I have updated this slightly, in the hopes of taking out some of my sauce directed at George Weigel. He has striven, of course, through his long life to be a faithful son of the Church. And, if I were in a different mood, and he were attacked by the Trads, I would all the studden start defending him with this much spice. But, I nonetheless am disappointed with his characterizations of Garrigou-Lagrange… Thus, what I say stands. Few will read it anyway… I merely wanted to respond to an interlocutor online. It spilled over into immense vexation. Remember, most of this is stream of consciousness…. And not much edited.
I lost my patience today regarding something the recent text by George Weigel related to the anniversary of Vatican II. It was mostly because of its ignorant half truth (=lies) about Garrigou-Lagrange. I get a bit testy. Oh well. It doesn’t really matter, but here it is for the record. It’s all so funny. I am actually a pluralist who will defend Eastern prerogatives. But, I am also a Thomist and know way too much about Garrigou’s history and work not to be angered that the ol’ Grandee of the Pope St. John Paul era finds it necessary to continue propagating these things. I actually want Communio people and even very conservative Thomists to get along. But I cannot accept this kind of thing without at least saying something.
These remarks are totally off the cuff on a day when I really had no time to do it… No editing, just raw Appalachian Thomist Ranting.
The full quote, which was sent to me (which I then looked at in its immediate context):
Thomas’s theology, Chenu argued, ought not be reduced to a closed system in theological manuals. If the Church reappropriated the Christ-centered, sacramental, and contemplative or mystical elements of Thomas’s thought and spirituality, settled truths could be presented in a fresh light that was more suitable for proclaiming Christ and Christian truth to modern skeptics. [fn. 33] The Neo-Scholastic Thomistic thought that dominated Roman theology from the Modernist crisis to the Second Vatican Council was exemplified by Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP: the “Sacred Monster of Thomism,” as he was dubbed. Garrigou was a stalwart defender of the deductive or syllogistic style of theology and the precise vocabulary it employed, seemingly convinced that neither could be changed without grave damage being done to the truths of Catholic faith. (To take one example: Garrigou criticized the doctoral dissertation of a young Polish priest named Karol Wojtyła because the Pole had not used the term “divine object” of God, preferring to speak of the more personal nature of the human encounter with God. [fn. 34]) Garrigou also played a considerable role in the Roman critique of ressourcement theology and was thought to have been a driving force behind Pius XII’s cautionary 1950 encyclical on what the Pope deemed “false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine,” Humani Generis, which took particular aim at the work of Henri de Lubac. Long interested in mysticism and the Christian call to holiness, Garrigou was not merely a theological logic-chopper. His identification of the ressourcement movement with Modernism was misplaced, however, and Garrigou played no significant role in the preparation of the Second Vatican Council or at the Council itself. Nonetheless, a post-conciliar Church would eventually find use for the finely honed distinctions of the Neo-Scholasticism he embodied, although it was some thirty years after his death in 1964.[fn. 35] ”
Sentence 1
Thomas’s theology, Chenu argued, ought not be reduced to a closed system in theological manuals.
Commentary
Setting aside concerns regarding Chenu, who is a mixed bag—though, it should be remembered: (a) Garrigou had wanted Chenu to be his successor at the Angelicum; (b) that when the whole affair at the Saulchoir broke down in the late 1930s / early 1940s, from what I understand Garrigou tried to be moderate. What is more, on the latter point, he wasn’t alone in his concerns—merely note Pietro Parente’s own remarks about Chenu, but also the closely related articles by Marie Rosaire Gagnebet. Not unrelated, too, were similar concerns by Charles Boyer, SJ. (But the latter two were also arguing against other authors too.). I’m willing to be disabused of this claim that Garrigou was not uncharitable toward Chenu in the affair at the Saulchoir—though such disabusing must be based upon documentary evidence, not Fr. Chenu’s later bickering to people like Gilson.
