The “Controversial” Richard Gaillardetz
A small band of activists are urging Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, to skip an upcoming conference at Saint Paul’s University (in Ottawa). Entitled “Vatican II for the Next Generation,” the conference is slated for September and is being warned against on account of its featuring of speakers “strongly opposed to Catholic teaching.”
Among those “controversial,” LifeSiteNews identifies Richard Gaillardetz, a theologian currently teaching at Boston College. Gaillardetz, the article states, wrote an op-ed piece (in 2008) identifying Barack Obama as the “pro-life candidate” in that year’s federal election. Further Gaillardetz has questioned the definitive status of Humanae vitae and the impossibility of ordaining women.
I offer no counsel to Cardinal Turkson (and find it curious that others feel qualified), but I am interested in the identification of Gaillardetz as an object of suspicion or “controversy.” After all, it was not too long ago that Gaillardetz gave two major presentations at the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops Plenary Assembly. That minute band of activists who succeeded in generating controversy at that time, and who were opposed to Gaillardetz speaking to the Canadian Bishops (bishops who extended the invitation to him), offered no engagement with the actual content of either presentation made by Gaillardetz. At no point did these activists admit that their fears had been unfounded. Instead they became silent and, several years later, have resurfaced with Gaillardetz’ potential return to Canada.
I remember reading that Gaillardetz received a church mandate to teach when he began a ten year appointment at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston. This mandatum, it was communicated, was portable insofar as it remained in effect until revoked (which it has not been). Nonetheless, the three strikes LifeSiteNews identifies against Gaillardetz are worthy of consideration.
On one hand Gaillardetz opposes abortion. On the other a 2008 identification exists identifying Barack Obama as the “pro-life candidate” in that year’s federal election. Gaillardetz appears to question the strategy of directing energies towards overturning Roe v. Wade, but it seems to me that these stands deserve to be seen in the context of how Gaillardetz understands abortion as being most practically reduced.
His judgment can be met with agreement or disagreement (as I understand, it has been met with the disagreement of his prior ordinary, Bishop Blair), but to the extent that overturning Roe v. Wade would return abortion to the purview of individual states, argument can be made that there are more effective ways to reduce the number of abortions occurring right now. Gaillardetz, it seems to me, is entitled to hold the argument he does, and his opinion neither besmirches his integrity as a Catholic theologian, nor is doctrinally relevant to the ecclesiology he would communicate in the context of his Fall presentation on the Second Vatican Council.
That Gaillardetz sat on the National Steering Committee of Obama’s Catholic Advisory Board is not bothersome to me. Gaillardetz claims: “I did not support President Obama’s position on abortion and when I was asked to be on his Advisory Board, I made it clear to his senior staff that were I appointed to the board, I would continue to voice my opposition to the Senator on that issue. I was told that such criticism would be welcomed and indeed it was. Several of us on the Advisory Board called time and again for a change in Senator Obama’s positions…” I see no reason to dismiss this testimony as dishonest. Furthermore, at this very site, Gaillardetz commented: “While I do not regret my support of President Obama, I do regret the flippant suggestion that he is pro-life. In the Op-Ed piece in which I made that statement I was referring to a broad range of social policies. I have consistently opposed President Obama’s position on abortion.”
Moving past the irrelevant preoccupation with the politics of Gaillardetz, there are two considerations LifeSiteNews identifies which are relevant to the discipline (ecclesiology) in which Gaillardetz finds himself. When Gaillardetz is identified as questioning the definitive status of Humanae vitae, let us be clear about what is being identified: We are talking about ecclesial weight. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian observes that “one must therefore take into account the proper character of every exercise of the Magisterium, considering the extent to which its authority is engaged,” and as an ecclesiologist it seems to me that this is what Gaillardetz is doing by investigating and seeking to determine the document’s weight.
