Just two for this week.
- Pater Edmund Waldstein, “Religious Liberty and Tradition” (I, II, and III; IV will be available on Saturday, January 3), The Josias – Have you, like me, spend countless nights tossing and turning over how to reconcile Dignitatis Humanae (DH) with the Catholic Church’s pre-conciliar social magisterium? Pater Edmund Waldstein no longer does, and he explains why in an excellent four-part series for The Josias. As I noted previously, the pieces raise some interesting questions. Hopefully they manage to stir up an intelligent debate as well.
- John Lamont, “Attacks on Thomism,” Rorate Caeli – After digesting Waldstein’s thoughts on DH, be sure to click over to Lamont’s outstanding essay on the 20th C. insurgency against Thomism in the name of “restoring” and/or “updating” Catholic theology. Although some of the heirs of the so-called new theology continue to insist on the nice narrative whereby a few heroic Jesuits (and a Dominican or two) helped free the Church from the dark ages of manualism, rationalism, and fuddy-duddy-ism, the real story, like so many revolutionary tales, is noticeably messier. Did the new theology deserve to triumph over 19th/20th C. Thomism? As more light is shone upon this period in theological history, answering that question in the affirmative becomes increasingly difficult.
