Sacramentum Unitatis Ecclesiasticae: The eucharistic ecclesiology of Henri de Lubac
2003; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 85; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2163-6214
Autores Tópico(s)Medieval Philosophy and Theology
ResumoOne of the most important and lasting achievements of ressourcement, the extraordinary movement in modern French theology calling for a reassessment of the source texts of the Christian tradition, has been a renewed, or rather rejuvenated, approach to the eucharistic theology of the church. A central figure in this renaissance was the Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac. Several of his major works, such as his first book, (1938), and most especially his remarkable study Corpus Mysticum (1944), argued for an understanding of the relationship between the church and the eucharist that pointedly challenged prevailing notions of the sacrament, and therefore elicited no small amount of criticism from his contemporaries. A significant portion of the debate centered on Cardinal de Lubac's interpretation of the historical development of certain aspects of eucharistic thought and piety in the Middle Ages, and on his reinterpretation of the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas had become a focus for particular attention in the middle of the last century, when some of the leading figures in the Catholic church in Vichy France, as well as many conservative neo-Thomist theologians, denounced the conclusions drawn by the ressourcement thinkers in their rigorously historical approach to medieval theology.1 De Lubac found himself one of the primary targets in this attack, but nevertheless maintained a thoughtfulness and integrity in his theological witness that is evident throughout his works, and which continues to have a lasting impact on the church today, while his opponents have long ceased to draw any significant amount of attention. His groundbreaking act of ressourcement paved the way for the sacramental theology of Rahner and Schillebeeckx, without which Vatican II is in many respects inconceivable. Given the recognition that the late Cardinal has now received as probably the greatest theologian of his generation in France, there is some need for a reassessment of the coherence and relevance of his theological vision for our own time, and in particular for Anglican thought today. If the immense influence of de Lubac and other French theologians of his time on leading Anglo-Catholic thinkers of the pre-war period is any indication, his work may prove to strike a chord deeply resonant within the church of our own age. This paper, then, will seek to trace the unfolding of de Lubac's eucharistic thought as it is expressed in the two works named above, revisiting the arguments surrounding his understanding of medieval theologies of the eucharist and how these inform his own theology. It is hoped that this investigation will yield valuable insights into the relationship of the eucharist to the church, which will make possible further reflections on our current understanding of the role and meaning of the sacrament of the altar in the life of the church. De Lubac's first major theological work, Catholicism: A Study of Dogma in Relation to the Destiny of Mankind (1938), was intended, in its emphasis on the essentially social nature of Christianity, to address what he perceived to be the unfortunate tendency in the religious attitudes of his day towards individualization rather than a focus on community. He deplored the atrophy of the life of the church brought on, as he saw it, both by the appropriation of religion for political uses and the ossification of faith into mere social convention. In particular he worked against the perception of Christianity as an elitist religion concerned only with the personal and the interior life. Drawing on a vast array of patristic and medieval sources, de Lubac set out to demonstrate that true Catholicism addressed every facet of human experience, public and private, social and individual, political and spiritual. He insisted, above all, on the social nature of the gospel-that the promise of salvation was extended not to individuals alone but to a community of individuals.2 What de Lubac was responding to in all this, then, was the anti-clericalism of the Third Republic (which would soon give way to theVichy regime in 1940) and to the empty ritualism and retreat into spiritual interiority that variously characterized the reaction to this political situation, both resulting in a faith that was incapable of an effectual engagement with the world at large. …
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