As to whether the Church’s teaching on artificial methods of regulating birth has achieved definitive status, consider Monsignor Ferdinando Lambruschinni who presented the encyclical to the press from the Vatican on 29 July 1968. In his formal statement, Lambruschinni claimed that the encyclical contained no ex cathedra pronouncement. Further, he ruled out the possibility that Humanae vitae was a reaffirmation of a teaching already infallibly proposed, and he suggested that if new data appeared in the future, the possibility of a revised statement could not be ruled out.
Simply because the Monsignor said this doesn’t make it true. However, individuals who believe the teaching has been presented infallibly need to explain what has happened in the last forty years to make this teaching discernibly infallible and, also why neither the Church nor the majority of ecclesiologists present this teaching as infallible. While it may be a shock to that band of activists opposed to Gaillardetz, this Catholic theologian exists within the mainstream of Catholic ecclesiology in his evaluation of the status of that which is communicated in Humanae vitae.
The same is true of his questioning of the impossibility of ordaining women. Quite simply this is Gaillardetz offering his professional expertise regarding the weight with which, he believes, a particular teaching has been presented. Even if the assessment is wrong (for example, the CDF’s 28 October 1995 “Response to Dubium” identifies its own alternate evaluation), that would not make Gaillardetz the “hard-core liberal dissenter” that letter writer Tom Richardson once hurled in his direction. Any error by Gaillardetz, further, would be shared by Francis Sullivan, whose work in ecclesiology (in the English-speaking world, and in my opinion) is second to none. Although Gaillardetz is not rendered infallible as a result of agreeing with Sullivan, and although not without inviting critical response, Gaillardetz exists within the mainstream of Catholic ecclesiology on this matter. At issue is a matter requiring further attention in Catholic ecclesiology: the method of verifying that which has been definitively connected with the divinely revealed. All that is identified as belonging to that “definitively connected with divine revelation” gradation, must be considered an interpretation and while one’s interpretation can be questioned, one’s Catholicity need not be.
Critics of Gaillardetz need to remember that even when a teaching has not been presented infallibly (or even when ambiguity exists as to where a teaching is best classified), that does not mean that there is suddenly dispute as to what the Church teaches, or dispute as to how persons respond. As paragraph 25 of Lumen gentium notes, even “when he is not speaking ex cathedra” the “religious submission of mind and will must be shown in an authentic way to the magisterium of the Roman Pontiff.” More important, I think, than the status of a document, is making evident the truth contained within. To that end, Gaillardetz reminds his critics that he has never challenged, in his works, the truthfulness of reserving priestly ministry to men, and also, that he has defended, in his works, the Church’s views on artificial methods of regulating birth. And yet to a small number, this is not enough.
I appreciate (what I charitably choose to interpret as) the interest these activists have in the state of the Catholic Church in Canada, and in the integrity of a Catholic institution such as Saint Paul’s University, and in their concern for the hearers of (what they perceive are) dangerous views, but the criticisms of Gaillardetz are lightweight (to be polite), and in place of them I think Canadian Catholics would be better off giving the benefit of the doubt to a great number of American Bishops who have employed Gaillardetz’ services and placed their confidence in him, to the Canadian Bishops who have done the same, and to Saint Paul’s University who believes Gaillardetz has something of worth to contribute. I have no doubt that he does.
K.
Readers might appreciate “Fulfilling the Unrealized Vision of Vatican II” (a sixty [or so] minute lecture by Gaillardetz).
Comments are closed.
Kelly, you deserve a throne in heaven for calmly and intelligently responding to LieSiteNews’ drivel. God bless you.
“His judgment can be met with agreement or disagreement (as I understand, it has been met with the disagreement of his prior ordinary, Bishop Blair), but to the extent that overturning Roe v. Wade would return abortion to the purview of individual states, argument can be made that there are more effective ways to reduce the number of abortions occurring right now. Gaillardetz, it seems to me, is entitled to hold the argument he does, and his opinion neither besmirches his integrity as a Catholic theologian, nor is doctrinally relevant to the ecclesiology he would communicate in the context of his Fall presentation on the Second Vatican Council.”
I agree here, mostly. Catholics are not required to hold to any single POLITICAL solution for ethical questions.
