Part 2 - Saint Paul VI and Rahner
A Distant Duel for the Leadership of the Church – Part Two (2/3)
Merits and Defects of Rahner
Undoubtedly, interpreting Rahner's thoughts is not always an easy task. It is therefore very understandable that opposing interpretations of his work exist. Often, his style is complex and filled with dependent clauses, which, on one hand, clarify the author's thought, but on the other hand, can make it elusive.
It is clear that the benevolent interpretation, which is required by justice and charity, is obligatory, as far as possible, for Rahner, as it is for any other author. However, in certain cases, despite all good intentions, it is impossible not to notice the error. This is, however, done by contextualizing and linking the text with other writings because, taken in isolation, the discourse may appear orthodox.
Heterodoxy, however, becomes evident when compared with other texts, and this is because Rahner generally uses traditional theological terms but gives them a different meaning. Therefore, when someone encounters that term, they might not suspect anything. But if they look elsewhere, where Rahner explains what he means by that word, they will realize the heterodoxy. To truly understand Rahner, one needs the patience to read him extensively, as I have been doing for almost 50 years, because those who have read him little do not perceive the errors.
Another point to note is that there is not only the scholarly Rahnerism, which is difficult to comprehend and spread in theological faculties, but also a popular version of Rahnerism that everyone understands, especially those who are attached to themselves and the goods of this world, and who see nothing beyond the boundaries of the present life. This includes what constitutes moral and religious relativism, laxism, permissiveness, individualism, biblicism, hostility to tradition, disdain for doctrine and dogma, political liberalism, mysticism confused with feeling, and liturgical arbitrariness.
What strikes those, like me, who have known the Council documents since 1966 and began studying Rahner in 1980, judging by my knowledge of the thought of St. Thomas, which I began studying in 1960, is that while it is known how much Rahner contributed to the formation of the conciliar documents, Rahner's errors are absent from the doctrines of the Council – which is understandable given the infallibility of the conciliar doctrines – while they can be found in Rahner’s writings, especially those of the post-conciliar period, as demonstrated by various authors, including myself.
How do we explain this astonishing and unprecedented fact in the history of theology, that a great theologian who contributed to the formation of a great Council is simultaneously a heretic? These are the mysteries of the human soul. We must not ask how this is possible. Contra factum non valet argumentum.
Our duty is very simple: we must accept the positive aspects of Rahner and reject the negative ones, which is what must be done with any author, since even in St. Thomas or St. Augustine, there are errors, and even in Nietzsche or in Hitler's speeches, there are truths. Let us briefly recall Rahner’s most well-known errors.
Anonymous Christians. Since for Rahner, man is the act of the obedient power of grace and spirit whose horizon is God, every man, even the atheist, is a Christian, perhaps without realizing it or at an athematic level.
Anthropological Turn. This is the gnoseological shift from object to subject, inaugurated by Descartes through Kant and completed by Hegel. It characterizes modern philosophy as the transition from realism to idealism, and therefore from God to man. Today, to be modern, a Christian must embrace this shift.
Transcendental Experience characterizes man as such. It is the pre-conceptual and athematic experience of the self, being, and God. It is a free, self-conscious knowledge identical to being. Rahner also calls it Vorgriff. It summarizes human existence as forgiven because it is oriented toward the Absolute Mystery, which is God.
The Supernatural is the realm of faith and grace, which Rahner conceives as the existential historical-concrete dimension of human essence. It is the subject of divine self-communication, whereby the supernatural is the pinnacle or horizon of human self-transcendence or human nature as an abstract possibility of being.
The Conduct of Paul VI Towards Rahner
Paul VI, being more theologically erudite than Pope John XXIII and more sensitive to the demands of philosophy, and at the same time more informed about the situation of modern thought, understood better than Pope John what the task of the Council was. He drew inspiration from Jacques Maritain, who had been proposing for fifty years, without seeking a Council’s convocation, what the Council would eventually accomplish: the development of a new theology and a new vision of Catholicism, based on the adoption of modern values in light of the thought of Thomas Aquinas.
Paul VI was also impressed by Rahner’s thought, which, with extraordinary dialectical skill and cultural flair, seemed to be carrying out a similar project. However, he either did not notice or appeared not to notice that Rahner’s method did not possess the loyalty and clarity of Maritain’s. While Maritain was able to recognize the values of modernity in full fidelity to Thomas, Rahner, since 1939, under the pretext of interpreting Thomas better than his previous commentators, interpreted Thomistic epistemology and metaphysics in a Kantian, Hegelian, and Heideggerian way. This insidious reinterpretation ultimately produced a Thomas who was not a realist but an idealist, not a theist but a pantheist. Fabro, in 1974, denounced this massive deceit with a rigorously clear and honest critique.
Rahner was appointed a peritus (theological expert) for the Council by John XXIII, and he quickly gained the admiration of progressive Fathers. Paul VI made him a member of the International Theological Commission, but after a few years, Rahner left following a dispute with his colleagues.
