Must Read: "Attacks on Thomism" by John Lamont

A terrific essay by the dependably-thorough and substantial John Lamont, with rarely found explanations of Ives Congar, the difference between Modernism and Protestantism, etc., covering "manualism," Thomism and neo-modernism, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, the state of the Church, and much more -- from "A Christmastide Gift for our Readers: - Attacks on Thomism: a special historical and theological essay"(Rorate Caeli, January 1, 2015).

Attacks on Thomism: a special historical and theological essay

Attacks on Thomism

a special essay for Rorate Caeli by John Lamont

Thomism and neomodernism 

I: Progressives, 'manualism', and Thomism

Anyone who has any familiarity with the clerical and intellectual scene in the Catholic Church will have encountered the received 'progressive' wisdom concerning Thomism and its role in the Church before the Second Vatican Council, and concerning the preconciliar state of theology in general. Its claims and slogans are continually reiterated in theological and clerical circles, with little change since the era – the first half of the twentieth century – in which they were first elaborated. Unlike 'progressive' positions on moral questions, this received wisdom has virtually attained the status of a pseudo-orthodoxy within the Church, with some of its components being central to 'conservative' Catholicism. Its acceptance by neoconservatives is indicated by a favourable presentation of it by Fr. Brian van Hove in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review,¹ a journal that is one of the oldest pillars of conservative Catholicism. Fr. Van Hove's exposition of this received wisdom takes the form of an attack on Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis, an embarrassing document for neoconservative Catholics. His exposition is a naïve one, lacking the nuances that would be introduced by a clever apologist for his outlook, but it is valuable for that very reason. It is the naïve version of an idea, the simplified and readily accessible one, that gets widely adopted and that determines events; this fact is known by the clever apologists, who are aware that the nuances they introduce to disarm criticism and conceal their intentions will fall by the wayside once their position has triumphed. Together, these points make up the ideology that justified the destruction of preconciliar Catholic theology, and that is an essential underpinning of the progressive hegemony that now controls the Church. Seeing through this ideology is crucial to overcoming this hegemony; this article and its two sequels are devoted to the task of exposing it.

'Manualism'.

An important component of this ideology is an attack on 'manualism'. This attack claims that preconciliar Catholic theology largely consisted in 'manualist theology'. Allegedly, this theology was conveyed in theological manuals, and suffered from legalism, dogmatism, anti-modernism (presumed to be a fault), abstraction, and ahistoricism.  Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]

Fr. Gregory Baum & the "manualists"

An excellent article by Joseph Clifford Fenton, "The Teaching of the Theological Manuals" (CatholicCulture.org, March 13, 2014), showing how Fr. Gregory Baum completely misconstrued the significance of the teaching of the manuals with his assertion in Commonweal 77 (Jan. 18, 1963), p. 436:

The conflict at the Council is not at all between men who try to introduce new insights and modern ways and those who seek to remain faithful to the great tradition of the past. It is rather between those who seek to renew the life of the Church by returning to the most authentic Catholic tradition of all ages and those who seek to consecrate as eternal Catholic wisdom the theology of the manuals of the turn of the century and the anti-modernist emphasis which penetrated them.