While theoretically, I think, we must uphold the idea that the State has a duty to protect innocents and punish injustice, there can be legitimate debate in an unideal world about what prudential measures actually WORK in practice to help the most people or save the most lives.
As well as similar debate about whether we treat all crimes equally in practice. For example, in the current situation, it would probably HURT our cause to suggest that women who have abortions be executed for murder. I have no doubt it’s murder, and maybe someday society will see no distinction between classes of humans based on age, and so they’ll be treated like any other murderess. But for now suggesting the idea is just unhelpful, and even most pro-lifers know this and don’t insist that the internal logic of the moral/ethical proposition be institutionalized in the legal situation; the goal is to maximize the common good and save lives on the practical level, not to enshrine theory or philosophy or ideology in law.
So, on the one hand, a Catholic who defended the idea that criminalizing abortion is not the best way to use our limited time and resources…is one thing. Nor am I of the camp that believes voting for a pro-choice candidate is in itself an absolute evil; obviously, perhaps you might think he maximizes the overall good, or that the pro-life candidate would actually achieve nothing on that front.
It’s a different matter, however, if a politician believes in a “right” to abortion, believes that it should be legal as a matter of principle rather than just practice, does not believe the unborn are human, or thinks that the State should positively and actively support it through funding or through defending the act against anyone who might try to prevent or disrupt it. Even if there is no further criminalization, at the very least the police should be empowered to restrain aggressors (ie, stop imminent abortions).
I too was a bit surprised (until I reminded myself who I was reading) to see that Gaillardetz was the controversial theologian in question. I mean, really, he is only controversial because they don’t like him. It is an odd practice to raise a fuss over someone a couple years back and then refer to that same someone as “controversial” a few years later. What an odd little world, where news is one’s own recycled opinions.
And yes, they had not a word to say about the actual content of Gaillardetz’s talks to the CCCB. That says a tonne!
There is also the very serious problem of creeping infallibility. To deny that something is infallibly taught is not the same as to deny that it is true. Conversely, one need not assert infallibility to assert the truth of a doctrine. I just read Louis Bouyer’s Woman in the Church, a fascinating exploration of gender and creation written, in large part, to defend an all-male (Bouyer would prefer, “non-gender neutral,” and I agree) priesthood. In it, he points out that, if the question reaches a certain seriousness, it is likely that the Church would define it infallibly. But that presumes it has not yet done so! (Admittedly, the book was written before Ordinatio Sacerdotalis and so does not pronounce an opinion on the infallibility of that document. My point in bringing it up is simply to show that one can vehemently agree with the truth of a certain teaching, as Bouyer does, without assuming it has been taught infallibly.)
“When Gaillardetz is identified as questioning the definitive status of Humanae vitae, let us be clear about what is being identified: We are talking about ecclesial weight.”
I don’t know the specifics of the case, so I can’t say.
If all he was doing was questioning whether Humanae Vitae represents “class 1, 2, or 3″ of the CDF’s commentary on the Professio Fidei, or (in more traditional terms) whether it represents de fide, sententia fidei proxima, sententia certa, etc…that would be one thing.
Jumping from a conclusion that “This isn’t de fide!” to “Therefore, we’re free to question it, and I do in fact question it!!!” either explicitly or implicitly…is another matter. We’re really not free to question any of the levels that it might in fact be. The question of whether it is heresy strictly so called or merely the sin of doubt or dissent not directly against the virtue of supernatural faith…is a mere technicality at that point.
You make it sound like he doesn’t question the teachings themselves, merely the level of definitiveness which some claim they have. Again, I don’t know the specifics of the case, but that might be okay and you may be right, he may be fine.
Though, I’d argue, “clarifications” of the level of teaching themselves constitute teachings demanding submission of intellect and will (if not more). If the Pope says the ordination of women is forbidden by infallible ordinary and universal magisterium…then that itself is a teaching we must agree with at the appropriate level of assent, inasmuch as establishing the “level” of teaching is itself a valid act of magisterium. It isn’t mere “interpretation” but is an authoritative (and even “doctrinal”) interpretation of the magisterium BY the magisterium. It has that right; it is its own definitive interpreter.
