bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin
Authors: Mathew Gervase 
Published: July 2007

La Pensée religieuse du Père Teilhard de Chardin was first published at Paris in 1962. It has been admirably translated by René Hague and forms an authoritative commentary. It is authoritative because Père Lubac had been a close friend of Père Teilhard de Chardin for over thirty years and had discussed his thought with him and because it is by Père Lubac with his clarity and his gift for understanding other viewpoints than his own.In his first chapter ‘The Essential Core’, Père Lubac distinguishes between two groups of Père Teilhard’s writings ‘the first in which the line of thought is still scientific or, one might prefer to say philosophical, is developed from the data of experimental science; the second, more strictly mystical and religious, is often explicitly based on the data of Christian revelation. Central to the first is The Phenomenon of Man, to the second Le Milieu Divin.’ Inevitably Père Lubac places his emphasis on the group that centres on Le Milieu Divin and attempts to penetrate ‘to the heart of Teilhard’s mystical teaching’. In what sense was Père Teilhard a mystic?Père Lubac’s eighth chapter is entitled ‘Scientist, Prophet and Mystic’. In it he describes Père Teilhard as a scientist of the first order. This is perhaps a simplification. From the time of his scholasticate and his first unfortunate association with Mr Dawson and the Piltdown Skull, Père Teilhard’s primary subject of study was prehistoric archaeology and it was this that finally made his name in China.
Brotherhood: The Responsibility of Bishops Today
Authors:   The Bishops of Brasil
Published: July 2007

The central commission of the national conference of bishops of Brasil feels obliged to clarify certain issues in public and to explain to the faithful how it conceives the mission of the hierarchy.It should not be a matter of surprise that many of our brother bishops should have expressed themselves in public in these times, whether individually or together. It is today’s conditions that make it far more necessary than formerly for authority to be exercised in constant communication with members of society. . . .Our very first reponsibility, we hold, is the furthering of brotherhood among men, as consecrated by sharing in Christ. We are in the service of love, in its fullest meaning, and that not only on behalf of members of the Church, but of all men.It is our duty to explain our mission better. This mission is ignored by some, misunderstood by others, and deliberately falsified by certain groups who claim to be serving the Church whilst in fact furthering their own interests. Neither misunderstanding nor falsehood will make us desist from the job that is ours by divine commission and that has marked the presence of the Church in our history. . . .We repudiate the Marxist claim that religion despoils man by consoling him with a future happiness that will compensate for frustrations inevitable on earth. And to affirm that the religious mission of the bishops must be confined to what is called the ‘spiritual life’ is in effect to accept the Marxist conception of religion.
Eschatology as Politics
Authors: Kerr Fergus 
Published: July 2007

Christianity is nothing if it is not eschatology: a hope in a promise for the future. This is what Jurgen Moltmann is inviting us to take seriously, in his very important book. It is, however, a difficult book, at least for the non-theologian; and perhaps the best way of giving a fair account of its value is to present, in some detail, the argument of the concluding chapter (the appendix on Ernst Bloch has been omitted from the English edition). The problem is to show how Christianity as eschatology actually happens. What visible form and observable shape does this hope in a promised future, which believers share, actually take in the complicated business which is modern life in an industrial society such as ours? What in fact is the relationship between the Church and the world?We have to decide whether, as believers in modern society, we form what Moltmann calls an accommodating group, a group capable of being absorbed and assimilated by society, or a group which is inassimilable and non-conformist. We have to ask if this hope in the future which we have, compels us to resist being assimilated and adjusted to modern society. Moltmann is, of course, going to argue that if believers really conduct their lives and their thinking in the context of their hope in God’s promised future, then there will always be tension between the believing community and modern society … whatever modern society may happen to be (Moltmann clearly works in terms of the society to which he belongs: western industrial capitalism).
The International Protection of Human Rights
Authors: Johnson David 
Published: July 2007