Moreover, the genre of “manual” is slippery. And this slipperiness is used as a cudgel. There are multiple genres that were written by Latin theologians:
Manuals: Textbooks for seminary formation, often arranged in a very summary thesis / proof format. Garrigou regularly would critique this significant weakness of manuals. See here for where I have gathered a florilegium of his remarks to this end:
https://www.philosophicalcatholic.com/quotations/2022/10/12/florilegium-of-garrigou-quotes-on-the-manuals
Theological treatises (Tractatus de…): Generally broken up like the treatises in St. Thomas’s Summa, or perhaps something modeled on later Latin scholastic breakouts of theological topics. These would sometimes share aspects of the manual style. Nonetheless, they represented quasi-monographs in scholastic style, dealing with a given topic. Franzelin was not a Thomist, but think of his works. Or, think of Billot, again not really a Thomist, but yet again scholastic monographs, not teaching manuals. Or, think of Emmanuel Dorozo’s 11,000 pages on the sacraments—recognized WIDELY for their mastery, even by those who disagreed with him on points. They were Latin Catholic theological monographs. What is more, even things like Doronzo’s “manual” set on dogmatics (which was unfinished) is like a truly MA / PhD level textbook. If such things exist for medical school, why not for theology?
Commentaries: Many of Garrigou’s works are actually more like shorter-form commentaries, not manuals. Fr. John Saward once said this to me (positively, as he had by that point undergone his theological transition), and it totally opened up what it was that RGL (and others too) were doing in text like this. It seems like splitting a hair, but it’s not unimportant to distinguish genres.
Thus, the term “manual” is thus used as cudgel to daze those who don’t dare look further into things but, instead rest upon the authority of someone like Chenu, so as to tell oneself that all was dark in an age before. It’s far more complicated. (Also, as an aside, there is a true and real sense in which one can call the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas a manual. As I age, I see the weakness of certain structural points in the ST (and yet also see other aspects to its particular grandeur, which is so very much that of its own author’s mind). But I think it would be insanity—especially for Latin Catholics—to throw away the ST just because it was a quasi-manual.
There was, yes, a tendency of Latin Scholastics to talk among themselves in their neat little bubble. And this tended to make Thomism feel closed up. And yet, read Marie Michel Labourdette’s response to this kind of claim by the SJs he was dialoguing with during the Nouvelle Théologie crisis, and you’ll see that he and the Toulouse OPs didn’t think of Thomism as closed. As for Garrigou, it’s a mixed bag—he’s an older Thomist, yes. And yet, if you pay heed to him—and here, sir, I’ll venture that I’ve read more of him than Weigel—you see all sorts of ways in which he was an open-minded thinker. (A huge amount of Maritain is Garrigouvian, even into the former’s old age.) Just because petulant young men in the 30s-50s were frustrated with that old man—as I am now (not so young anymore) frustrated with Weigel—doesn’t make their frustrations COMPLETELY correct. Imagine if I called Weigel (WHICH I HAVEN’T): Overly-optimistic boomer Catholic on the dole of the mainstream and totally detached from the actual state of things, claiming a springtime when we live in the dying days of fall for this season of history. Boy oh boy do I want to say that about him (which many in my generation do), but I actually think it would too simplistic. I would ask only the same level of reservation regarding those who came before Chenu, the latter of whom was himself also human and given to licking his wounds with nasty invective.
Sentence 2
If the Church reappropriated the Christ-centered, sacramental, and contemplative or mystical elements of Thomas’s thought and spirituality, settled truths could be presented in a fresh light that was more suitable for proclaiming Christ and Christian truth to modern skeptics.
Commentary
“Reappropriated” these elements. So sad that they were lost. Garrigou’s generation—and that of Gardeil, whom Chenu and Congar appropriated to themselves unjustly, unless they want to admit that they should recognize how much they owed to Garrigou (Congar even owed his OP vocation to Garrigou’s preaching)—was already well into the renewal of moral and spiritual theology which involved all the “reappropriations” spoken of by Weigel. Everyone thinks of Pinckaers on the question of Moral Theology. And yet, I have shown in various articles, that you find all of this a generation earlier. In a sense, Fr. Pinckaers is rather unimpressive in comparison – nothing new but only felicitously easier narrative approaches to the same content. But, consider Marmion’s immensely profitable theology of life in Christ. Very early in the 3 Ages, Garrigou recognizes and recommends this as of immense profit to one’s understanding of the spiritual life. Moreover, the contemplative / mystical life was at the center of Garrigou’s many fights in spiritual theology.
