Continuing the Conversation.

Two versions of history I read Commonweal's editorial on Pius IX (August 12), having recently read John O'Malley's "The Millennium and the Papalization of Catholicism" (America, April 8), Avery Dulles's "The Papacy for a Global Church" (America, July 15), Archbishop John Quinn's The Reform of the Papacy (Herder and Herder/Crossroad), and Garry Wills's Papal Sin (Doubleday). In addition, I've recently listened to several talks about Catholic theology, of a somewhat conservative cast, that covered some of the same period. These examples helped me realize that in the last decade rival interpretations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Catholic history have coalesced and are now competing for our allegiance.

* Version One The first story goes like this. In response to the threats of liberalism and modernity, the official church, and especially the papacy, courageously refused compromise and set itself against these evils in all their aspects. To insure this refusal and reinforce this resolve, it was necessary to strengthen the power of the papacy and make its infallible teaching role explicit and central for Catholic self-understanding. Many popes were involved in this part of the story, but the paradigmatic case is the long papacy of Pius IX and the decrees of Vatican I. These policies were then carried forward in different styles and with different emphases by Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.

Vatican II "completed" the work of Vatican I by providing a fuller theological understanding of the roles of bishops and of lay people. But in several places, especially Western Europe and North America, these achievements were almost immediately distorted by various secular ideologies--individualism, egalitarianism, secularism, and the complacency and self-indulgence of the prosperous middle classes. Providentially, these trends were checked and then reversed by the papacy of John Paul II, which re-established balance and reinforced Catholic identity. In this narrative, which has become a touchstone of orthodoxy in some circles, Pius IX and John XXIII are seen as two moments in a historical process that culminates in the present papacy. Maybe this is why Pius IX must be canonized with John XXIII. The present time is seen as a third phase beyond them both. In this story, the main event is John Paul II.

* Version Two The alternative narrative has yet to find adequate expression, although many people have been patiently working on it. The key, here, is again a judgment made concerning the papacy of Pius IX and the historical significance of Vatican II. In this second story, liberalism and modernity are understood as movements that, from the beginning, were morally and intellectually ambiguous. They contain much that is dangerous, but also much that is very good. The only appropriate response to them, then, is ambivalence and discrimination.

In this narrative, the popes of the early nineteenth century, and especially Pius IX, represent a tragedy for Catholicism, a lost opportunity, in which the emergent, positive values of modernity (democratic republicanism, human rights, the legitimate place of the natural sciences, historical consciousness, a sensitivity to religious experience) were denied and repudiated entirely, while some negative features of modernity (absolute certainty, "foundationalism," "positivist" ration alism, and centralized authority) were more or less unconsciously absorbed in Catholic thought and made normative. A modern antimodernist Catholicism was born.

If this is tragedy, the reign of Pius X (1903-14) is tragedy replayed as farce. In response to a second wave of opportunity to discern the good in modernity, following the leads of people like Newman, von Hugel, and Blondel, the papacy embraced a practical anti-intellectualism and witch-hunting strategy that stifled Catholic thought for half a century.

Nevertheless, a third opportunity to re-examine democracy, critical history, ecumenical dialogue, the principle of religious liberty, and the relationship between theology and spirituality appeared after World War II. Although several of the leaders of these efforts were silenced by Pius XII, most of them lived to see their views vindicated by Vatican II. Many, in fact, participated in the council as advisers.

This second narrative rests on a view of modernity and liberalism that distinguishes positive from negative aspects. In this story, the main event is Vatican II. This council is understood to mark a dramatic turning point, a "revolution" in Catholic theology (Bernard Lonergan). Since then, we've been arguing--sometimes bitterly--about the church's yeses and the noes to modernity and the liberal heritage. Those who hold to the second narrative want to "restart" or "resume" the renewal, break through the backlash, and push forward to a more radical implementation of Vatican II. They believe there's much unfinished work to be carried on.

The implication of this second story is a sad ambivalence about the church's current leadership, because so much of the present papacy, for all its profound accomplishments, seems, in this light, like a counterrevolutionary force, a restorationist interlude, and what was most distinctive and authentic in the documents of Vatican II--the ideals of dialogue, engagement, and collegiality, the repudiation of coercion and condemnation in the search for truth--seem obscured and even betrayed.

Curiously, this papacy represents a Catholic "conservatism" of a brand new kind--for at least two reasons. First, it doesn't "return to" any dominant theological tradition--not Scholasticism, not Thomism, not Augustinianism. This is one reason why, in the first story, the personal theology of John Paul II has become so important. It has become the normative framework for its third phase. There is now, effectively, a papal theology that is made out to be the new Ancient Theology. Second, it doesn't return to ancient doctrinal formulations for its sense of the "hierarchy of truths," but makes central to its understanding of Catholicism an emphasis on the papacy that originated only in the first half of the nineteenth century (what O'Malley means by the "papalization of Catholicism").

Obviously, there's room for nuance here. There will always be more than one direction in which to move. Some who live in the second story would want to argue that after Vatican II, and especially after 1989 and the collapse of communism, a more penetrating critique of Western cultures and "late modern" capitalism has become necessary. One might have thought this would provide an opportunity for dialogue with those who understand the church in terms of the first story, since these are also central concerns in the thought of John Paul II. Yet other factors and cultural allegiances seem to have excluded this possibility.

We need to have a public conversation about this history now, which means that many more of us need to become familiar with it. It is a conversation in which many different kinds of expertise will be required and welcomed, but it is not an issue that can be left to specialists, since it bears directly on how we all understand ourselves as Catholics today and as a messianic people entrusted with a mission. I think it would be good for Commonweal to talk about this history and to solicit some further thoughts about it.

Robert J. Egan, S.J., teaches theology and spirituality at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.