John Vincent Broadbent. Restoring the Laity’s Balance to an Unsteady Church: Balancing Tradition with Traditions. Ist Books Library, 2003 ISBN 0-7596-9397-8 (Paperback), pp. 215.

From the title one might wonder why the Catholic Church is unsteady and how the laity could possibly steady it up. It does not take the author long to answer that query. The church is unsteady, according to Broadbent, because of the many movements within the church, the general malaise and the retreat into a more conservative frame of mind (post-Vatican II) with the bishops caught between loyalty to Rome and their local pastoral concerns. At the heart of the matter is the question of authority. The synodal model of church which incorporated the laity has largely not materialized post-Vatican II, and what we now have is an autocratic hierarchy which overlooks the laity (in spite of the nice things said about the laity in the Vatican II documents).

The author proceeds to give an historical and exegetical analysis (the bulk of the book) of how the church rather quickly fell into a model of authority where one person (bishop) was totally responsible. In some detail, the author traces the history of the notion of Apostolic Authority and the appraiser (bishop) through two millennia. It is a history of how the recognized ultimate appraisers became the sole appraisers. This, he maintains, was not the way it was in the first two to three centuries when the presbyters and the laity together with the bishop made decisions in a synodal model.

Broadbent takes a very critical look at texts that historians have relied on for centuries. For example, in dealing with the early church he takes a fresh look at documents such as 1 Clement, Ignatius of Antioch, the Shepherd of Hermas, and Cyprian, in the light of contemporary scholarship on topics such as the Donation of Constantine, the false Decretals on the status of the papacy and the two different recensions of Cyprian’s so-called ‘Papal Text’. There will be some surprises here for the reader. However, the point he keeps making throughout the book, is that what we might have taken as being genuine Tradition (as opposed to ‘traditions’) is, in the light of modern research, in need of moderation and thus leading to a re-appraisal of the (distorted) Tradition. In this respect Newman’s idea of the development of doctrine is enthusiastically invoked to support his thesis.

The author marshalls a thorough and convincing argument that we need to re-examine the Tradition on the grounds that it can easily fall prey to what he calls ‘parasite’ traditions—those which grew up in association with a teaching, but with the passage of time became identified with the main teaching. An example of a parasite idea might be the Aristotelian teaching on Natural Law, which became mainstream and currently determines the teaching on contraception. Or, another example: the sociological status of women in Roman and Barbarian cultures might influence current teaching on the ordination of women. He also points out that this going back to re-assess the Tradition has promising ecumenical potential (as ecumenical dialogues have shown).
Having developed his argument at some length, the author proposes a way forward in the final chapters, by way of suggesting that the principle of the hierarchy of truths enunciated at Vatican II be the Catholic Church’s guiding rule to overcome the contemporary unsteadiness of the church. This approach will prevent people falling into the excess of integralism of which the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a good example. The laity would be fully engaged in establishing the hierarchy of truths together with the clergy, in electing bishops, and in decision-making without denying the ultimate responsibility of the bishop. The theory will be found convincing by many, but what is missing is perhaps the strategies to be implemented if the unsteady church is to regain its balance through the co-responsibility of the laity. The Catholic Church seems to need the change to come from above, as in the case of John XXIII. Whether it can change as a result of pressure from below remains to be seen. Perhaps the change from below will come from Asian Catholics since the context in which they live their Christianity is so different to western Europe.

The book is well written and for those with some theological background, it is relatively easy to read. While being both scholarly and fair-minded, it has the virtue of raising foundational issues facing the contemporary church. It is good to see the role of the laity in the Catholic Church being raised again since it seems to have been somewhat eclipsed in recent decades by the debate on feminism.
—Gideon Goosen

John D’Arcy May. Transcendence and Violence: The Encounter of Buddhist, Christian and Primal Traditions. New York & London: Continuum, 2003.pp225, hardcover. ISBN: 0-8264-1513-X

In an age when the news is repeatedly focused on violence in many parts of the world, and that violence is often, rightly or wrongly, connected to religion, the timing of this book is most appropriate. In it, John D’Arcy May brings his own rich experience of Buddhist dialogue, working in Malanesia, and his understanding of Aboriginal spirituality to this contemporary (yet ancient) and relevant topic. He investigates the relationship between violence and transcendence through examining the historical encounter of Christianity with the primal religions of Australia and Melanesia and the different ways in which Buddhism interacted with the primal religions of Japan and Thailand.

Parts I and II describe the historical encounter of Christianity with the primal religions and how Buddhism, in its Japanese and Thai manifestations, interacted with the local religions. Issues arising out of these encounters are discussed and analyzed, and then brought forward to Part III, which attempts to make sense of the data by imposing a conceptual framework (Levinas) of the self encountering the Other. Thus chapter Five and Six bring the issues together by giving the parameters of the discourse and showing how universal religions used the strategies of Repression, Ritualization, Absorption and Institutionalization in their encounters with primal religions. These chapters provide a very helpful hermeneutical framework. Two appendices, one on missionaries and ecumenism in Melanesia and the other on China and foreign religions, fill out the religious and historical framework.