What is more, Garrigou wrote for his age against the skeptics of his age. This is clear in his more philosophical works. That he wasn’t writing as Chenu wanted in the 1930s-50s is a sidelight. Garrigou did not fight such engagement. (More later when I respond to Larry Chapp.) Many “neo-Thomists” (more on this term to Larry below) engaged precisely in this. It is WAY too variegated a world just to act as though they did not. There were many other “conservative Thomists” whom Chenu didn’t like either, though they too were involved more than mere repetition of little lisping words out of manuals in ecclesiastical Latin (as Chenu—and Weigel implicitly through him) makes them out to be.
On the sacraments and the liturgy, yep, they were often weak, but even here, someone like Marmion shows a real engagement with the liturgical movement (and stout defense sometimes against wrongheaded SJ criticisms of the OSBs on this score).
Sentence 3
The Neo-Scholastic Thomistic thought that dominated Roman theology from the Modernist crisis to the Second Vatican Council was exemplified by Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP: the “Sacred Monster of Thomism,” as he was dubbed.
Commentary
The dubbing first. This was François Mauriac, and it was not some kind of universally held titling of Garrigou. Many, especially the younger, didn’t like him (though…. he also had many loving younger students, as you will see if you read the _Angelicum_ in memoriam remembrances of him). But the use of this title by Weigel is rhetorical garbage unless it is qualified.
Also, more on “Neo-scholastic Thomistic” thought later to Larry. First of all… there were still great Suarezians during that period, even if less so than in earlier days. Moreover, there were many sorts of Thomism, not all as Neo as others. But more on that to Larry below.
(And, to be clear, I personally don’t like the kind of Thomism-über-Alles attitude of the age. As a Ruthenian Catholic, even though I am myself a Thomist, I am a believer in a more nuanced view of pluralism. But, I refuse to rest my laurels on epithets like Weigel.)
Sentence 4
Garrigou was a stalwart defender of the deductive or syllogistic style of theology and the precise vocabulary it employed, seemingly convinced that neither could be changed without grave damage being done to the truths of Catholic faith.
Commentary
Again, first of all, my authority on this next point is infinitely more than Weigel’s, I would guess. I believe I probably know RGL’s corpus much, much, much better than he. I have interacted with it immensely these past 7 years of basically donated translation time. I have had to know his various writings well and also have personally translated over one million words by Garrigou-Lagrange, let alone by others in his orbit.
Garrigou favored precise vocabulary. He was very conservative about it. He recognized some variability in it historically, and even was well aware that in some cases it took hundreds of years to get to just the right vocabulary for defining dogmas. (He wasn’t a “fixist” on dogmatic development. That would be such an ignorant position. When Weigel—or anyone else—can come and talk about the great debate between Schultes / Garrigou and Marin-Sola, then I will bother to argue with them on this point. Until they can, then they have nothing worthwhile to say about Garrigou’s position on dogmatic development and theological vocabulary. There are interesting questions here, and Garrigou doesn’t have all the answers. But let the knowing argue, not those who all too quickly like to yet again repeat caricatures. )
This deserves a paragraph by itself: I think we have learned what happens when one isn’t sufficiently conservative about terminology. One need not be an ahistorical fixist merely to have the sound insight that one should tread carefully with terminology. Ah, grave damage was done by being too fast and loose. And I have very Communion friendly friends who recognize this fact too.
Yes, Garrigou does engage in the scholastic style of argument analysis – especially in sections where he answers objections. But he does not at all place this at the center of his writing style. When people like Weigel (or Tracey Rowland) say this, they either show that they are ignorant of his actual writings (even very scholastic ones, mind you) or are acting in bad faith for the sake of their particular party. Let them and God discern which is the case.