On 16 December 1966 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted three important instruments concerning human rights. These were the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both adopted unanimously; and also an Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was adopted by majority vote. The adoption of these texts represents one more step in the slow, but on the whole steady, progress towards an International Bill of Rights. When this project was first mooted after the Second World War, it was realized that at least three distinct stages would be necessary. First, there would have to be broad international agreement on the rights to be enjoyed by every human being. Secondly, States would have to accept a definite legal obligation to afford these rights to all persons within their jurisdiction. Thirdly, there would have to be provisions for enforcement.These proposals sound simple enough, but it is as well to realize how revolutionary they were at the time and how many and serious are the obstacles that still have to be overcome before they can be implemented.Traditional international law was a legal system applying essentially between States, although it made provision also for what the International Court of Justice has called ‘instances of action upon the international plane by certain entities which are not States’. Such instances have been performed by a miscellaneous collection of entities including the Holy See, the Sovereign Order of Malta, international institutions such as the United Nations and the Specialized Agencies, and even rebels granted belligerent status without yet having been recognized as States.
Socialist Humanism
Authors: McLellan David 
Published: July 2007

Less than ten years ago the ‘exhaustion of political ideas’ was widely proclaimed. At least in the Western World the differences dividing parties of the left and right seemed to be getting less and changes of government only made for a little more or a little less emphasis on economic planning and welfare. One of the most renowned of American political scientists wrote at the end of the 1950s:. . . the fundamental political problems of the industrial revolution have been solved: the workers have achieved industrial and political citizenship, the Conservatives have accepted the Welfare State, and the democratic Left has recognized that an increase in overall state power carries with it more dangers to freedom than solutions for economic problems. This very triumph of the democratic social revolution in the West ends domestic politics for those intellectuals who must have ideologies or utopias to motivate them to political action.In the space of a few years, however, the atmosphere has changed. The collection of essays edited by Erich Fromm under the title Socialist Humanism well summarizes the change in outlook; here are thirty-six articles, most of them written specially for the book, affirming unequivocally that men can and should create their own world, that elitism is not inevitable and that work can be a creative activity. Of course, a book written by so many hands and claiming, at least on the dustjacket, to cover Marxism, Gandhi, Renaissance humanism, existentialism, Utopia, history, science, dialectic, psychoanalysis, freedom, alienation, justice, labour, welfare, ethics, law, Christianity, technology, and revolution, must at times be exasperating.
African Nuns
Authors: Lee Annabelle 
Published: July 2007

Having recent experience of the activities of several missions in part of ex-British Africa, I read with great interest Elizabeth Power’s article ‘Black Nuns in Africa’ (New Blackfriars, December, 1966, and the subsequent exchange between her and Sr Anne Gregson, February, 1967) and, more recently, the correspondence about mission strategy in East Africa (August, 1967).My work demanded that I should liv e with rural Africans in their huts and learn to speak their language. I spent most time in the diocese of one particular society of Roman Catholic missionaries, but I also saw a little of the work of three other Roman Catholic missionary societies and four Protestant ones. There were marked differences between these different missions, in their resources of finance and personnel, in their organization and the amount of responsibility they gave to Africans, in what they thought it proper for missionaries or Europeans to do, and in what they thought Christianity is concerned with.I had for a long time thought it would be interesting to know about the way of life and attitudes of African nuns, but the first African nuns I saw on the central mission station could only observe from a distance. Even those who were teachers had been trained to keep their distance from visitors so I could not speak to them. The missionaries took pains to point out to me that the African nuns had clothes in greater quantity and quality, better housing and bedding, and a more adequate and better balanced diet than nearly all rural African women.
Metaphilosophy
Authors: Potts Timothy 
Published: July 2007

The basic reason why it is so difficult in practice to give an account of philosophy’s aims and method is undoubtedly that there is no agreement among philosophers themselves about what they are trying to do and how; and this means that they often find it as difficult to explain themselves to each other as to those whose home is in other disciplines. This is especially so when the philosophers in question belong to different traditions. It is well known that philosophers today fall broadly into two camps, those who belong to the Englishspeaking tradition of analytic philosophy which was born of a reaction against Hegel at the beginning of this century, and those who remain if not in the Hegelian, then at least in the Cartesian tradition and who are now represented primarily in France and Germany. I suppose that we may add as a third group the neoScholastic philosophers of the seminaries and Catholic universities, who at least until recently represented a revival of the medieval tradition, but are now being more or less absorbed by the first two groups (and especially the second) according to their physical location and that of the universities in which their staff are trained.To each of these traditions there corresponds an attitude towards philosophical aims and methodology which may be associated with a turning-point in the history of philosophy.
New Thinking in Catechetics
Authors: Berridge Dorothy 
Published: July 2007