May is basically concerned with the struggles that Christianity and Buddhism have had in their encounters with primal religions. In the process, the meliority principle, (belief in absolute truth and superiority) has stood in the pathway of communicating the transcendent and often led to violence, identifying the Other as a Stranger and then as the Enemy. (For example, regarding Australia, he shows how the horizontal relationships of Aborigines and whites depended on their vertical relationship with the Dreaming, or on the absolutist transcendence of Christian faith as expressed in doctrines as incarnation and revelation. These positions have been a source of violence in the encounter of whites with Aboriginal culture.) In the west, the colonial period provides ample evidence of this failed Christianity. What Christianity can learn from primal or biocosmic religions, is immanence, a re-connection with the earth, with origins and life’s rhythms.What these religions can learn from the universal or metacosmic religions, is universalizing transcendence. The challenge to both the primal and universal religions today is, says the author: can they devise practical ways of effectively overcoming violence?
May thinks they can. He makes a number of practical points in his conclusion. Religions should practice non-violent communication among themselves; they should grow in mutual respect in overcoming meliorism; and they should make their distinctive contribution to the ethics of survival and share their vision of transcendence with each other. If they do this, says May, religions can provide a foretaste of liberation from the unceasing cycles of violence and vengeance. Hopefully May’s suggestions will inspire many to contribute to this ecumenical programme.

This book is demanding and compact in style (in spite of the occasional and welcome autobiographical touches), born out of much reflection and teaching on the topic. It is a scholarly examination of the relationship between transcendence and violence. The strengths are twofold: its rootedness in life experience and history, and secondly, its strong analytical examination of the underlying issues that have often led both transcendent and immanent religions to violence rather than peace. For those in anyway involved in trying to create a better world, it is strongly recommended.
—Gideon Goosen

David W. Fagerberg, Theologia Prima what is Liturgical Theology? Second Edition, HillenbrandBooks, Chicago / Mundelein, Illinois, 2004 [ISBN 1-56854-510-X] 242pp.

In 1992 Fagerberg first published What is Liturgical Theology: A Study of Methodology. By his own admission this book is a reworking of that text, with changes to sentences and chapters but not content or overall purpose. In the original edition Fagerberg sought to examine the shape and deployment of ‘liturgical theology’ as an underpinning ‘theologia prima’ experienced in praying the rites. That work was well received, so we will concentrate here on the author’s writings ten years later. The second edition is new in that the author provides a fresh chapter to open the book and similarly, a new piece to close it.

The opening takes up the idea that liturgy has a ‘grammar’. Liturgical theology is understood as faith’s grammar in action. The best use and reading of this grammar requires discipline ‘askesis’, and an opening to the experiences and insights of those men and women who worship: what Kavanagh refers to as listening to ‘Mrs Murphy’. In all this Fagerberg remains close to his primary inspirations: Schmemann, Kavanagh, Taft and the patristic writers. He offers a richer insight into the priesthood of the baptized: ‘there is a world to be celebrated ... only men and women can praise God for a world taken in through the senses’ (23). The closing chapter consists of one hundred short sayings, sentences and paragraph, perhaps best described as a selection of author’s ‘musings’. Quality-wise they are a bit mixed.

While these new insights are valuable, they remain too ‘hands off’. This is noticeable in the references, few of which reflect books published since the original edition. Yet the ten or so years since the initial release have witnessed in Catholic liturgical circles the emergence of problems around translation and the theory of translation, Rome’s priority of ‘lex credendi’ over the ‘lex orandi’, restorationism entrenched but inculturation reviled, and the over-expansion of the theology of ordained priesthood as ‘in persona Christi’. More importantly, the pastoral debacle of clergy sexual abuse and its cover up by the leadership has ‘Mrs Murphy’ asking new and disturbing questions about worship. These do not rate here the urgent attention they require. Increasingly, however, they are a part of our new ‘grammar’, and play a role in the experience of each and every act of corporate worship. Fagerberg has some very good tools at hand, but unfortunately they will grow rusty while the Murphy’s, senior and junior, abandon the pews.
—Gerard Moore sm

Prayers out of the Depths. Archdiocese of Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, Chicago, 2003 [ISBN 1-56854-451-O]. US$5.00.

The foreword to this small book of prayers discusses the various forms depression can take. For those struggling with the bleak despair and loneliness that can strike at any one moment in life, this book may provide strength and solace when one is unable to find words of one’s own to speak to God. The booklet inspires, encourages and may even draw tears as we read other people’s expressions of pain. There is comfort in realising and remembering that Christ himself sorrowed deeply, that he too struggled with his faith.
—Susan Kinson

Other prayer-book titles from Liturgy Training Publications include:
Prayers for Expectant Parents [ISBN 1-56854-462-6] pp.58. US$5.00.
Austin Fleming, Prayerbook for Engaged Couples. 2nd Edition, with readings from the revised (American) lectionary. [ISBN 1-56854-520-7] pp. 85. US$10.00.