But, I can tell you—and boy could I cover you with citations—that Garrigou actually was making critical remarks about “merely deductive” theology. It is SO regular on his pen that it’s almost annoying: the most important aspect of theology is understanding the great principles of each mystery and to meditate upon that. He will say this in so many contexts. But, guess what, unlike many today, he can explain the difference between such an argumentative structure and objectively inferential deduction. When Weigel can explain that, then I’ll listen to what he says about “the deductive / syllogistic” style of theology. Otherwise, let him go read more Garrigou. Then read others in the era. And then come back and tell me if his characterization is fair or if it is merely helpful to his particular party.
One further point—read his _The Sense of Mystery_ and tell me if you would merely opine what Weigel says. And if Weigel’s excuse is that he didn’t have time to read it (and I would presume a man of his stature could have long ago read it in French), then he shouldn’t mouth off about Garrigou with such false implications…. (No matter what he says about Garrigou’s interest in mysticism below, he still is slanderously wrong, retelling the same tale that basically has been in the mainstream since the 60s. Garrigou isn’t the answer to everything—sorry folks—but he’s by far not isomorphic with this sort of simplistic characterization. And, there is NO excuse for someone of Weigel’s connections and station of life not to correct his knowledge on such things. )
Sentence 5
(To take one example: Garrigou criticized the doctoral dissertation of a young Polish priest named Karol Wojtyła because the Pole had not used the term “divine object” of God, preferring to speak of the more personal nature of the human encounter with God.)
Commentary
I do not know what he cites here—this quote was sent to me by a friend. I’ve seen this claim, and I’m going to take it on its face. The dissertation was passed. We should know the exact sense of the concern. If someone denies that one can ever speak of God in the technical theological terminology of object, then one will led to say some rather astounding things not merely about scholastic theology, but also even Dei Filius. Here, I cite something by Fr. Labourdette, to be seen in full in the book I have coming out with Jon Kirwan next year:
“We are quite fine with the fact that Fr. Daniélou speaks using a different vocabulary than our own, though we still lament the fact he so clearly is anxious to enter into the vocabulary of contemporary philosophy without ourselves benefitting from the same effort at [intellectual] sympathy. However, does he not know that the notion of object, in theological language, excludes neither the “spirit of religion,” nor, as he says later on, “the sense of mystery,” (“Les orientations présentes,” 16), and that to say that our intellect has as its objects the very mysteries of faith is not only an expression of this “rationalized theology,” namely, “neo-Thomism,” but, indeed, is an expression consecrated by the solemn teaching of the [First] Vatican Council in statements which certainly have neither the intent nor the result of emptying the mystery of its meaning, even if they do not refer to Kierkegaard's categories: “The perpetual common belief of the Catholic Church has held and holds also this: there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only in its principle but also in its object; in its principle, because in the one we know by natural reason, in the other by divine faith; in its object, because apart from what natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries that are hidden in God that can never be known unless they are revealed by God” (Vatican I, Dei filius, ch. 4; Denzinger, no. 1795 [3015]).”
But, we can work on the assumption that everything worked out fine. It was likely a difference of analytic styles. But, when someone comes to you to say, “_Never ever_ use object to speak of God,” (which I can’t imagine Wojtyla saying) you better expect some incredibly loose thinking that perhaps will end with you in a rather terrible place philosophically and theologically. The notion of “object” (which has many senses—Go read Austin Woodbury’s notes [weird as they are, they are comprehensive], George, before you act like you know what you are talking about here) is a sane philosophical notion. And it also is a sane notion that can be (AND HAS BEEN) removed from its explicit philosophical context to be used by the Church in her teaching.
Aside: looking at the digital copy of the book, I see a snippet of a remark about Maritain. The only thing involved in this case are particular questions of politics. Even here, Garrigou wanted Maritain to have an out, though Garrigou was of the opinion that certain things that were said in Maritain could risk being taken in a sense that would deserve censure. Please, Mr. Weigel, read Philippe Chenaux’s “Maritain devant le Saint-Office: le rôle du père Garrigou-Lagrange” before remarking.
