Edward Schillebeeckx O.P., great Dutch Catholic theologian, died on December 23 at the age of 95. Schillebeeckx taught dogmatic and historical theology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, Netherlands. He was a Dominican, hence the O.P., which stands for "Order of Preachers."
Schillebeeckx believed in "rethinking the Christian faith in light of contemporary culture." One thinks of Paul Tillich's "method of correlation," which similarly related faith to culture. People should read more of these theologians of the 1950's and 60's. Christian theology was once interesting--and hopeful!
The man is not widely known outside of church circles, but his influence has been considerable. The revival of the eucharist--particularly among protestants!--is partly attributable to his work. His Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (1974) and Church: The Human Story of God (1989) were ground-breaking works of theology. Progressive Catholic:
These works were born of his studies of, and participation in, vital movements in the church and the world at large, including those towards a growing autonomy in faith and ethics, towards democratization, the engagement of Christians in politics and of women in the church, liberation theologies and base communities.
Schillebeeckx wanted to move away from a rigidly heirarchical church. He was for a broadening "democratization" of the church. Talking that way is quite likely to get you investigated by the theology police, and sure enough, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, investigated Schillebeeckx three times, which is a tribute to the man, right there. These words from 1990 are more appropriate than ever:
My concern is that the further we move away in history from Vatican II, the more some people begin to interpret unity as uniformity. They seem to want to go back to the monolithic church which must form a bulwark on the one hand against communism and on the other hand against the Western liberal consumer society. I think that above all in the West, with its pluralist society, such an ideal of a monolith church is out of date and runs into a blind alley. And there is the danger that in that case, people with that ideal before their eyes will begin to force the church in the direction of a ghetto church, a church of the little flock, the holy remnant. But though the church is not of this world, it is of men and women. Men and women who are believing subjects of the church.
As an aside, I added Edward Schillebeeckx to my "heroes" section three days ago, but only found out that he had died just now. I'm taking this as a message from the Holy Spirit to re-read Jesus.
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