T&T Clark's ‘Doing Theology’ series, now numbering half a dozen volumes, seeks to identify the animating spirit and foundational principles that characterise various denominational theological traditions. Tracey Rowland's Catholic contribution is a tour de force that will open the sometimes labyrinthine discussions of twentieth-century Catholic theologians to a new audience and offer those already familiar with this tradition a new and interesting vantage point. Easily accessible to those without formal theological training, and presumably of particular interest to Catholics, the book will equally be helpful to non-Catholic theology students seeking a roadmap to the characteristic movements of Catholic theology and the distinctive conversations that have dominated its postconciliar expression.
The first chapter isolates the distinctive character of Catholic theology by presenting a fundamental theology in outline. The question is two-fold: what makes Catholic theology Catholic, and what makes Catholic theology theological? The chapter derives an answer primarily from documents of the International Theological Commission, which are woven into an impressive tapestry of references, with a particular attentiveness to the Papal Magisterium (John Paul II and Benedict XVI feature prominently, but the importance of Pius XII is scarcely concealed) and the documents of the two Vatican Councils. This indicates a key strength of Rowland's work: historical consciousness, coupled with a commitment to resisting narratives of epochal rupture, tracing out and sustaining continuities and complexities that contribute to a legitimate pluralism. The heart of the Catholic imaginary is, it seems, precisely such a capacity to sustain an analogical unity that resists the antimonic disjunction of a stark either-or: the distinctively ‘Catholic mental habit’ (p. 27) of the both-and. Naturally, Karl Barth's critique of the analogical ‘and’ as—in Barth's reckoning—the principle differentiating Catholicism and Protestantism stands as a contrast figure. Barth will reappear at key points of Rowland's narrative, but his importance as an influential critic of Catholicism is never given quite the attention it deserves. The logic of both-and is traced across a number of iterations: Christ-Trinity, Christology-Mariology, nature-grace, logos-ethos, and Scripture-Tradition. Given the fundamental theological focus, however, another could have been added (drawing on the work of Chenu): the embrace of both apologetics and dogmatics.
The second Chapter considers diverse modes of engaging Aquinas (the normative example of Catholic theology). This plunges Rowland into the central controversy and decisive shift of contemporary Catholic theology, cohering around Vatican II as an ecclesiastical and theological event sui generis: the displacement of anti-modernism by the so-called Nouvelle Théologie. By addressing the question in terms of readings of Aquinas, Rowland skilfully avoids falling into the tempting but reductive caricatures that often narrate this shift in Catholic theological consciousness. Nonetheless, by parsing the emergence of Nouvelle Théologie in terms of versions of Thomism, Rowland sidesteps the fundamental question identified (with Ratzinger) at the start of the book: ‘the mediation of history in the realm of ontology’. Embedded within these readings of Aquinas are competing theological accounts of the significance of the contingency of historical and cultural mediations of faith. There is a clear sense of development from Classical-Baroque-Leonine Thomism(s) (pp. 44-53) to the more plural forms of the twentieth-century (pp. 60-89), but a careful analysis of neo-Thomism shows that it was far from homogenous (pp. 53-60). In the case of Transcendental Thomism—perhaps the most audacious rearticulation of Aquinas—which flourished in Lonergan and Rahner, there are clear preconciliar antecedents not only with Maréchal but also with Rousselot's Platonist reading of Aquinas (Rousselot stands to the Catholic tradition more generally as Victor White does to the English Dominican tradition). Interestingly, Rousselot is one of a handful of hinge figures (including Maurice Blondel and Erich Przywara) who were formed by the nineteenth century, and so mediate its concerns (iconically expressed in Scheeben) to the twentieth century. In short, Rowland's presentation suggests that rather than introducing a definitive novum, twentieth century Thomisms reflect the defeat of one set of nineteenth-century concerns by another. Rowland's versions of Thomism include some less well-known variants including the River Forest School, whose prioritisation of physics over metaphysics is an important contrapuntal reading to that of Radical Orthodoxy.
Chapters 3 and 4 present the two styles of Catholic theology reflected in the prominent journals Communio and Concilium. Rowland, of course, has a stake in this, but her presentation of the ‘Concilium Alternative’ is charitable and balanced. The dominant metaphor is one developed from Lieven Boeve (pp. 158-164). Thinkers from both Communio and Concilium groups understand themselves as simultaneously testators and heirs to the Catholic tradition. Concilium—with its project of dynamic recontextualisation—emphasises the testator's role in judging how to apply a theological legacy to contemporary situations. Communio thinkers—emphasising a hermeneutic of continuity—tend to stress the need to pass on the theological inheritance intact, without corruption, noting the risk of loss or decay that accrues to each act of subjective recontextualisation. Although Rowland presents Concilium as an alternative to Communio, she has already acknowledged the Catholic imaginary's capacity for both/and thinking. The two impulses might be reconcilable as dynamic forces, an interplay of centrifugal and centripetal forces that issues in a dynamic movement.
The concluding chapter considers theologies of liberation and Pope Francis's relationship to them. There is some well-meaning rib-tickling (Boff's ninety-eight theoretical principles for affirming the priority of praxis over theory, p. 175), apparently grounded by a concern that liberation theology simultaneously repeats the hegemony it seeks to subvert and undermines the integrity of the faith. Feminist theologies could have been given more detailed discussion, but the chapter is most interesting in its methodological assessments and consideration of culture as locus theologicus. The question of how to read the Aparecida document is clearly central to understanding Francis's theological vision, but even such a tentative assessment of his papacy feels premature. In the light of subsequent events, would Rowland focus more on Francis's engagement with Kasper? We often hear about the doctoral work of (then) Fr Bergoglio, exploring Guardini's thought (in which a prioritisation of logos over ethos would resist the elevation of orthopraxis), but has anyone been able to access it and make a careful study?