Sentence 7:
Garrigou also played a considerable role in the Roman critique of ressourcement theology and was thought to have been a driving force behind Pius XII’s cautionary 1950 encyclical on what the Pope deemed “false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine,” Humani Generis, which took particular aim at the work of Henri de Lubac.
Commentary
Oh, this one gives me a stroke. When Jon Kirwan’s and my book comes out, the immense ignorance of this will be manifest. Whoever does not engage with the documents that we there present and translate will show their bad faith. But, George, a public intellectual, should be expected to have read in detail the controversy that engaged on the one side Garrigou-Lagrange, Labourdette, and Marie-Joseph Nicolas (but also Maritain WHO AGREED WITH THEM, though privately for he was a diplomat at the time) and, on the other, Fessard, von Balthasar, Daniélou, Bouillard, De Lubac, Bruno De Solages, and Jean-Marie Le Blonde. Has he? Does he know the exact details of just how much of the pressure on the SJs came from within the order? There were those who critiqued quite vigorously from within their own ranks. He was involved in Humani Generis, though I’m not so sure that he was the penman as some have claimed. (The use of “[principium] rationis sufficientis” is never what Garrigou says – neither in French nor in Latin. If nothing else, you have other writers involved.). In any case, go read HG anew and ask yourself if the one reference in no. 26 really justifies saying “which took particular aim…”. And… Hmmm… Read no. 27. As an Eastern Catholic, I would put this differently, but if one reads this aright, it’s clear what the document is arguing against…. I feel no need to imply, like WEIGEL SEEMS TO, that this papal document is problematic. (Though Weigel might find it tedious, allow me to use syllogistic form. Let’s concede the point about HdL, even if it deserves several levels of qualification. [I’ll even accept HdL’s claim that his argument doesn’t put the gratuity of grace in danger. I’m not interested in litigating that.]. I believe that the second premise that I present below is Weigel’s position. Thus, in form: Humani generis took particular aim at HdL’s Surnaturel. HdL’s Surnaturel wasn’t problematic (and was even vindicated by Vatican II and the Communio school later on). Therefore, HG took aim at something later held by Vatican II. The implication? The best could be: and therefore what it says is wrong, in light of future teaching. But… Even HdL said he agreed with it. So what’s the point? If nothing else, Garrigou’s role in the whole affair is an incredibly complicated point among many other figures and concerns.
Sentence 8
Long interested in mysticism and the Christian call to holiness, Garrigou was not merely a theological logic-chopper.
Commentary
So kind a concession by Weigel. However, as noted above, other works by Garrigou (all of them perhaps?) show that he wasn’t a “logic chopper” anywhere in his theological and philosophical works. (Note that the latter are left out. That makes one question George’s knowledge of the matter.)
Sentence 9
His identification of the ressourcement movement with Modernism was misplaced, however, and Garrigou played no significant role in the preparation of the Second Vatican Council or at the Council itself.
Commentary
As Jon and I definitively show in our forthcoming book, Garrigou’s claim regarding modernism was aimed at Henri Bouillard’s garbage theory of dogmatic development. Others critiqued it with more nuance and detail than Garrigou, but Garrigou wasn’t wrong. If you read Bouillard, you can see that he should have at least have been more careful. Garrigou himself actually said, privately, to Maritain, who visited him DURING the Nouvelle théologie controversy, that it was Bouillard who deserved condemnation but that the other “tendencies” likely couldn’t merit a full response.