The new approaches in religious education which are still a controversial issue in this country, certainly did not have to wait for Vatican II, even though the Council and its teaching has been one of the major factors at work. The pioneers of the movement, as of so many others in the contemporary scene, can be traced to the beginning of the present century, and to continental biblical scholars who were not content to let the fruits of their studies remain in academic isolation. Rather they quickly saw the need to communicate their new theological thinking to the youngest members of the Church, so that gradually the content of traditional syllabuses of religious instruction was transformed. At the same time began the introduction of more child-centred methods of presentation of the Christian message under the influence of contemporary educational changes in the teaching of secular subjects.These two factors, content and methodology, are often confused, not only (and understandably) by parents and priests necessarily remote from the professional field of education, but also, and more regrettably, by the teachers themselves. It is these who arc rapidly losing confidence in their own abilities to cope, and it is this predicament that brings them in such numbers to the wide range of courses being held up and down the country.In so far as the main aim of such teachers is to find a ready-made syllabus, complete with well-tested answers to their particular problems, this is, I feel, regrettable. Good teaching of religion, as of any subject in the curriculum, is of necessity ‘do-it-yourself’; only the teacher on the spot, knowing the children, their backgrounds, their particular abilities and interests, can effectively adapt the content of any syllabus to their needs.
Christian‐Marxist Dialogue
Authors: McLellan David 
Published: July 2007

Apart from a certain number of discreet and limited meetings between Christians and Marxists, it was not until comparatively recently that these discussions came to the public notice. There was a Catholic participation at the Semaines de la Pensee Marxiste in early 1964 and then a reciprocal Marxist presence at the Semaines des Intellectuels Calholiques at the beginning of the following year. From France, the lead in this field has now passed to Germany, and more precisely to Austria, where in the spring of 1965, the Paulusgesellschaft, an association of German-speaking Catholic university teachers, organized a meeting specifically devoted to a dialogue between Christians and Marxists from both West and East Europe. There have since been two more meetings of this nature; the most recent, in 1967, was held at Marienbad in Czechoslovakia.Of course, the idea of a meeting between Catholics and atheist movements (of which Marxism is presently the most important) was mentioned quite clearly in 1963 by Pope John XXIII in his encyclical Pacem in Terris. He there made a distinction, since become familiar, between static theories condemned by the Church and the movements inspired by these theories, but which evolve in time. He said: ‘In as far as these movements are in accord with sound principles of reason and are a response to the just aspirations of the human person, who would refuse to recognize in them elements that are positive and merit our approval? It could happen that certain meetings with a view to practical co-operation that had up till now appeared inopportune or sterile, could now produce real advantages or at least contain the promise of such for the future.’
Church and World in Newman
Authors: Holmes J. Derek 
Published: July 2007

During recent years, a great deal has been written about Newman as an historian, but, somewhat surprisingly, comparatively little on his deeper understanding of history. This, of course, is a vast subject with many different aspects. In spite of an essential scepticism about the possibility of a philosophy of history, Newman himself did indulge in occasional excursions into this dangerous field, but because he was basically a religious thinker, he ultimately saw history in the light of his belief in a divine revelation. Faith enabled the Christian to see the reality beyond the shadows, the works of divine providence and the manifestations of the sacramental principle. This is the theological background to the apologetic contrast which he made between the nature or permanence of the Church on the one hand, and shifting or temporary human organizations on the other. It is also significant that his historical realism in the context of the nineteenth-century belief in progress, was the result of a theological, in fact an eschatological, position.There are, however, two particular lines of thought which are of more than specialized interest; the situation of the Church in the world and the role of the individual. The more accurately the history of the world was investigated and put into shape, the more it evidently appeared to advance according to fixed laws both as regards time and place, but this did not interfere with individual responsibility (Sermons Preached on Various Occasions (O.S.), p. 189). Throughout his life, Newman was convinced of the fundamental significance of the individual like the Liberal Anglicans whose philosophy of history was firmly grounded on that ultimate historical reality, the individual will.
A Theological Perspective on Human Liberation
Authors: Shaull Richard 
Published: July 2007