Of course, there is yet ANOTHER loop-hole in the fact that THIS principle I just enunciated has not, in itself, been defined. (There is an infinite regress here that needs to be addressed, that I discuss below).
“All that is identified as belonging to that ‘definitively connected with divine revelation’ gradation, must be considered an interpretation and while one’s interpretation can be questioned, one’s Catholicity need not be.”
I don’t know about “interpretation.” I think the Magisterium needs to clear this up.
For example, I know a Melkite patriarch once said something like, “I personally believe and accept that the infallibility of the Pope. But I don’t necessarily insist that this truth is a de fide dogma.”
In other words, “The dogma may be dogma. But the fact that it is a dogma is not a dogma” or something like that. “I submit with faith to this truth. But I don’t necessarily submit with faith to the idea that it is a truth I must submit with faith to.”
Yet this introduces a “conditionality” into ones submission along the lines of “IF this is a truth that I must submit with faith to, then I do. But that question, in itself, is not a matter I must submit on.”
But, that’s almost just tautological, as anyone sane would submit to a truth ASSUMING it is of the sort we are required to. Heck, I’ll “conditionally” submit with faith to the idea that Vishnu is God “IF it is in fact a dogma” (but, of course, it’s not, so I don’t really submit to it at all! But, heck, the fact that it’s not a dogma…is not a dogma…so who knows!”
I’m not sure how acceptable all this mental gymnastics regarding certainty is. I’m not sure faith or religious assent is or can be conditional like that. There is a real danger here of “epistemologizing” our way into being able to get out of any teaching by saying, “Well, the teaching was certainly stated. But the fact that it was stated with a certain level of authority…has never been stated definitively. Or, even if it is has, the level of authority held by that claim of the original teaching having a certain level of authority…is itself debatable.”
This just leads to a lot of mental gymnastics.
I imagine the Church could promulgate an idea something along the lines of, “Ex cathedra extraordinary solemn definitions of Popes or Councils…are self evidently de fide, and the fact of their de fide status is also de fide, and the fact of the fact of their de fide status is also de fide; an infinite epistemic regress is implied by the very self-evidence of ex cathedra teachings that explicitly identify themselves as such.”
Then, it could also say, “The weight carried by other levels of teaching may be debatable if it was not explicitly stated in the definition itself. But if it is clarified by the Pope or CDF, then this clarification, by the very fact of being self-conscious of the question of the level of authority, carries the weight of sententia certa or sententia fidei proxima (as does this decree establishing this principle)” or something like that.
This would help clear up any problems regarding the “infinite regress of questioning how definitive a teaching is.”
Thanks Kelly for another brilliant post ! What Kurt said.
I’m currently reading Francis A Sullivan’s “Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church” and “Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium” and very highly recommend them as an excellent, sound, orthodox, and clear explanation of Magisterial teaching authority and how it works in the church.
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis does not teach that it is impossible to ordain women, so Gaillardetz is correct on that. What it teaches is:
Authority not present today might be granted one day, as nothing is impossible to God. The acceptance of such a grant would be evident if a future Pope was to define a dogma that the Church had now received the authority to ordain women.
Aquinas and the Second Vatican II both taught that God is not bound by the sacraments. If God wanted to ordain women, he could and he would.
The Orthodox Churches have long ordained women deacons; and the Holy Father has confirmed that the Catholic Church has no doctrine against ordaining women deacons.
God Bless
An excellent and very thoughtful critique. Thank you for it. Richard Gaillardetz is one of the most insightful commentators on Vatican II. His books about the Council and about authority in the Church are masterful and very, very readable. Evidently his “problem” is that he supported (and maybe still supports) President Obama. Not sure why this disqualifies him from speaking on Vatican II.
If you have ever heard RIck Gaillardetz or had the pleasure of taking a course from him, you can never question his love of the Catholic Church and his insightful thoughts.