UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
One of the significant stories about the second Vatican Council conspicuously ignored by many contemporary “traditionalists” was the way in which it rehabilitated theologians who had previously been silenced by the leaders of the Catholic church. Some of the leading lights of European Catholic theology in the period prior to Vatican II–these included Karl Rahner, Yves Congar, Marie-Dominique Chenu, and Henri de Lubac among others–were at various points prior to the council forbidden to write about a number of topics. Only to find themselves rehabilitated by the council and, in the case of most of the preceding theologians, invited to the council as theological periti or experts, whose theology laid the foundation for the council . . . .
This history is in my mind today as I think about Benedict’s resignation, and as I note how frequently people (Catholics and non-Catholics alike) commenting on Benedict’s resignation are referring to the abuse crisis in the Catholic church. Whether the abuse crisis is directly responsible for Benedict’s choice to resign the office of the papacy, it looms large in the background of that choice, and has to have been a huge weight on Benedict’s shoulders throughout his papacy.
As I think about this, it strikes me that, at this point in the history of the Catholic church, survivors of childhood abuse by priests are playing a role similar to the role played at Vatican II by theologians who were condemned and marginalized prior to the second Vatican Council. These theologians were treated as enemies of the church, only to be recognized at a later point as prophetic thinkers whose theology was absolutely indispensable to the fruitful engagement between Catholic ideas and values and the modern world.
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