A publication of Sacred Heart University. All opinions are solely those of the authors.
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“Viva il Papa!”

A Paradigm Shift for Theology?

On November 1, 2023, Pope Francis issued a motu proprio to revise the statutes for the Pontifical Academy of Theology. Not a very exciting sounding development for sure, though hidden in the document is a clear call to all theology “to a turning point, to a change of paradigm, to a ‘courageous cultural revolution’ that commits it, in the first place, to be a fundamentally contextual theology, capable of reading and interpreting the Gospel in the conditions in which men and women daily live.” Francis called on scholars, “like good shepherds,” to “smell of the people and the street and, with their reflection, pour oil and wine on the wounds of men.” As a synodal, missionary and outgoing church, he proclaimed, we need a correspondingly “outgoing” theology, which will be a product of “an epistemological and methodological rethink.” One that adopts an inductive method. Theologians will need to commit to doing theology “in a synodal form, promoting among themselves the ability to listen, dialogue, discern and integrate the multiplicity and variety of the demands and contributions.” Not a dismissal of theology, to be sure, but a wake-up call to many.

Reflecting on this, a lot of different thoughts came together for me this week. There were the magi, of course, heading from nowhere in particular in search of something they knew not quite what. There was also a phrase that has been bugging me, from Jorge Bergoglio’s address to the gathered cardinals before the consistory that elected him pope, when he called on Christians to reach out to the periphery with the good news and listed “intellectual currents” among the target groups. What on earth did that mean? And by happenstance, reading of Christian Wiman’s latest book, Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair, pushed me to think about the relative inadequacy of theology to do justice to religious experience, compared to the stimulus to the imagination afforded by poetry. One question becomes clear: what use is theology anyway, or perhaps more accurately, what kind of theology is it that Pope Francis values? And one answer stands out: it all depends on how imaginative you are prepared to be in bringing together two loci, namely, the everyday experience of ordinary people and the word of God in Scripture. On January 5 in America magazine, John Martens suggested that Pope Francis’ emphasis on scripture is one source of the disquiet expressed about him by many Catholics because the message of unlimited love and unfettered mercy breaks away from comfortable boundaries. It’s scary. That’s why the grand inquisitor and his pals theologized Jesus into incarceration, and his response, to kiss his jailer, blew the gates off the prison. Not that over-cautious ecclesiastics and more than a few theologians haven’t been trying to shore up the fortifications ever since, with considerable success until the present papacy.

Francis clearly does not want to abolish theology, but he evidently thinks it should be conducted out in the open and in concert with the daily experience of all Christians, “outgoing” and not self-absorbed, dedicated to the primary task of Christians, which for Francis is evangelization. But being evangelical means being an outward-looking community of love and mercy. This requires in its turn, I think, creating a theology that explains and justifies exactly why the work of the church is nothing more nor less than love and mercy. And that, to return to Martens, is a deeply scriptural theology that keeps its distance from the metaphysical death by a thousand qualifications. So, when this week in church we celebrated the Epiphany, the magi exemplified Francis’ words that “paradoxically, those who claim to be unbelievers can sometimes put God’s will into practice better than believers.” While you can express dubia about the words of Francis, you are on shaky ground if your reservations extend to the clear message of scripture. Like the Samaritan in the gospel parable, these wise men are models for Christians and Jews, though they stand outside the traditions themselves. The call of God is not just extended to all but perhaps heard by all, which is uncomfortable to anyone who wishes to celebrate the good luck of Christians. Theology’s role is not to put this into question, but to start from this point and move forward. And that means that boundless love and mercy are unquestionable fundamentals.

So, what then about the church’s responsibility to reach out to those who follow other “intellectual currents”? How can you evangelize those who have their own intellectual and moral convictions and no space for the Christian story? Don’t we just have to respect their difference? Evidently, if we put Jesus Christ front and center in our outreach, we will not get far. But if we put the message of Jesus Christ in evidence through our practice of boundless mercy and love, while we may make no converts to the church, we may very well help build up the people of God. As the 14th century mystical treatise, The Cloud of Unknowing, proclaimed, “by our love the divine may be reached and held, by our thinking, never.” Theology is a rational activity, clearly, but can it find a way to abandon prescription and proscription? Its future role may be the profoundly important but second-order activity of description of the works of love and mercy.


Paul Lakeland is emeritus professor of Catholic Studies at Fairfield University.