Jesuit Adversaries: Progressive and Conservative
Every man and many competitive, athletic women will understand: a worthy competitor, adversary, antagonist is a great thing. Ok...it is not as good as a good lover, mother/father, friend, mentor. But it is a great thing. He will bring out the best in you.
The Jesuits were immensely influential, beyond their numbers, in Tridentine Catholicism: education, missions, martyrs. In the Vatican II Church, they have been inordinately effective in shaping and maintaining Catholic Progressivism, especially through their flagship institutions: universities, especially the more prestigious ones, and America.
Below is my "Top Ten Best Jesuit Adversary List." They are all extraordinarily brilliant, erudite, influential, God-loving, Church-serving, PROGRESSIVE Jesuits. I did not personally know any of them. I wish I did. Each is fascinating, brilliant, and by reputation prayerful and charming. In heaven I will look them up. Each had a strong hand in forming contemporary Catholic Progressivism: the turn to sterile sexuality, tolerance of legal abortion, rupture with tradition, trust in technology, embrace of leftist politics, and more.
In no particular order:
Pope Francis
Pedro Arrupe
Karl Rahner
Bernard Longergan
Robert Drinan
James Martin
Teilhard de Chardin
Roger Haight
Daniel Berrigan
John Courtney Murray
I look forward in heaven to engaging and challenging them. But I cannot compete at their level. So, I would field against them my all-star team of contemporaneous conservative Jesuits:
Hans Balthasar
Jean Danielou
Henri-Marie de Lubac
Avery Dulles
Joseph Fessio
Gerald Collins
Kenneth Baker
John Hardon
Eric Przywara
Ed Oakes
I look forward in heaven to watching these two teams-of-heaven square off against each other. Obviously, my money is on the second team. I hope that I clear purgatory before the competition begins. It shouldn't be a problem: Drinan is looking at some serious time there; but he is a theological lightweight anyway.
Fantasy Theological Competition League
I offer you, dear Reader, a challenge: Fantasy Theoogical Competition League. Above you see my 10-man Jesuit team. I dare you to propose an alternate group, your personal "fantasy team," of theologians of the last 85 years, since 1945. They generally must be Catholic, with rare exceptions. Fleckinstein will be the final judge as he is honest, balanced and unafraid. (Or is that Bret Baier on Fox at 6 PM Eastern Time?)
Some options:
Progresssives
Obviously, you want to avoid progressives like the rogues gallery above as well as Kung, Schillibeckx, Tracey, Baum, and above all Richard Rohr! Please, please, please...Not Richard Rohr! Generally, feminist and liberation theologians are not strong competitors, although Gustavo Gutierrez is a contender. You might avoid the dialogue with Eastern religions: Panikkar, de Mello, Zen Christianity and such. For example, the early Merton (pre-1965) is impressive, the later Merton not so much.
Philosophers, since the two disciplines are so close and interwoven, make good choices. These are usually lay, while theologians more frequently clerical.
Thomists
A strong team would include Thomistic philosophers like: Maritain, Gilson, Pieper, Norris Clark, John Finnis, Garrigou-Lagrange, Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Kreeft, Ralph McInerny, Thomas Joseph White, and Alasdair MacIntyre.
Personalist-Thomists (Communio)
An even stronger offering would be those who combine a grounding in Thomas with contemporary phenomenology and personalism as well as a retrieval of the fathers: John Paul, Benedict, Hildebrandt, Marcel, DC and DL Schindler, Adrian Walker, Paolo Prosperi, Michael Hanby, Antonio Lopez, Tracey Rowland and Nick Healy. Edith Stein (Saint Theresa Benedicta of the Cross) died in 1942, but she is such a strong influence that we will grant her a special dispensation to compete.
Different Flavor
Charles Taylor, Rene Girard, Remi Brague, Christopher Dawson, and Jean-Luc Marion.
Radical, Passionate, Eccentric, Dynamic
Ivan Illich, Henri Nouwen, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Heather King, Carlo Caretto, and Paolo Freire. Along similar lines: influencers like Fulton Sheen, Robert Barron, Luis Martinez, and Archbishop Chaput. On the more hierarchical track consider: Suenens, George, Arinze, Mueller, Zen, Sarah, Scola, Burke (early, but not later) Schonborn.
Non Catholics
While this competition is for Catholic theologians, we will grant dispensations for important, Church-adjacent-or-friendly intellects like Protestants C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright, Wendel Berry, Stanley Hauerwas, John Milbank, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Orthodox David Hart and Alexander Schmemann. Bultmann, Tillich and Barth are too anti-Catholic. Possible Jewish contenders would be Martin Buber and Abraham Heschel.
Biblical ScholarsA distinct but compelling genre: Scott Hahn, Raymond Brown, John McKenzie, Brian Pitre, John Bergsma, and Joseph Fitzmyer S.J.
Charismatics
You know that Fleckinstein favors charismatics so you might consider: Ralph Martin, Raniero Cantalamessa, Killian McDonald, Francis Martin, and Ed O'Connor.
Catholic Neo-Conservatives
Notwithstanding their soft libertarianism, "Americanism," enthusiasm for capitalism, and comfort with bourgeois Republicanism, these have been fierce in defending Catholicism in the Culture War and the global war with totalitarianism and so merit our respect: Novak, Neuhaus, Weigel, Reno, Arroyo, Royal, Gleason, Eric Sammons and their posses at First Things, Crisis, The Catholic Thing, and EWTN.
Psychologists
Strong Catholic voices from and within academic psychology include: Paul Vitz, Karl Stern, Benedict Groeschel, Joseph Nicolosi Sr and Jr, Elizabeth Moberly, Conrad Baars, Greg Bottaro, Andrew Sodergren, and Richard Fitzgibbons. With this group we might include Susan Motto and Adrian von Kaam, both in the field of spirituality.
Conclusion
There you have it kind Reader: 120 of the Catholic thinkers who have shaped our Church and world. We look forward to considering your theological dream team.
Thank you for indulging Fleckinstein. His compulsion to make lists is getting out of control. If you suspected that he is "on the spectrum" you would not be without grounds. Do not talk about this with the family: everyone will want me back on my meds. But I do my best blogging when I am in my hypo-mania! Don't you agree?😂
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