What Liturgical Press is up to (a reply to Dr. Mirus)
Dear Dr. Mirus,
Thank you for the time you took to explore and comment on Liturgical Press’s new academic catalog. As one who is actively involved in both acquisitions and marketing at the Press, my first reaction to your post was satisfaction that there are still folks out there who read the catalogs we drop into the mail. In times like ours, one can never be too sure about such things. Let me say from the start that, while Liturgical Press is my employer, what I’m writing here is my personal thinking, not the Press’s. I asked my boss if he’d be okay with my posting something about what you wrote on my own blog, written on my own time, and he readily agreed. But I didn’t offer to show this to him before posting, and he didn’t ask to see it.
I see that you’re troubled by our recently announced publication of the Wisdom Commentary Series, a 58-volume feminist commentary on every book of the Bible. “When,” you ask, “did the goal of Bible study change from discerning what God has to say to imposing our own pre-conceived notions on the sacred text?”
While I can’t speak for the series’ general editor, Barbara Reid, OP, or any of its authors, I think they would whole-heartedly agree that anyone who reads Scripture must take care to avoid “imposing their own pre-conceived notions on the sacred text.” Indeed, it’s precisely why we need something like Wisdom Commentary.
Western culture, after all, while abundant in riches of all kinds, has also been marked throughout its history by “pre-conceived notions” about women that are contrary to the truth, to the well-being of our society, and to the dignity with which God imbues each of us. Pope St. John Paul II pointed to this reality when he wrote:
Unfortunately, we are heirs to a history which has conditioned us to a remarkable extent. In every time and place, this conditioning has been an obstacle to the progress of women. Women’s dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented; they have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude. This has prevented women from truly being themselves and it has resulted in a spiritual impoverishment of humanity. (Letter to Women, 3)
Like the positive aspects of our culture, this negative cultural conditioning works in our minds and hearts; it pervades all the things we do and think. That’s how culture works. And so that includes the way we read Scripture. Obviously, Christians through the ages have read it authentically and fruitfully in all kinds of ways. But that doesn’t exclude the possibility that we have, thanks to our preconceived cultural notions, failed to fully understand it as well. Indeed, we all know Scripture has been used, even by Catholics with theological degrees and sacramental ordination, to justify all manner of error and sin. So it is not only okay to wonder what we’re missing or what we’ve gotten wrong because of pre-conceived notions about women and gender; it would be irresponsible not to wonder about it. The Wisdom Commentary Series seeks to contribute to that. While not every idea suggested in every single volume will be agreeable to every reader (including me, which I’m well aware of, having carefully read each of those published so far), that’s the nature of scholarly exploration.
After your question about the commentary series, your concerns move in a more troubling direction. “Throughout the list of new titles,” you write, “female authors predominate. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, if they are the best authors the Press can find. But if there is no dissident ideology at work in the selection process, then move over, Hans Küng.” I admit to wondering how you typed your observation about the predominance of female authors without feeling uncomfortable. Adding that “there is nothing wrong with this” doesn’t change the fact that you observed it in the context of a list of criticisms.
The women (not to mention the men) we publish are indeed fine authors and scholars, often among the best there are. We tend not to tally how many are women and how many are men, but I’m pleased that it’s clear that the theological and pastoral work of women finds a welcome home at Liturgical Press.
You continue: “One’s confidence is not increased by the ‘People of God’ series of books, the most recent of which glowingly profiles Elizabeth Johnson, a nun whose work has been warned against publicly by the Doctrinal Committee of the USCCB.” Of course, I’m well aware of the criticisms directed by the USCCB’s doctrinal committee at Sr. Johnson’s work. That’s an issue that’s too big to do justice to here. Suffice it to say that legitimate questions have been raised about both the process and content of that questioning and that Johnson’s scholarly work and personal Christian witness are both widely recognized as exemplary. Indeed, Bishop Robert Morneau summarizes Johnson’s story well when he writes of this new book, “Two words come to mind in reading this biographical sketch of the life and work of Elizabeth Johnson: integrity and courage.”
Your comments veer back toward troubling again when you write, “To be sure, a few men do appear.” [Whew!] “For example, there is Systematic Theology: A Roman Catholic Approach by Thomas P. Rausch, an appalling Jesuit theologian who is about as far as it is possible to be from both the Magisterium and the authentic theological renewal spearheaded by men such as Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger.”
Please note that you applied the word “appalling” to Fr. Rausch, not to his scholarly work. I’d gently suggest an apology is in order there. As for his work, he doesn’t need me defending it, but suffice it to say that comments like yours have been made about the work of others who have spearheaded authentic theological renewal, including — in varying degrees — the two men you cite. In addition to Rausch’s decades of scholarly teaching and writing, he has served the church through engagement in official ecumenical dialogue at all levels, including with the Vatican’s Secretariat for Christian Unity. We owe him thanks, not calumny.
You continue: “But never fear: There are also male writers in a new compilation entitled Women Deacons? Essays with Answers. (This requires a book?)” This strikes me as an unserious question. After all, no less than the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has suggested that the possibility of ordaining women as deacons is “a question that must be taken up fully by direct study of the texts, without preconceived ideas.” And the question was raised yet again in the highly significant context of the World Synod of Bishops just a few months ago.
A quick and curt answer to a particular question may be easier and more comfortable, but often would fail to serve the truth well. Referring again to the work of Henri de Lubac and other theological giants, like Yves Congar and John Courtney Murray, we know they considered (yes, wrote whole books!) on questions that many would have preferred be considered closed. And now we’re all glad they did. (I note you’ve publicly expressed concerns about threats to religious freedom in the United States. You have John Courtney Murray to thank for the Catholic Church’s current recognition of that human right. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in Murray’s day, would have preferred he’d have just shut up.)
Finally, Dr. Mirus, you close your post by acknowledging with approval that Liturgical Press publishes new translations of the work of saints and doctors of the church. But of course we do. I would suggest that this is not in spite of the convictions that led us to publish the other material you commented on, but is consistent with it and even because of it. We delight in drawing from the storehouse of the church’s life and wisdom treasures both old and new. It is one of the aspects of our work that is truly a joy to me.
As our Holy Father has reminded us, “Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, concerns, investigation, but it is alive, knows how to disturb, knows how to animate. It does not have a rigid face. It has a body that moves and develops. It has sensitive flesh. Christian doctrine is called Jesus Christ.” Indeed.
Sincerely,
Barry Hudock