Unfortunately, Rahner’s seductive influence took hold in Catholic circles after the Council, and despite the critical intervention of many truly Thomistic theologians faithful to the Church, Rahner’s appeal persists, causing significant harm to the authenticity of Catholic doctrine and morals, as well as to the peace and unity of the Church, which remains divided between anti-Rahner, anti-conciliar traditionalists and Rahnerian modernists and false conciliarists.
It is surprising that, despite Rahner’s international fame, the heated debates about his thoughts, and the significant contribution he made to the Council’s work, highly regarded by many Council Fathers, Paul VI never publicly spoke about Rahner throughout his pontificate.
Paul VI must have been aware of the danger Rahner’s thought posed to the Church and the faith. What I cannot understand is why, though he was open to dialogue, he never thought to invite Rahner for a candid conversation, a fatherly talk, to speak frankly with him and exhort him to put the extraordinary gifts and excellent qualities that God had given him at the service of the Church.
Many theologians—such as Lakebrink, Fabro, Ciappi, Julio Meinvielle, Alberto Galli, Guido Casali, Gherardini, Ols, Composta, Malachi Martin, Piolanti, and Cardinals like Scheffczyk, Parente, Ottaviani, Cento, Pizzardo, Ruffini, and Siri—had already recognized the danger that Rahner posed. Did Paul VI not consider seeking help to persuade him to correct his conduct and ideas?
Rahner indeed enjoyed success among progressive theologians. But did Paul VI not realize that his ideas fostered dissent against his magisterium? Did he not recognize that they falsified the true interpretation of the Council? That they represent a return to modernism?
Rahner enjoyed the protection of powerful reformist Cardinals such as Willebrands, Suenens, Alfrink, Bea, Garrone, Léger, Döpfner, König, and later Lehmann, Martini, and Kasper. But did Paul VI not notice that these Cardinals often blurred the line between progressivism and modernism? Did he fail to see that Rahner had the support of modernist theologians like Küng, Metz, Schillebeeckx, and Boff? The primary attacks against Rahner came from Lefebvrians, who perceived his modernism as reflective of the Council’s supposed modernism. By censuring Rahner, the Pope might have risked appearing to oppose the conciliar reform.
St. Paul VI knew how to distinguish between the true interpretation of the Council and the version presented by Rahner as a renewed modernism. And yet, he never considered having a frank, paternal dialogue with Rahner, perhaps with the help of theologians who had identified his errors. Why did he not do so? The answer likely lies in the fact that, while Rahner was the main architect of the return of modernism under the guise of the Council, many other theologians shared in this responsibility.
Second, it is likely that Paul VI did not feel able to confront Rahner, having realized both his arrogance and his sophisticated subtlety. Third, it is probable that the Pope did not fully grasp the dangerous metaphysical and epistemological principles in Rahner’s thought, though Fabro had already demonstrated them with extreme clarity in 1974.
Fourth, the Pope may have been aware of the strong pro-Rahner current within the Society of Jesus. Therefore, while he sought to call the Society to obedience to the Pope, he likely thought it better to trust the positive resources within the order rather than intervene with corrective measures.[1]
Another astonishing thing is that the Pope repeatedly urged the Society of Jesus, led by Father Pedro Arrupe, to correct the deviations existing within it, among which those of Rahner were the most serious, even though they were not the most evident. This was because he knew how to hide them well under a language of high spirituality that seemed to continue the teachings of the Council.
It is also remarkable why Father Arrupe, Superior General of the Society, along with the Pope, never seriously addressed the enormous issue of Rahner. Rahner, who on the one hand was known as one of the great protagonists of the Council, on the other—paradoxically as it may seem—was the main cause of the post-conciliar discomfort and conflict. He was, in this way, a destroyer of the values of the Council, values that he made appear as a form of modernism.
From how Rahner speaks about St. Thomas, it seems that Rahner is convinced he is developing a more advanced theology suitable for modern times, and does not realize that by making Thomas into a Hegelian or a Heideggerian, he is bringing theology back to the times of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Pyrrho, and Protagoras. Certainly, one must take in the good found in idealism, but it must be done in the light of Thomas and not of the idealism itself, otherwise, one falls into the error of the modernists condemned by Pius X.
Paul VI did not recognize Rahner as the master of our time, the great protagonist of the Council. On the contrary, in 1974, he published the letter Lumen Ecclesiae, in which, following a pontifical tradition lasting seven centuries, he returned to recommend St. Thomas. Not certainly the mere and material repetition of his fundamental theses, which would already be something, but a Thomism akin to that of Maritain or Congar, i.e., open to modern thought, where everything good and true that can be found is welcomed in the light of Aquinas.
On the other hand, Paul VI, with great frankness, denounced the fact that the spiritual progress expected from the conciliar reform was not being realized. Instead of a spring, a storm had arrived.
Why? The Pope limited himself to denouncing the facts in a general way: disobedience to the Magisterium of the Church, secularism, too much trust in one's ideas, moral disorder, the persistence of social injustices, a spirit of contradiction and protest, and the tendency to question everything—things that were certainly true. He also denounced a false interpretation of the Council, a narrow and outdated traditionalism, and the claim by some theologians to create a sort of parallel magisterium to that of the Church, causing confusion, scandal, apostasy, schism, defections, and turmoil among the faithful.
