WASHINGTON (March 30, 2011)—The U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine authorized a statement March 24, critiquing Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, a book by a Fordham University Professor, Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, New York.
In the statement, the Committee asserts that the “basic problem with Quest for the Living God as a work of Catholic theology is that the book does not take the faith of the Church as its starting point. Instead, the author employs standards from outside the faith to criticize and to revise in a radical fashion the conception of God revealed in Scripture and taught by the Magisterium.”
The statement notes that Sister Johnson attempts to justify her revisions of traditional Catholic theology by arguing that this tradition has become contaminated by ideas from Enlightenment thinkers, who are responsible for the conception of God in what she calls “modern theism.”
The other day Jack from the Catholic Key blog tweeted: “When I saw Elizabeth Johnson’s book condemned by USCCB, I felt certain it must have won a Catholic Press Association award – Sure enough” and also “A friend of mine said of CPA book awards – “CPA in the Spring, CDF in the Fall” – works almost every time.”
Father Z posts her response to the USCCB which has the typical why was I not consulted. Well it seems she didn’t consult the Church since the book does not have a nihil obstat which would be required for a book of theology.
An unfortunate side effect is the book is now at the top of the bestsellers list for theology at Amazon.
5 comments
“Sr.” Johnson was on the theology faculty at CUA when I was in seminary at Theological College. She taught the required Christology class. much time spent (wasted) on her opinion of Christology as opposed to teaching Church doctrines.
Heaven forbid bloggers should trump the bishops’ authority! If we take the teaching office of the bishops seriously, we should be careful as members of the laity not to act with magisterial authority, making decisions what is or is not required of theological texts. You can see clearly from the statement put out by Cardinal Wuerl who chairs the Committee on Doctrine that an imprimatur is not required for theological texts, but is recommended as a good way to open dialogue between theologians and the bishops: http://www.usccb.org/doctrine/statement-quest-for-the-living-god-remarks-2011-03-30.pdf Let’s try to remain obedient to his authority!
Fr. Mack, with all due respect, because as far as we know Sr. Johnson is in good standing with her order and her local bishops, so it would again seem inappropriate to put “Sr” in scare quotes, again presuming greater authority than those entrusted with it. Finally, as a faculty member at CUA, which has a pontifical faculty, she would have been approved by the appropriate magisterial authorities. Again, it seems wise to separate out your personal distaste for her work from her good standing in the Catholic church. If we take seriously the authority our magisterium, we should not presume to know better than they do.
Do you monitor comments here?
Good…
Would you care to assist on the Amazon discussion forums? In particular, the Catholic forum, where Anne Rice and a few others are doing their best to derail the Church, for its “own good”, of course…
Too, there’s the Christianity forum – things can get rather difficult there as well. We need some excellent apologists to post on both, so please consider it…
Here are the links:
Catholic forum:
http://www.amazon.com/tag/catholic/forum/
Christianity forum:
http://www.amazon.com/tag/christianity/forum/
Consider this an S. O. S. to the best of the best. Christ needs his best warriors to counter these detractors, so bring your friends – whoever can post and counter the garbage they post…
Please do not post my comments – I post over there as Faith, but I am not an apologist.
Thank you for any and all help –
God bless you.