NEWS THIS WEEK.
The Vatican announced that St. John Henry Newman will be proclaimed the newest "Doctor of the Church." Newman, a convert from Anglicanism, was a brilliant preacher and writer even before his conversion in the 1840s.
With several fellow Anglicans, he founded the influential "Oxford Movement" to defend and restore the doctrinal integrity of the Anglican Church, threatened in a number of ways. Then, as he reflected more deeply, he dramatically, and controversially, converted to Catholicism. Newman suffered greatly for this decision, losing many friends. Some never spoke to him again.
Newman's greatest contribution to scholarship and to Catholic thought, arguably, was his reflection on the concept of doctrine itself: that the Church's teaching, being true, cannot change, but, that that teaching may and should "develop" over the decades and centuries, as the Church faces new challenges from science and technology, and inevitably must teach on those new matters by "developing" fundamental teachings from earlier times.
Here we come to an essential point: doctrine is supposed to "develop" but... not change. And it precisely the lure of the modern world, and of modern science -- this "Modernist" time in our history -- that causes many to conclude, falsely, that Church doctrines must change, in order to keep up with modern times. Newman never supported or defended this. He always was meticulous in his search for the "roots" of doctrine in the Scriptures and in the teaching of the Church Fathers. This is the correct way for the "development" of Catholic teaching to occur, Newman argued.
However, for a century and a half, there has been a more radical understanding of "development of doctrine" which is known as "evolution of dogmas." This view, mixed in with philosophical currents such as vitalism, immanentism and historicism, was at the heart of the modernist controversy during the papacy of Pius X, and this view was condemned by Pius X in his 1907 encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis.
Although modernist intellectuals such as George Tyrrell and Alfred Loisy did at times cite the influence of Newman's ideas on their thinking, their goal was, it seems, not so much to understand the ancient roots of Church doctrine, but to make that doctrine change meaning, according to their own ideas, in keeping with the liberal spirit of the times. This is the temptation that a number of progressive Catholic theologians today are drawn toward.
G.K. Chesterton characterized the development of doctrine as follows:
When we say that a puppy develops into a dog, we do not mean that his growth is a gradual compromise with a cat; we mean that he becomes more doggy and not less. Development is the expansion of all the possibilities and implications of a doctrine, as there is time to distinguish them and draw them out. (G.K. Chesterton, Ch I, St Thomas Aquinas, 1933).
The fact that Pope Leo chooses now -- as one of the first acts of his pontificate -- to call attention to the thoughtful and faithful teaching of St. John Henry Newman, and to honor him with the very special title of "Doctor of the Church," suggests that Leo is quite well aware of this "modernist" temptation, and wishes to draw those in danger of being seduced by the idea of the possible "evolution" of doctrine back to the orthodox position proclaimed by Newman: that doctrine may develop, but not change, not "evolve."
For this reason, this decision of Leo takes on the character of an important "cornerstone" in the new Pope's emerging effort to confront and guide the debate over doctrine in modern times, a debate which is certain to be intense during this pontificate.
With the model of Newman's holiness, wisdom, fidelity and courage, Leo is providing us with a model for us to keep ever-present as we proceed forward in the doctrinal battles of these times.
From an article by Dr Robert Moyniham.
