An Exchange between Terrence Tilley and Fr. Thomas Weinandy

Thanks for posting this response. I'm disappointed by Fr. Weinandy's rush-to-judgement. Theologians, especially those who work for episcopal conferences, must be more charitable as an example of Catholic discussion for all Catholics. Doing theology charitably requires having a sensitivity and presumption of good faith in your dialogical partner. What troubled me about Fr. Weinandy's article was he never tried to give Terrence Tilly the benefit of the doubt in ambiguous statements. He just assumed he was in error and that's that.

So very gracious in his assertive response. It speaks well of him.

excellent
lucid
to the point
irrefutable

unfortunately the Bishop´s house theologian has another agenda than the truth and patrons to please.

Professor Tilley's just mad that he was badly schooled by Fr. Weinandy. What a thorough take down the good priest did to this overblow "theologian."

Revoke Tilley's mandatum now!

FrMichael

do youthink fr. michael could actually understand what either terry or tom wrote....if cannot maybe they should take away his faculties..and BTW..those who accuse others of being overblown are usually do that from a high horse

In these days signs of hope in the Catholic Church seem to me to come far and few between. The response of Terrence W. Tilley was a sign of hope for me. I particularly liked his final words: "I hope that you will begin to emulate the theologian whose name graces the chair that I have agreed to take up in January, 2010. His practice was always to read others’ work thoroughly, interpret it charitably, and report it accurately—especially when he disagreed with them." The other sign of hope to me has been the response of the U.S. sisters to the vatican investigation. David Jackson

I have no idea who this Fr. Michael is but the tone of his post leaves me a bit disturbed.

Is this the attitude that a priest (if he is) should post.

Tilly's response to Fr. Wiendandy was in my opinion a calm, thoughtful reply.

The good priest's reply however shocked me.

I think there might again be resentment that a lay theologian has Avery Dulles's
chair.

"...it's nonetheless significant that the chief doctrinal advisor of the bishops took on one of America's leading theologians in such a public fashion."

Yes, indeed. And my compliments to both of them for NOT playing the CDF's backroom, unknown accuser, dragged on the carpet to Rome, threats of silencing tactics which characterized Cardinal Ratzinger's tenure in office.

It's almost like the good ole days of theological debates at the Sorbonne in 13th century Paris - without the vino and the violence, of course.

CHRIST, YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER- John Allen is right when he says: "Though the disputes involved are complex, as with Dupuis the heart of the matter is Christology." This is not a little academic spat between Fr. Weinandy and Terrence Tilley. It's about Jesus' dramatic question to his apostles: "Who do you say I am." I applaud Fr. Weinandy for challenging Tilley on such a fundamental and consequential issue as the identity of Jesus Christ. I have read both their presentations and find Weinandy's paper thorough and professional. Instead, I find Tilley's paper superficial and populist. Apparently, Tilley still hasn't made his peace with "Dominus Jesus." He is still regurgitating some of the stale theology on Christ that some theologians espoused twenty or thirty years ago. Fr. Weinandy put it well when he suggested that Tilley offered clever rhetoric masking “doctrinal ambiguity and error.” This is serious, very serious stuff

Theologians are NOT catechists!! Why can't the church get this straight???

Of course, the church is always frightened that their poor little uneducated sheep might be "confused" or "scandalized"...got news for you, many of us, especially women, have advanced degrees in theology...seems they're trying to create a tempest in a teapot to distract from the real scandal...the one that's cost us, the "poor little sheep" millions of our hard earned dollars. Where's the fiscal accountability of the bishops? Where's the moral accountability of the bishops? Now there's the real scandal!!

What are they talking about??

Why is it that the ordained clerical class is always convinced that they are THE MOST KNOWLEDGABLE. In this case, it is Fr. Weinandy who seems convinced that he knows more and has a greater understanding of what was meant to be conveyed. His over arching knowledge comes in spite of the fact that the speach was written by Professor Tilley and NOT Fr. Weinandy. When do all these "Ordained Clerics" go back to Scripture and recognize the fact that Jesus Christ WAS NOT ONE OF THEM? It was precisely the CLERICAL CLASS who had the most difficulty with This ORDINARY, NON-CLERICAL CLASS, CARPENTER/TEACHER. To put it bluntly, He was one of us, NOT ONE OF THEM!

Puffery... all of it.

Jesus taught the world all we need to know without an executive director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Doctrine or an Avery Cardinal Dulles Professor of Catholic Theology AND without the Pope's Secretariat of State, 9 Congregations, 3 Tribunals, 11 Pontifical Councils, the Synod of Bishops (which was supposed keep collegiality of Vatican II alive… may that rest in peace), 7 Pontifical Commissions, 9 Institutions connected with the Holy See, a Labor Office, 5 Pontifical Academies or a Swiss guard.

Picture Jesus, juxtaposed to all the men with fancy titles or in fancy robes and big hats, more or less sequestering themselves around big buildings or a big church in Rome and proclaiming doctrine to the world… and they all look rather silly or like the scribes of old. Add the sex scandals and the financial scandals, for which many of them have some responsibility… (thinking of Cardinal Law here)… and it is easy to understand why the thinking world does not take the Catholic Church seriously anymore.

