A public apology to Scott Hahn

Just for the record, and to prevent any further misunderstanding, I want to apologize for publishing unedited and without any qualifying explanation a guest essay that included a passing swipe at Professor Hahn. I would not ordinarily do this sort of thing, Pertinacious Papist that I am, but Scott is a good friend of mine whose friendship and reputation I value, and I would not want to tarnish these in any way.

"The gnostic temptation: Theology as Literary Criticism" is in my opinion an otherwise fine essay by another respected friend, Ralph Roister-Doister, which raises some very important and timely issues about postmodern theological trends. I suppose Ralph's sense of humor sometimes gets the better of him. A passing reference to "Scott Hahn's Archie 'n' Jughead promotion of the family as a suitable symbol for the triune God" was offensive, as suggested by several individuals, and I should have requested its deletion before publishing it. In interests of full disclosure, I went ahead and published the piece despite Ralph's second thoughts about it, and so that was my responsibility. In any case, as readers who pursued the discussion into the accompanying combox are aware, further qualifying remarks were offered by myself and others a propos those remarks, at least indirectly. But I now recognize the insufficiency of those remarks. The essay itself should have not been posted unedited.

Accordingly, I have edited out the "Archie 'n' Jughead" swipe. Ralph is still well within his rights to raise the questions he does about von Balthasar and Hahn, although the more obvious target of his criticism, in my opinion, would be postmodern Catholic scholars such as Fr. Joseph O'Leary, John Dominic Crossan, Thomas Sheehan, Mary Daly, Richard Rohr, and the like.

I do not expect the issues surrounding Hahn's proposals regarding the Holy Spirit to be settled soon, any more than I would expect the same of von Balthasar's proposals regarding the hope that all men might be saved. What I hope for, as I'm sure Scott does, is a robust discussion of these issues with a passion for truth ameliorated by honesty and charity.

Update 4/10/07

Related reading that may be of interest includes the online Appendix [PDF file] to Scott Hahn's The Family Spirit, which touches on the controverted points regarding the perfection of spiritual maternity and its relation to the Church, to Mary, and to the Holy Spirit.