I don’t have enough context about the “role” he obviously didn’t play at the Council (given that he was dying a debilitating death at the time……..). However, his thought was refracted quite powerfully in his protégé Fr. Marie-Rosaire Gagnebet, who played an important role in the preparatory documents. Also, Garrigou’s faithful and excellent American students Fr. Joseph C. Fenton and Emmanuel Doronzo were consultators. Others could be listed, though if we include those from throughout the council, men like Cardinal Michael Browne, Fr. Michel Labourdette, and others could be added. (I’m sure Jon Kirwan could help me list lots of others.). And men like Sebastian Tromp (who was immensely influential) were much in line with RGL on many points. It’s asinine to underrate the importance of the Roman Scholastics. The final documents of the Council regularly bear witness to their concerns. I’m not saying that what Weigel said is totally wrong, but I am noting that again, this kind of simplification—presented to the general public—is just one more reiteration of a certain tired narrative.
Allow a sidebar.
People of Weigel’s generation seem to disdain the Roman Trads. And I understand their frustration. I feel that the endless critical attitude of the Trads (aimed at real problems, mind you….) has enervated their ability to engage with the intellectual tradition of the era that preceded the Council. A great example of this is the fact that when they looked to do something in moral theology, they merely republished an old manual summary by Dominic Prümmer. I don’t think Prümmer is the best (Merkelback is the best OP moral theology manualist), but if the folks involved with that Prümmer project wanted to really do something of use, they would have translated the 3 volume Prümmer. But, it seems that the genres of works that they write are so taken up with the practical liturgical battle over the Roman Rite and politics that they have slowly but surely forgotten what it is to look at all the great theologians of the Roman Church now forgotten. How many useless articles on Covid political commentary were written instead of them hunkering down and doing something with true lasting significance? Just because midwit red meat sells, that doesn’t make it morally right to do so. (The trads have critiqued modern capitalism well enough to know this too………)
But the Trads should be listened to. The Roman Church’s liturgical woes are real…. When I compare a weekly (or daily…..) Divine Liturgy to a normal Roman Catholic Sunday Mass, it is staggering the immense difference that exists between the semiotics of the two ritual forms. And when you compare the liturgical continuity that exists in the East with the immense discontinuity that does exist in the West, it takes your breath away. People (including Bishops and higher up) just bumble on and ignore this (and immediately suppress people for pointing out)… It’s staggering. If reforms of the scale as those done to the Roman Rite were foisted on the Melkite Church, boy I would love to watch—with utter support for my strong-willed Arab brethren—as they basically told Rome to pack their bags on that one, lest their very tradition itself be damaged by altering the deep structure of the liturgical patrimony. [I fear that we Ruthenians would cave… But, I would hope some of us would fight for our tradition for some time.]
I’m sure someone will accuse me of being a closet trad. Nope. I don’t like attending the TLM, though I still occasionally take my wife (who is still Roman Catholic). Not my spiritual home and not my [sui iuris] church. Not at all my spiritual-liturgical home. I attended for years as Roman Catholic before I found the Byzantine East. And it was a haven from the shipwreck that is the great majority of Roman Catholic liturgies in the US. But never my home.
But, it is insanity to me that people can’t admit in the West—without being accused of being unfaithful to Roman authority, “the Council” (and all of us who have read the documents know how the reforms definitely didn’t match what the bishops called for at the Council)—that when you change the entire liturgy of the hours, the cycle of all your Mass readings, the collects / etc. of the Mass, fabricate new Canons [not only the 3 new ones that are regularly used but all the other ones that are optional too], change your calendar significantly, practically abandon your liturgical chant tradition, etc. you immensely alter the very semiotics of the transmission of the tradition in the liturgy. (You don’t destroy it. But it is insanity to act as though the liturgical transmission of the tradition wouldn’t be affected by such widescale changes, eliminations, creations, etc.) I know, I know… “the Pope has the authority to do this”. But, I would ask the important quesiton: is such authority here exercised legitimately? For the good of the Church one—especially private persons—must not rise up publicly against the Pope when something is done unjustly. (And this is the same kind of thing that holds for all communities. One should generally respect authority. Not because authority is always right. But because the common good presumes filial piety in one’s criticism of authority. Open revolution is only very rarely justified.) But, at the time in the 1960s / 70s, too many were ready for the space age and also were conditioned to never register questions about ecclesiastical authority. Thus, they just accepted the changes. (I remember stories about an old curmudgeonly conservative priest at the Roman Catholic parish where I grew up as a child. He disliked the changes but was a “company man”, a classmate of the bishop. Imagine if the “company men” objected to the wholesale changes to the Roman Rite… How different your form would have been.)
