studium). Writing, for example, about Cardinal Couille, de Lubac states: "I glorified him since my adolescence on account of the memory of Monsignor Dupanloup, whose colleague he was" [1802-1878; he was one of the leaders of Catholic liberalism. - Translators note]. Msgr. Dupanloup, that "hero," or rather, the man who de Lubac had considered a "saint" in his youth, had in reality been a leading figure of liberal thought throughout Vatican Council I (Dec.8, 1869 -July 18, 1870). He left that Council before the end in order not to be present at the solemn proclamation of the dogma of Papal Infallibility, to which he was vehemently opposed. On the other hand, referring to Msgr. Lavallee, Rector of the Catholic Faculties of Lyon, de Lubac writes, This loathing, this horror for " Integrism" and "integrists" (i.e. those Catholics holding to Tradition in its entirety) will never leave de Lubac until the end of his life, as we shall presently see. Against the mounting modernist attacks, Saint Pius X, as well as all of his successors, had confirmed time after time the obligation of "religiously following the doctrine, method, and principles of Saint Thomas Aquinas" (Saint Pius X, Motu Proprio, cited. Also Pius XII, Humani generis, 1917 Code of Canon Law, 1366,2). But in the Jesuit centers of religious formation attended by de Lubac, little importance was attached to these orders coming from Rome. Indeed, they were held to be of no account, of no importance at all. Thus, it was in the course of his philosophical studies in Jersey (1920-1923), the young de Lubac would "passionately read ‘ L’Action’, ‘ La Lettre' [concerning apologetics], as well as other works written by [the modernist] Maurice Blondel (1864-1949). Though a praiseworthy exception, some of our professors whose prohibitions were usually severe, nevertheless permitted, without encouraging us however, to follow Maurice Blondel's philosophy" ( Memoire, p.10). Furthermore, on page 192 of the same book, he writes, Thus, it was that the young de Lubac, instead of receiving a serious and sound philosophical formation which constitutes that essential foundation for a serious and sound formation in Theology, suffered a serious deformation "thanks to overly-lenient professors and counsellors," through the avid reading of 'philosophers' contaminated with immanentism and subjectivism.
“MASTERS” WHO HAD NEVER BEEN STUDENTS
The damage caused by such a warped and corrupt 'formation' could only be as enormous as it was irreparable;
This fatal deficiency or lack of a solid philosophical and theological formation constitutes the basic or "original fault" clearly manifested by all "new theologians."
Henre Bouillard, a veteran of de Lubac's group of followers, offered the following "testimony" on the occasion of the inauguration of the Centre d'Archives Maurice Blondel (Archive Center of Maurice Blondel), given at Louvain, March 30-31, 1973:
Thus, it was with good reason that Father Garrigou-Lagrange, referring to de Lubac, de Brouillard and their like-minded friends said,
As always, the "innovators" (modernists), as Saint Alphonsus so aptly put it, "expect to be taken for masters, although they were never even disciples" (A.M. Tannoia. Vita; Book 2; chapter 55).
FALSE OBEDIENCE AND CONTEMPT FOR ROME
Inevitably, together with these modernist "novelties," the young de Lubac became filled with scorn for those "Roman" directives. "Amongst those [modernist] philosophers," he writes,
None of those three, however, was known for his orthodox views by members of the Holy Office nor, for that matter, by the Jesuit's headquarters in Rome (Ibid, p.13). And referring to Pierre Charles S.J., de Lubac writes,
Later on, de Lubac learned how to be really disobedient under the appearance of the most formal obedience. De Lubac explains,
All of this did not prevent "the most obedient sons of the Church" from speaking without such restraints or precautions in his lectures, for he set forth before those young ecclesiastics the very same modernist theses that he knew full well had often been condemned by the Church.