Throughout Paul VI’s pontificate, Rahner carried out intense activities as a lecturer in various countries around the world and published a massive literary output that, while containing good suggestions and proposals for implementing the Council, also—this is the astonishing thing—contained writings with false interpretations of the Council, errors against the faith and the Magisterium of the Church. These writings had nothing to do with the Council and, in fact, they openly negated its doctrinal and dogmatic contents.
But the episode that caused international uproar and exposed, if there was any doubt, the hidden rot and the striking persistence of modernism, was his open and reckless dissent from the encyclical Humanae Vitae. This document of utmost importance contained irrefutable reasoning and nobly pastoral tones on the Christian principles of sexual ethics and the affirmation of the Church's infallibility in teaching natural ethics.
However, Rahner, feeling strengthened by the support of many moralists and even some national episcopates, dared to openly oppose the doctrinal teaching of the Pope, thus revealing his cards after a long period of false obedience.
Why did Paul VI, even in this dramatic situation, not rebuke Rahner? Why did he not take the opportunity to correct his errors and exhort him to respect the sound doctrine? Didn’t the Pope realize the damage Rahner was doing to the Church? Wasn’t anyone informing him? Didn’t he hear the criticisms of Rahner from learned prelates and theologians loyal to the Pope?
I believe the Pope lived through this dramatic circumstance realizing everything, and thus with immense suffering, caught in the anguishing doubt of what was best for the good of the Church and the honor of papal authority, for the good of Rahner himself and his followers, to protect the conciliar reform, and to preserve justice while saving mercy.
It was clear and well-known that Rahner had made an important contribution to the Council and had played a leading role. Censoring Rahner—probably the Pope thought—what consequences could it provoke? Wouldn’t it have triggered and seemingly justified the reaction against the Council from the Lefebvrians? Wouldn’t it have ended up halting or slowing down the reforming work of the Council? Paul VI probably must have made this calculation.
Through the CDF, he did not neglect to condemn some of Rahner's errors, but he never felt able to mention his name. On the other hand, it is extremely significant that he never publicly praised him, as he did with Maritain, who, though he never criticized Rahner, had prophetically proposed, even before the Council, that reform which the Council itself had enacted.
During the pontificate of Paul VI, the CDF worked to correct errors and denounce deviations related to Rahner's ideas, but his name was never brought up. Thus, Rahner’s followers were able to prosper, arguing that the measures and warnings from the Pope and the CDF did not refer to them, relying on the fact that Rahner was the great protagonist of the Council, and drawing from this a broader conclusion: Rahner was the master to follow for anyone who wanted the progress of the Church and the implementation of the Council.
Rahner's thought could not remain on the level of mere ideas, but it had to bear fruit. And so it did. Apart from the positive fruits derived from the contribution Rahner made to the Council, the practical effects of his Hegelianism, disguised as Thomism, soon appeared in society, moral conduct, and personal behavior.
Just as from Hegelian pantheism, atheistic and revolutionary materialism emerged—albeit in reaction—so, shortly after the end of the Council, in 1968, the famous student protests erupted in various Western countries. There were numerous defections from religious or clerical states, the spread of Freudian licentious sexual practices (symbolized by the appearance of the miniskirt), revolutionary movements under the pretext of fighting for the liberation of the oppressed in Latin America, and the dramatic rise of communist terrorism in Italy and other Western countries. A theology that, in some way, stems from Rahnerism, favored Liberation Theology is the so-called "political theology" of Johann Baptist Metz.[2]
The Pope, if he had not succeeded in correcting the Rahnerian and modernist ideas, was even less able, as one can imagine, to curb this subversive movement, to say the least sanguinary, which, in the Catholic field, found—coincidentally—its inspirers and guides mainly in the Society of Jesus, to which Rahner belonged.
Only with the advent of Saint John Paul II, thanks to his extraordinary decisiveness, timeliness, and energy, superior to those of Paul VI, who was too delicate and hesitant, did these phenomena calm down, except for the disorders in Central America, especially in Nicaragua, unfortunately partly inspired by the Jesuits. Here again, we find the influence of Rahner's thought, albeit not directly, but in its practical consequences, which fit well with Marxist ideas. Undoubtedly, the rise of liberation theology also brought positive fruits in the diffusion of social justice and the establishment of democratic governments, but the damage caused by the Marxist aspects, falsely presented as Christian, was very serious.
End of Second Part (2/3)
P. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP
Fontanellato, January 13, 2025
source:
https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/san-paolo-vi-e-rahner-un-duello_14.html
Notes:
[1] The story is narrated by the Jesuit Antonio Caruso, who was a collaborator of Saint John Paul II in the Secretariat of State for 18 years: Tra grandezze e squallori, Edizioni Vivere In, Monopoli (Bari), 2008.
[2] Cf. Marcel Xhaufflaire, Introduzione alla 'teologia politica' di Johann Baptist Metz, Queriniana, Brescia, 1974.