| May 2007 |
Volume 12, Number 1 |
|---|
The long-standing taboo on official discussion of eminent philosopher Romano Amerio has now ended thanks to a recent review in Rome’s Jesuit, and semi-official Vatican, periodical La Civiltà Cattolica. Sandro Magister reports, Oriens comments.
In
La Civiltà Cattolica, the magazine of the Rome Jesuits
printed with the prior scrutiny and authorisation of the Vatican
Secretariat of State, a review has been published (17 March 2007, pp.
622-623) that signals the end of a taboo.
The taboo is the one that has obliterated from public discussion, for decades, the thought of the Swiss philologist and philosopher Romano Amerio, who died in Lugano in 1997, at the age of ninety-two.
Amerio, although he was always faithful to the Church, condensed his criticisms of it in two volumes: Iota Unum: Studio delle Variazioni della Chiesa Cattolica nel XX Secolo [Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century], begun in 1935 and finalised and published in 1985, and, Stat Veritas: Séguito a Iota Unum [Stat Veritas: Sequel to Iota Unum], released posthumously in 1997, both issued by the publisher Riccardo Ricciardi, of Naples.
The Latin words in the title of the first volume, Iota Unum, are those of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: "... Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter [iota] or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Matthew 5: 17-18). The iota is the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet.
Iota Unum, 658 pages, was reprinted three times in Italy, for a total of seven thousand copies, and was then translated into French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Dutch. It thus reached many tens of thousands of readers all over the world.
But in spite of this, an almost complete blacklisting fell upon Amerio in the Church, both during and after his life. The review in La Civiltà Cattolica thus signals a turning point. Both because of where and how it was published – with the authorisation of the Holy See – and because of what it says.
Strictly speaking, the review concerns a book about Amerio published in 2005 by his disciple Enrico Maria Radaelli.* But without a doubt it is the great Swiss thinker who is at the centre of the reviewer's judgements. And the judgements are largely positive, both on "Amerio's intellectual and moral stature," and on "the importance of his philosophical-theological vision for the contemporary Church." The reviewer, Giuseppe Esposito, is a psychologist who is well read in theology. Although he does not agree with Amerio in everything, he maintains that his thought "deserves more extensive discussion," and "without prejudice."
In particular, he writes, "it seems simplistic to relegate his reflection – and that of Radaelli – to the sphere of nostalgic traditionalism, as a position now irrelevant, incapable of comprehending the new movements of the Spirit." On the contrary, the reviewer maintains, Amerio's thought "confers a form and a philosophical framework upon that ecclesial component which, following in the path of Tradition, reaches out to safeguard Christian specificity and identity." For Amerio, this form and philosophical framework are found in "the primacy of the truth about love." As is well known, the link between truth and love is at the center of Benedict XVI's teaching.
According to Esposito the “nucleus” of Amerio’s thought is
"the primacy of truth over love. Subverting this order, and thus producing a 'metaphysical dislocation of essences', for Amerio is inevitably translated into an attack against Christ ... "The publication of so candid and fair discussion of Romano Amerio and his work in a magazine like La Civiltà Cattolica signals an important shift within theological debate within the Church. Given that Romano Amerio was, among other things, an unflinching critic of official post-Conciliar Roman positions on such issues as ecumenism and religious liberty, the Esposito article signals that it is no longer verboten to debate these positions in the light of Catholic tradition.
In short, Rome is saying, sotto voce, to critics of some of its most treasured ‘orientations’ in contemporary teaching and pastoral policy, “We can discuss these things and allow full scope to the ‘traditionalist’ critique."
Now that is really something.
*
Enrico Maria Radaelli, Romano Amerio: Della Verità e
dell'Amore [Romano Amerio: On Truth and Love], Marco Editore,
Lungro di Cosenza, 2005, 340 pp., 25 euros.
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