De Lubac learned this lesson very well and, in time, also learned to camouflage or conceal his real disobedience under the mask of a formal submission to the Church's teachings. Thus, it was not without good reason that Pope Pius XII, in Humani generis, warned that the "new theologians" were teaching modernistic errors "in a prudent and secretive manner...although they express themselves with prudence in their printed works, they nevertheless speak much more openly in their notes which they hand out in private, in their courses and conferences" (Ibid). All of this also holds true in the case of Von Balthasar; all of which serves to explain how the Catholic world, with Vatican II, finally "woke up" modernist without even so much as a groan (cf. Saint Jerome: "The world woke up Arian and groaned").
BLONDEL'S "INTELLECTUAL SYMBIOSIS"
Abandonment of Scholastic philosophy was the "new theology's" first step in its rejection of the Church's dogmatic Tradition. This step, as we have previously seen in our last issue, was made by Maurice Blondel. The second step, i.e., the repudiation of Traditional Catholic theology, was undertaken by Henri de Lubac. "Modernist theologians," wrote Saint Pius X, "criticize the Church because She most obstinately and most definitively refuses, both to submit or adapt or alter her dogmas to the opinions of [modern] philosophy." On the other hand, "having discarded the ancient and traditional theology, they (the modernist theologians) busy themselves in projecting a spotlight on a new theology faithful in all points to the frenzied delusions of the modernist philosophers" (Pascendi). In fact, all theology presupposes or involves a philosophy, and de Lubac's "new theology" presupposes or rests upon Blondel's "new philosophy."
On April 8, 1932, Henri de Lubac, S.J. wrote to Blondel informing him that henceforth it was possible to
Quite recently, the L'Osservatore Romano devoted an entire page in its presentation (naturally full of praise and approval) of a new book, Henri de Lubac: Theology and Dogma in History-The influence of Blondel, ed. Studium, Rome.
The author, A. Russo, an Italian student of the German Walter Kasper (who is also counted amongst "Those who think they have won"), writes that the exchange of letters between de Lubac and Blondel "offers us an example of an intellectual symbiosis rarely seen in the history of thought" (p.307). However, in reality, it is a repetition of an old story, "birds of a feather flock together."
Many things served to unite Blondel and de Lubac:
However, Blondel and de Lubac had never realized that Saint Thomas had purified a philosophy, able to be refined, since it was fundamentally sound; but not even a genius like Saint Thomas (compared to whom Blondel is but a mouse at the foot of a mountain) could ever hope to weed out and purify those sophisms of the modern philosophers.
There is no conflict between the Faith and right reason (Denzinger 1799), but there does exist a conflict between the Faith and modern "philosophy," since this modern "philosophy" has strayed so far from sound reason. Wishing to "re-read" or revise the Faith along the lines of modern "philosophy," simply means to dissolve or ruin the Faith in a pool of modernist errors, without, however, liberating "Christian thinking," nor liberating Christians themselves from the ostracism of modern culture. All of this concerns error, which is not susceptible of conversion. As far as the victims of error are concerned, it must be said that it is very difficult to lead those back to the Faith who, like the modern philosophers, are deceived in their principles. (Summa Theologica IIa IIae; Question 156, Article 3, ad 2). In any case, those who are mistaken in principle need to be corrected at the level of those principles. Establishing the erroneous principles of agnosticism, subjectivism, etc., as the foundation for a "new Christian philosophy," and, thus, a "new theology," will inevitably lead to equally erroneous conclusions, since it is impossible to draw true conclusions from false principles. Thus do we see that the "intellectual symbiosis" found between de Lubac and Blondel, could only lead to very unhappy results and not only for the two persons directly involved.
CONTEMPT FOR THE INFALLIBLE MAGISTERIUM
Above all else, de Lubac and Blondel shared the same contempt for the infallible Magisterium. This scorn becomes quite evident when we consider that they were upholding (or more precisely, insinuating and diffusing in a more or less clandestine manner) their "novelties;" not against a different theological school on genuinely debatable questions, but rather against the Church's infallible Magisterium, in matters already possessing a constant and infallible teaching, as well as repeated condemnations, by several Roman Pontiffs, of contrary views.
