Romano Amerio, in his magisterial book
Iota Unum, writes very critically about the anthropology espoused by the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution
Gaudium et Spes. His critique focuses particularly on the end of number 30, the last sentence of which reads:
"But this development cannot occur unless individual men and their associations cultivate in themselves the moral and social virtues, and promote them in society; thus, with the needed help of divine grace men who are truly new and artisans of a new humanity can be forthcoming." In response Amerio points out that the Catholic faith "knows of only
three radical kinds of newness, capable of bringing about a new state of humanity and, as it were, of transnaturalizing it. The first is defective, and is the one by which man fell, by reason of a primordial fault, from a state of integrity and supernatural existence. The second is restorative and perfective, and is the one way by which the grace of Christ restores the original state of human nature and, indeed, elevates that nature above its original condition. The third is completive of the whole order of things, and is the one by which, at the end of time, man endowed with grace is also beatified and glorified in a supreme assimilation of the creature to the Creator, an assimilation which,
in via Thomae just as much as
in via Scoti, is the very purpose of the universe" (Amerio 112).
It is well known that apart from
Lumen Gentium's identifying the Church as the
"People of God," Gaudium et Spes is Pope Benedict XVI's least favorite document of the council. It must be noted that even its canonical status as a so-called
pastoral constitution is unclear, kind of like a conciliar non-binding resolution. What is most problematic about this document is precisely its tortured anthropology. Especially in the 60s the moniker
new man was associated with Marxist regimes beginning with the Russian
homo Sovieticus, the idea that the Soviet system would create a new, better kind of person. There was also Ché Guevara's (a man who truly turned to evil, despite
The Motorcycles Diaries- how could seeing the suffering of so many of South America's poor make a person undertake to worsen their plight?- is not worthy of the veneration given him by young people who know nothing of his camps and pogroms in Cuba)New Man- both of which were existentialist in orientation and were attempted in a brutal, repressive, and murderous manner.
It may very well have been the case that the Council Fathers were trying to re-orient this idea in a Christian direction. It was most certainly not the case that the socialist
new man, or the methods of bringing him into existence, were in any way adopted or endorsed by the Council, but, as Amerio shows, there is nothing defective in the Church's Tradition on this matter and it is jettisoned or ignored to the peril of the faith, as it introduces many confusions. Along this same line aim is taken at number 24 of the
Gaudium et Spes, during his exposition on the holiness of the Church. This number of the Pastoral Constitution reads in part that human beings are creatures willed for their own sake "rather than for [
God's] sake." One can only affirm the former at the expense of the latter, Amerio insists, and only if one "indulges in the anthropocentric tendencies of the modern mentality and, to put it in theological terms, if one abandons the distinction between antecedent predestination, which concerns humanity [as a whole] and consequent predestination which concerns men [as individuals]" (Amerio 130). Please do not get overwrought at the mention of pre-destination. There will be more forthcoming on this doctrine. Suffice it to write for now, that I am not a Calvinist or a crypto-Calvinist.
Today, 10 May, marks the day ninety-two years ago when our great pioneer bishop, the Rt. Rev. Lawrence Scanlan "in the presence of attending sisters . . . raised his cross to his lips, kissed it, and peacefully died. Fittingly, in honor of his last request, he was interred beneath the sanctuary of St. Mary Magdalene's, the cathedral he helped to build." All Catholics in the Diocese of Salt Lake City owe a tremendous debt to this great man, who, in imitation of our Lord, emptied himself, poured out his life, for others, not just of his own day- though through his travels by horseback to administer the sacraments in small towns and mining camps he did plenty- but for those, like us, who, throughout generations, are beneficiaries of his work. He died quite uncertain about the future of the Church in Utah, how it must gratify him to look down and see what God has done through his labors. As St. Paul wrote to the Church he and Apollos established in Corinth: "neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who causes the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters are equal, and each will receive wages in proportion to his labor. For we are God's co-workers; you are God's field, God's building" (1 Cor 3,7-9).