All we need to remember is the Golden Rule and to have a preference for the poor. Everything else is snobbish puffery.

Having read Terry Tilley's several demanding books, I have come to admire greatly his attempts to move beyond several "impasses" between Roman magisterial theology and contemporary theologians' attempts to deal with difficult-to-explicate doctrinal formulae that come down to us over the centuries. Reading Fr Weinandy's article, I was reminded of something I once said, half-joking in the way one jokes when one is deadly serious: "There is a profound difference, I said, "between a theologian who speaks of problems of continuing to use terms like 'homoousios,' 'three "personae in una natura'," and 'transubstantiation' when he or she is seeking a better way to unfold the mystery illuminated by the terms and someone who criticizes these terms because she or he has problems with the 'reality' they point to."

What am I getting at? That the best theologians (think of Congar, Lonergan, Rahner, and Tilley) can be complex but their complexity seeks to explicate mystery not explain it away. Fr Weinandy makes a profound mistake if he thinks Terry Tilley's agenda is one of explaining away mystery. In similar fashion, not so very long ago, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith made profound mistakes in their critiques of Fathers Jon Sobrino and Jacques Dupuis.

In his books Terry Tilley attempts to make sense of the nature of living Tradition, especially around the question who Jesus the Christ "is" in our day. To do this he re-reads what we know of the history of Jesus after two hundred years of historical analysis of New Testament texts and the intertestamental period in which the "great Church" came to realize that Christian faith involved saying say both that Jesus was and is fully God and fully human.

Tilley's books are not catechetical, but they are the sort of thing that the people who write catechisms ought to be reading.

I have a great deal of sympathy with Weinandy's overarching problem, which I take to be "catechetical": How does the Church teach the fullness of revelation (for which Scripture is the norm and doctrinal formulae a guide to interpretation) while there is such a cacophany of theological voices preoccupied with now this and now that detail and seemingly so little concerned with their ecclesial vocation of teaching as an integral part of the church?

Alas, as long as the present Catholic cultural wars persist, one theologian's vision of what is integral to faith and Christian life is likely to clash with another's. Bishops in this context should be figures who personify our deeper unity in Christ and who call us back to the hierarchy of Truth in a form of rhetoric that will make us willing to gather around the living Christ, apart from whom there is no Christian life.

Truth be told however, too many bishops seem more like lawyers demanding exact conformity with propositions than teachers expounding the mystery of God made human and a live-giving Spirit who leads us more deeply into the heart of the great Creator-Father-Mother who is both closer to us than we are to ourselves and the transcendent ground of a 15-billion-year old universe. And too many theologians, truth be told, seem more interested in persuing personal research interests and idiosyncratic ideas than in witnessing to the underlying ground of our unity in Christ and the Spirit.

But, to return to my main point, Terry Tilley is a theologian who -- though his writing demands much of the reader -- seeks to explicate mystery, not explain it away. Although, as a friend of Tilley and as an editor now retired from full-time work at Orbis, which has published Tilley's books (though not his editor at Orbis), I may seem self-interested in saying so, I think most educated Christians, especially Catholics, will benefit from reading his books, particularly his most recent, "The Disciples' Jesus." Read his last book and then N. T. Wright's "The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is" (Intervarsity, 1999).

Tilley does not solve the problem of a hierarchy that appears legalistic and more interested in rigid adherence to doctrinal formulae, nor does he find a way to make Catholic theologians in this country, as a body, more conscious of the ecclesial nature of their vocations. But he does help us get closer to the experience of the early disciples of Jesus. But Wright -- the Anglican Bishop of Durham -- shows us what it would be like to have more teaching bishops, who are well versed in the sort of complexity Tilley attempts to bring into relief.

Might is right and right is might and charity's got nothing to do with it. Welcome to the Catholic Church of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Thank you Fr. Weinandy

I am grateful for the exchange. If Fr. Weinandy did what Dr. Tilley accuses him of doing (badly misrepresenting his views), Fr. W would be doing Dr. T an injustice. But my reading of the exchange is different from Tilley's. Fr. W. does not say that that these conclusions--Adoptionism, disrespect for the Christological Councils, dissent from the Magisterium, etc.--represent Tilley's theological corpus. Rather, they are conclusions reasonable to draw given the content of Tilley's Presidential Address. This too is my conclusion. Tilley's address was at best badly amgiguous. Fr. Weinandy did us a great service by drawing attention to this ambiguity.

Dr. B

Do I sense in Father Weinany's response and those like someone named Fr. Michael that they have a certain inquisitionist attitude?

Is that what we get from church officialdom today, absolutely no tolerance for dissent or disagreement? I fear it is so.

Over the years, I have learned that there is so little value in certitude and so great value in openness to hear what other learned people have to say.

I thank Prof. Tilley first for his scholarship and secondly, perhaps more importantly, for his courage to express concerns about the state of the church.

I am so deeply concerned myself that sometimes I dispair in loneliness.