And, I assure you, I have no desire to go back to the Roman Rite in whatever form. I have found my spiritual home. But I am noting that these kinds of concerns by the trads are not wrong. They drive me insane with their midwit commentary and—excuse the uncouth son of Appalachia—bitching and moaning online. I expect more of them, but their broad culture is a constant disappointment to me. There are many very good people among their numbers who are just trying to find a sane ecclesial home. But, I refuse to be silent about my opinion that they seem to just be marking time in rage, awaiting the metaphysically impossible return of the past into the present, basically talking the same narrative as what they set years ago when their general “movement” started. For example, with the anniversary of Vatican II, we’ll hear about whom? Lefebvre and Ottaviani…… Maybe a few well worn others. But it will be mostly rinse and repeat. Imagine, though, if someone wrote a long article on the role of Gagnebet at the Council. Or Tromp. Or Parente. Or Browne. Or Doronzo. Or even Fenton. I personally think also men like Journet, though I know that trads hate him because of his political positions.
(Let me make an observation, though. I have done a bit of interacting with the folks at Arouca Press. Sometimes, they publish very trad-normal books. But, their founder also tries to publish other texts of greater merit to expand the patrimony of the Trads. I think that this is very admirable. In fact, they are publishing Fenton’s Council diaries and are publishing Doronzo’s excellent texts. And they commission new translations. I want to note this as a signal case of what trads should be doing. There are other examples, no doubt. But, how much repetition of the same old things… with some spiced up Viganoism…!)
But, what is more, the schizophrenia of “pre” and “post” conciliarism, which exists in Weigel’s implicitly victorious-Communio narrative, needs overcoming. To merely tap into the “preconciliar” world by looking solely at the Communio folks is not enough (and snidely commenting about the “preconciliar neo-Thomists”). I’m sorry Bishop Barron. I’m sorry George Weigel. I’m sorry so many of a certain generation. Notice very well that I’m not looking to toss the Communio folks overboard. There has been immense diversity theologically even merely in the West, let alone in the Universal Church, through the ages. I’m very (VERY—to the point of tedium) aware of the weakness of my own dear Garrigou. But… While I can admit that, why is it that one cannot admit the weaknesses of their side? Why is it that only one side must always concede it was wrong? Why is it that a certain kind of conservative refuses to admit that perhaps there is a bigger tale?—As though that would immediately concede ground that the theological progressives would abuse.
Some trads are saying that we need to just put the Council behind us. I’m noticing from conservatives a kind of narrative that says, “Those problems were from the past. We need to fight the foe today.” I think both are wrong. As an Eastern Catholic, I see the great good of the Council. It hasn’t always been easy for us either, but our experience is very different from that of the West. But, those who want Thomists like me to stop fighing over the crisis that preceded the Council are wrong. It is immensely important to understand the effects of the Nouvelle théologie crisis—and the truth of it, not merely a narrative that so simplifies the concerns of faithful theologians.
Sentence 10
Nonetheless, a post-conciliar Church would eventually find use for the finely honed distinctions of the Neo-Scholasticism he embodied, although it was some thirty years after his death in 1964.
Commentary
It seems that Weigel is here noting the way that certain OPs during JP II’s era exercised influence. That being said, it is not clear how much this thin praise is meant to wash back over Garrigou himself. The selection is taken from a larger section devoted to various figures. (The hit parade, including the selection on Maritain and even Gilson, are such simplifications… The Maritain one, in particular, where one speaks of his Thomist existentialism is an example of how people of Weigel’s call Maritain and “existential Thomist”—but I could write an entire screed on how that’s the wrong way to think of Maritain. But, it seems that instead of reading all of Maritain’s works in detail, one would rather rest upon the laurels of lazy repetition of summaries from one’s youth….)