A number of modern historians have reminded us that the history of the West has been the history of revolution. And these revolutions have occurred not merely as the result of an objective crisis in society, but because a crisis was precipitated by the emergence and action of a new dynamic proletariat. In each case, this proletariat had been captured by a new vision of a new social order. Its members found themselves excluded from the benefits of the status quo, or repelled by its injustices. Eventually they reached a point where their consuming passion was to bring the old order down and build a new and they were willing to sacrifice their lives so that this could happen.These movements became disruptive forces in their societies; in some instances, they overthrow the old order and, eventually, organized society on a new foundation, with new structures of economic, social and political life. They often failed to achieve their goals, yet when we look back on our history today, we can see that many of the most significant breakthroughs toward a more human society have occurred as a result of these revolutions.It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the emergence of such revolutionary forces is once again the order of the day. In the United States, this new proletariat has made its appearance among the black militants and the radicals of a new student generation. But it is in the Third World, and especially in Latin America, that this phenomenon is most widespread.
The Rediscovery of Newman
Authors: Walgrave J. H. 
Published: July 2007

After the third international Newman-Conference of Luxembourg, it had been felt that it was time ‘to bring Newman home’. This led to the first Oxford Newman Symposium at Oriel College (1966). The meeting at Newman’s own college was something of an experience, most moving and inspiring, not only by reason of its significance as an ecumenical event in such an historic place, but also, and mainly, because of the things that were said and discussed. Carefully designed by the editors, and reconsidered after the discussion by the contributors, the whole collection of essays, although written by scholars of so different denominations and habits of mind, shows a remarkable convergence in the appreciation of Newman’s place and importance in contemporary theology. It may be said, indeed, that it constitutes a milestone in the history of Newman scholarships and will for ever remain one of the most outstanding publications on the general subject of Newman’s thought and influence.Four capital points were made: 1, Newman is not only a great historic figure, a saint, a master of English prose, but one of the foremost theologians of his age and perhaps of all times. He did not enrich us with a new system, but he created a new spirit, a new way of putting theological questions. He opened new paths and brought theology back to its proper tasks and methods. 2, Newman’s theology is a result and a most personal synthesis of various theological traditions.
Clinical Theology
Authors: Gaskell Austin 
Published: July 2007

Dr Lake’s achievement over the past ten years or so has been considerable. He has not limited himself to his own clinical work, but has built up the Clinical Theology Centre in Nottingham and led a team of doctors and clergy in organizing seminars throughout the country. It is he more than anyone else who has alerted the clergy in this country to the need for the right kind of personal relationships in pastoral work, and to the psychological blockages which too often present barriers. This book, based on his teaching booklets but going well beyond them, will spread his influence even more widely. Our chief feeling must surely be one of gratitude to Dr Lake, and to the publishers for a splendid piece of book production. One might almost say the book is too well produced. Such a massive volume gives the impression of being a definitive text, and such a bold attempt at synthesis makes criticism seem niggardly. All the same, it would be no service to Dr Lake if readers were to accept his writings uncritically, for he is working in a field where several disciplines intersect, and where development is continuous, so that mutual criticism is a condition of life.The first doubt concerns the title Clinical Theology itself. This is not just a quibble about words. What is the book really about, theology or psychiatry? Dr Lake has been criticized for not being sufficiently rigorous either in his theology or his psychiatry, according to one’s point of view. The sub-title, A theological and psychiatric basis to clinical pastoral care makes the intention clearer.
Divorce and Remarriage
Authors: Bishop Jordan 
Published: July 2007

1. Introduction—the present malaiseOne of the effects of the Council has been a clearing of the intellectual atmosphere to the point where honesty is tolerated even when it runs counter to deeply rooted taboos. Dr Victor J. Pospishil, priest of the Byzantine Rite Catholic diocese of Philadelphia, has published an appeal for a profound reform in the marriage discipline of the Roman Communion: Divorce and Remarriage. Towards a New Catholic Teaching (Burns & Oates, London, 1967). A canonist with experience in tribunal work, Dr Pospishil presents a convincing case for a reform in present discipline which would allow for the extension of the power of the Church to dissolve those marriages which are ratum et consummatum, sacramental marriages consummated by the sexual union of the parties. As he points out, these are the only marriages excluded from this power in the Church at present.There is no doubt that a profound malaise with respect to the ecclesiastical discipline on Christian marriage exists in the Western Church today, a malaise which expresses itself in many ways. There is an ever-increasing number of petitions for nullity or dissolution, and in many cases diocesan tribunals are ill-equipped to handle formal (nullity) cases. The escape provided in the Western Church for people in non-viable situations for the past few centuries is, under present circumstances, clearly inadequate.