There is one comment in Prof. Tilley's response that is very important to most Catholics. "... unless, of course, one expects all believers to have graduate degrees in theology. ..."

I would like to think that I paid pretty good attention during my 17 (out of 19) years in Catholic schools and have read a bit during my 73 years but I have no idea what this 'public fight' is about.

For most Catholics this needlessly public 'back and forth' is not informative nor productive.

Prof. Tilley's response would indicate that Fr Weinandy did not choose to privately communicate with the professor to 'clarify' statements - nor to provide him with the opportunity/courtesy to issue a 'correction.'

Once more all most Catholics see is more Power from Rome (or in this case, D.C.) - while some Cardinals are being skewered in the NYTimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07mon2.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

"Putting pedifile priests before those assaulted" is something that every Catholic understands and abhors.

Thank you for giving links to the journal and Tilley's talk. Then one can decide for oneself after reading primary sources and not fill these comment pages with useless "prattle."

Dr. Tilley's response to Fr. Weinandy reflects Tilley's graciousness and restraint, not to mention his excellent scholarship. Rather than agree with Fr. Michael's assessement of Tilley as an "overblow [sic] 'theologian'", I would argue that Tilley's work tends by its richness to blow away those who listen carefully.

On a personal note, having worked closely with Terry Tilley during his years on the CTSA board, I have learned that no one has greater devotion to the Catholic church nor to doing theology with care and compassion than he. If it is true that the fruits of the Spirit are "charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness...." then he and his work are certainly of the Spirit. I shall withhold judgment on his critics.

Dee Christie

I read Fr. Tiley's Presidential Address with hope of getting a new insight into Christology. He doesn't propose any new theory or "model," just says in multiple ways that we should allow pluralism. OK, but what theory does he personally want to add to the pluralistic "mix"?

And see how they love each other... yes. They are Christians.

What's most unfortunate about this interchange is that two ranking theologians choose to bicker about linguistics and etymology when literally millions are leaving the church because they can find no use for it in their lives. With credentials such as both these men can boast, why is it they don't apply their intellectual might to rescuing the disaffected? What's more important, showing off your knowledge of ancient Greek and Latin to one another, or showing the rest of us how Jesus Christ lives among us?

Father Weinandy is just mad that he was badly schooled by Professor Tilley. What a thorough take down the good theologian did to this overblown "Capuchin".

Revoke Weinandy's mandatum now! And silence his partisans like Fr. Michael!

We take exception to John Allen’s (Dec. 4, 2009) characterization of the CTSA as a “left-leaning” organization. As the largest learned society of Catholic theologians in the world, our membership spans the theological spectrum. We reflect the variety of interests and encompass the range of theological views found in the Church today. Among our members are several U.S. bishops, as well as those who serve as consultants to their doctrinal committee (including Fr. Weinandy). Thus Allen’s representation of the CTSA is not only inaccurate and misleading; it borders on irresponsible.

There is no theological “litmus test” for our membership. Other than our commitment to and respect for the Catholic faith, our common conviction is that there is a legitimate, necessary, and important distinction between “catechesis” and “theology.” Catechesis is the process of passing on to present and future generations accepted formulations of beliefs, teachings, and practices. Theology is the critical examination of the strengths, limitations, and adequacy of such beliefs and practices – a service carried out for the sake of the faith community.

Given this task of critically examining the faith, it should come as no surprise that theologians have disagreements with one another. Anyone with a small acquaintance with Church history understands that theological disputes are the usual course of business, and very often the Church’s path to the truth. Theological differences are not “news.” Theological discussion, even vigorous disagreement, is part of the service that theologians offer to the Church its quest for a deeper understanding of the faith.

It is when we confuse theology for catechesis that theological debates can seem unusual, illegitimate, or threatening to church unity.

So, if theological disagreement is not “news,” and the characterization of the CTSA as“left” or “liberal” inaccurate, then what’s the point of Mr. Allen’s story? To suggest that theological disputes are somehow hints of chasms, or harbingers of magisterial intervention, is speculation, punditry, maybe even gossip – but not journalism.

Bryan Massingale
President, CTSA

Mary Ann Hinsdale
President-Elect, CTSA

John Thiel
Vice President, CTSA

I appreciate Professor Tilley's response. I don't actually mind when the bishop types/vatican types disagree and challenge - it is afterall part of the game - and well played it ontinues to be instructive. Sadly, there are people like our anonymous fiend "father michael" who just name call and threatn. That would be at best sill. At worst it would be beneath the dignity of clerical office. We modern types simply are not as good as the "ancient ones" of holding two ideas in our heads at the same time. Sadly, we threaten to use tools that have routinely embarrassed the Church. Holy Inquistion was a bad idea centuries ago. It hasn;t improved any today. Explaining the problem from Church stand point and allowing discourse to illuminate - would be more in keeping with the dignity of our baptisms. And honestly - if anyone should complain I really would have it come from Benedict XVI himself - he is by far the best theologian to come out of the Vatican in a long long time. I expect he could have made his point without childish or petulent scarcasm.

Linda Ann Ballard, OSC
Woburn, MA