In 2001 Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk said “I do not believe that in our diocese anyone is teaching heresy.” He then promptly issued a blanket Mandatum vouching for the orthodoxy of the theologians among his flock.
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Rich Leonardi, publisher of the blog “Ten Reasons,” writes from Cincinnati.
He should visit Xavier University in Cincinnati and attend a theology course taught by Paul Knitter. If he does, the Archbishop might rethink his decision.
Knitter is one of the leading exponents of theological “pluralism,” the hottest fad among Catholic dissidents since the post-1989 decline of Marxist “liberation theology.” Pluralism seeks to synthesize Christianity with Eastern religions. In doing so, it questions the ability of any religion to make absolute, universal claims to truth. For example, at a conference of leading pluralists in 2003, attendees endorsed the principle that “the great world religions with their diverse teachings and practices constitute authentic paths to the supreme good.”
A speech Knitter gave at Australia’s Whitley College in February 2005 confirms his pluralist credentials. Claims of absolute truth, he said, are a “theological impossibility.” He continued, “all religions affirm the transcendence of God, the Ultimate, or the Dharma. No human can grasp the fullness of the Divine or of Ultimate Truth. Therefore, no religious truth or religion can claim to be full, final, or exclusive.” Knitter urged theologians to “formulate a Christology that will enable Christians to be fully committed to the Incarnate Word but at the same time be fully open to what the universal Spirit may be revealing in other religions.”
New-age bromides like Knitter’s are what prompted the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, led by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, to issue the 2001 document Dominus Iesus. It was Dominus Iesus that said non-Christians are in a “gravely deficient situation,” the decidedly un-pluralist quote we heard so often after Benedict XVI’s elevation to the papacy.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church supports the warning that Dominus Iesus gives, and it refutes Knitter’s musings in the process. Paragraph 2246 of the Catechism teaches that “[i]n Jesus Christ, the whole of God's truth has been made manifest.” And while authentic Christianity “rejects nothing which is true” of other religions (just as it rejects nothing which is true outside of religion), divine revelation ends with Jesus's Ascension into heaven and the giving of the Holy Spirit. No additional piece of that revelation awaited, say, the career of Muhammad six centuries later.
Try as one might, it isn't possible to reconcile the Catechism with Knitter’s statement that “no religious truth or religion can claim to be full, final, or exclusive.” On the contrary, Christianity stands or falls on such “exclusive” claims. Its distinctive doctrine is that Jesus is both God incarnate and truth itself. Christians cannot be “fully open” to the notion that divine revelation is something shared indiscriminately with Eastern prophets who came either before or after Christ.
Even Knitter’s admirers admit that he goes too far. Theologian Dennis Doyle from the University of Dayton recently wrote in the National Catholic Reporter that “Cardinal Ratzinger is fundamentally correct in pointing out that there are enormous difficulties in trying to reconcile a pluralist position with Catholic orthodoxy.”
In recent months the Congregation on the Doctrine of Faith suspended the teaching faculties of pluralist Jesuit theologian Roger Haight for questioning the divinity of Jesus, the reality of the Resurrection, and the nature of the Trinity. Haight is still free to teach, of course, but he can no longer claim to do so as a specifically Catholic theologian.
Archbishop Pilarczyk would do well to take his cues from the CDF with respect to Knitter and Xavier University. If a student at Xavier takes a course in Catholic theology, he should have some assurance that that is what he will indeed be taught.
