Fr. Richard McBrien, Author of Catholicism
The book Catholicism, authored by Fr. Richard McBrien of the University of Notre Dame, is currently being used for at least one section of Boston College’s “Exploring Catholicism” course, which puports to be an introduction to Catholic theology. Fr. McBrien has been the subject of controversy many times over, but is perhaps best known for his work Catholicism, and the many criticisms it has received from the United States Bishops’ Conference (USCCB).
In a 1996 review published by the National Council of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, the book is accused of a number of errors and ambiguities. First, the article accuses Catholicism of “Inaccurate or misleading statements,” specifically regarding the lives of Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. With regards to Christ’s impeccability, Fr. McBrien is said to imply a “Nestorian or adoptionist Christology” by insinuating that Christ was capable of sin. Such an assertion would, if followed to its logical conclusion, result in a denial of the hypostatic union of two natures (divine and human) in the one person of Jesus. Additionally, the Committee accuses Fr. McBrien of allowing room for doubt over Christ’s virgin birth, an article of Faith which has been held as Church teaching going back to the first century. He treats Mary’s perpetual virginity in a similar manner, enumerating the standard objections to the doctrine, all of which have been adequately refuted for centuries.
The book is also said by the USCCB to present an excessive amount of theological opinions without giving his readers sufficient direction towards Catholic tradition and doctrine, placing historically mainstream, accepted theologians alongside those “decidedly on the fringes” without making distinctions. Thereby, Fr. McBrien overemphasizes plurality within Catholic theology, and presents an excessively broad, all-encompassing picture which is bound to only confuse those who do not possess a proper understanding of Magisterial authority.
There is indeed room for disagreement among Catholics with regard to issues which have by no means been made clear by dogmatic pronouncements, or which are concerned with matters of discipline and prudential judgment rather than doctrine. Such room for legitimate pluralism can be seen, for example, in the debate over whether God would have become incarnate had Adam not sinned. St. Thomas Aquinas claims that he would not have, while Blessed Duns Scotus and St. Francis de Sales held the opposite view; none of them were ever declared heretics. However, Fr. McBrien seems to go further, and apply plurality to such things as contraception and women’s ordination. The Church has clearly made known the Catholic position on these issues, as well as a myriad of others, and Catholicism flirts with a denial of the Magisterium’s God-given authority when it tries to justify dissenting viewpoints on these clearly defined teachings.
Lastly, by overemphasizing and distorting the concept of doctrinal development, the text is said to lead one to embrace modern thought and philosophy with excessive enthusiasm, and thereby to denigrate the patristic and medieval periods, along with all the important contributions coming from those eras. It should be noted that to excessively romanticize and idealize these periods is quite wrong as well: every era in Church history has had its pros and cons.
Nonetheless, to assert with Fr. McBrien that due to the advances of our time, “the time for an anthropological recasting of all the traditional doctrines is at hand,” is to abandon adherence to the authentic concept of development of doctrine, and to espouse instead the modernist idea of “evolution of dogma”, so adamantly condemned by the popes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Doctrine, in Catholic teaching, can develop in much the same way as a seed develops into a tree.
What is implicit in the beginning is made explicit over time. For an example, take the development of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. If later teaching, however, contradicts earlier teaching and becomes something wholly different from what it once was, this is not authentic development, no matter how cleverly it might be phrased. And once something does become dogma, or is officially taught by a pope or council, it reaches a sort of doctrinal end point, and can take on no more development or reinterpretation (or, as Fr. McBrien suggests, “recasting”) from this point.
Obviously, not everything in Fr. McBrien’s book is wrong, and it could possibly be of use in some ways. However, there are still obvious issues with using the book to instruct students in core teachings of the Faith, which “Exploring Catholicism” is designed to do. Many students in these classes are people trying to live Catholic lives, though without significant theological knowledge. If Catholicism is being posited as a manual of the Catholic Faith, many will likely adopt the neo-modernist outlook that pervades most of the work. As long as this is the case, students’ lives will be grounded not in Christ but in the spirit of the age, and the Catholic identity of Boston College will continue to be stripped away.
Related Articles:
- Relativism and Catholicism One of the most important jobs of this...
- Catholicism 101: The Seminary St John’s Seminary, located within BC’s newly acquired...
- Catholicism 101: The Easter Triduum Easter Sunday, the most holy day of the...
- Catholicism 101: The Meaning of Lent Beginning on Wednesday of last week, Catholics began...