Blondel and de Lubac, considered the supernatural as being a fundamental and essential thing for man, a necessary perfecting of nature without which nature would find itself frustrated in its essential aspirations, and, therefore, in an abnormal state. As a consequence of this error, they denied the possibility of admitting, even by simple hypothesis, a state of "pure nature." In doing so, they found themselves in opposition to the universal and constant doctrine of the Church regarding the gratuity of the supernatural (in other words, the supernatural as a free gift from God). If the supernatural were an absolute necessity of nature, it would no longer be free or gratuitous; it would then be owed to nature. If it is thus due to nature, it would no longer be supernatural, but…natural. As a matter of fact, naturalism is the very foundation of modernism, just as it also is the basis of the "new theology."
The gratuity of the supernatural has been constantly taught by the Church and upheld or defended by her against the errors of Luther and Baius, who also erroneously appealed to Saint Augustine just as Blondel and de Lubac have now done. [N.B.- Michel de Bay (Baius), 1513-1589, was a Flemish theologian and Chancellor of Louvain University and a forerunner of Jansenism. Influenced by protestant views on original sin, predestination, and grace, his interpretation of Saint Augustine in the form of 76 propositions was condemned as heretical by Papal Bull in 1567.]
In his struggle against modernism, Pope St. Pius X again confirmed the constant teaching of the Church,
Catholic philosophers, apologists, and theologians can admit in human nature no more than "a capacity or a suitability" (obediential potency) to receive the supernatural. Exceeding these limits will only serve to dislodge the very keystone of Catholic theology, which will then inevitably bring about the ruin of everything else - as we see nowadays when the "supernatural" is no longer that of Blondel and of de Lubac, but has changed into the "anthropological aspect" and "anonymous Christians" of Karl Rahner (1904-1984); or into religious indifferentism or "ecumenism"; and into the secondary importance of the Church as the means of Salvation (Courrier de Rome; no.131 [321], pp.2-7. "Eulogy of Father Henri de Lubac, one of the fathers of Vatican II."). The encyclical Pascendi came out in 1907. In 1932, Blondel, in evident contempt for the Church's infallible Magisterium, was still brewing-up, or as he put it, "ripening" his heterodox concept of the supernatural. At the time of his death, de Lubac, once praised and exalted as a model of "obedience" and "fidelity" to the Church, now in open contempt for the Magisterium, prompted Blondel to set up his naturalized supernatural as the formation of his "new theology."
In the same way, when these two modernists present and broadcast a "new" notion of "truth" (vitalist and evolutionary), they are well aware that this same notion has long-since been condemned by Pope St. Pius X, in Pascendi (Denzinger, 2058 and 2080) and later by the Holy Office on December 1, 1924. Yet, they continued imperturbably and rashly on their path of self-delusion.
THE REFORMERS
What is really striking in the attitude of Blondel and de Lubac lies precisely in their way of passing themselves off as the indisputable criteria or models of truth against the age-old Magisterium of the Church: their cause is that of "authentic Christianity" (Blondel to de Lubac, 4-15-1945, and 3-16-1946, in A. Russo op.cit., p.373). They consider themselves to be prime movers of the return to the "most authentic tradition" (de Lubac in A. Russo op.cit., p.373), those who have brought new life back to the "ancient doctrine" (Ibid.). According to them, the "Christian thought" and the Church's Magisterium had necessarily deviated from that "ancient doctrine" in the course of the centuries, Pope Gregory XVI condemns this attitude, calling it "an absurd and most offensive allegation against the Church itself” (Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari vos). In his encyclical Pascendi, Pope St. Pius X gave a precise description to the modernists' warped conscience, which robs them of all hope of a possible repentance:
And again:
THE WEAPONS OF SCORN AND DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER
De Lubac, like Blondel (Courrier de Rome, April, 1993) makes use of the modernist tactics in order not to reveal himself and his doctrines too much so as to "remain within the ranks of the Church so that they may gradually transform the collective conscience" (Pascendi).
Despite all these tactics, the great Thomistic theologians of the day instantly understood exactly where his novelties would inevitably lead to. Immediately, the future Cardinal Journet noted that "de Lubac is no longer able to distinguish philosophy from theology" (Memoire, p.7), or even the natural from the supernatural, and later on takes him for a "fideist." (Ibid. p.20)
De Lubac had little difficulty in answering the "excellent" Charles Journet (ibid. pp.7 and 20), but such was not the case with the other Thomistic theologians. To their arguments, de Lubac will respond with the weapons of contempt and defamation of character.
In 1946, Father Garrigou-Lagrange sounded a solemn warning:
Moreover, in a personal letter, this great Dominican reminds Blondel, now quite advanced in age, of his grave responsibility before God. But in vain. De Lubac makes use of that same letter "to defame and discredit" its author, (A. Russo. op.cit.) and promptly intervenes in order to reassure the fretting, worried Blondel:
Finally, on July 28,1948, he reaches the point of speaking of Father Garrigou-Lagrange's "simplistic views on the absoluteness of truth" (Ibid. p.356). Whereas Pope Pius XII, on the 17th of September, 1946, personally intervening on this very same question, set forth those same "simplistic views" identical to those expressed by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange: views which have always been held by the Church regarding the absoluteness of truth. In a short but earth shattering, speech to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, Pope Pius XII had expressed his unmistakably clear views on
Sad to say, this Pontifical warning fell on deaf ears. Equally unheeded by de Lubac (meanwhile, Blondel had died) was the encyclical Humani generis (1950), reaffirming the immutability of truth while condemning outright de Lubac's "new theology of the supernatural." Commenting on this great encyclical, de Lubac wrote,
To the lucid, even brilliant, criticisms and warnings coming from his great adversaries (Garrigou-Lagrange, Lalsbourdette, Cordovan, de Tonquedec, Boyer, etc.) he could only answer by contempt, defamation and attacks on their good reputations.
Writing to his provincial on July 1, 1950, he pleads,
Further on, he speaks of "obstinate criticisms" of a group "bent on his destruction." (These are the same tactics used by "those who think they have won.") This reminds us of the unfair and insulting caricature of Father Garrigou-Lagrange published by Father Martini, S.J., who treated Pope Pius IX in the same manner in his book Vatican II- Bilan et Perspectives (Vatican II - An Appraisal and Prospects). De Lubac makes use of a "transverse" and identical system in the case of his companions of whom he sets himself up as defender. One example: whenever Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., who makes up his new theology through "science" (just as de Lubac makes up his new theology through "history"), is criticized for his theological errors, de Lubac steps forth crying that the real fault lies in
THE POST-CONCILLIAR CRISIS AND DE LUBAC'S "EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE"
Neither the warnings and official condemnations from the Roman Pontiffs nor the learned arguments of his eminent theological adversaries could serve to even scratch his self-assurance of being a "reformer." It would take all the dreadful disasters of the post-conciliar era to shake his unjustified self-confidence. Pope Paul VI, in his famous speech of June 30, 1972, on "the smoke of Satan in the Temple of God," gave us a good idea of the state of soul of de Lubac (and of Von Balthasar, for that matter), a speech also constituting the belated confession long in preparation and just as obstinately pursued:
The obvious impossibility of bridling or controlling the anti-authority protesters, together with the world-wide disasters heaping up around them, finally gave the lie to all the rosy illusions of the modern "reformers" and compelled de Lubac to make an "examination of conscience," as he has recorded in his book Memoire Autour De Mes Oeuvres, already quoted above. He remains, however, light years away from what could be called his conversion. At the very most, he admits that:
Amidst so many doubts coming to haunt him, there seems to be at least one that did not bother de Lubac's conscience; that is, that "integrism," the horror of which paralyzed him, was simply nothing other than Catholic orthodoxy, faithfully and infallibly kept and preserved by the Church, and that he scorned in order to disperse his efforts in "more or less peripheral fields" according to his "tastes or according to the events of the day" pretending all the while - which is even worse - to be a "master" in the Church without ever having been a disciple:
Hirpinus (to be continued)
From Courrier de Rome May 1993
Adapted from here [emphasis in the original].
[Red font emphasis - The Catacombs]
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