Little Labels

In my short time as a Catholic, I have tried to interact with (at least superficially) different expressions of Catholicity. I was received into the Church through your average tepid American Catholic parish, chose to become a member of a "traditionalist" parish across town, will possibly attend a Byzantine Catholic parish after I move to another town for my new job, and have bounced around various orthodox Catholic and other Christian blogs.

In general, I loathe labels. There are more than a few at my current parish who revel in describing themselves as "traditional" Catholics. Others (not in my parish!) pride themselves in being "progressive" Catholics. This all seems quite silly to me, and for myself I prefer simply to refer to myself as a Catholic Christian.

However, I have found myself drawn to certain expressions of Catholicity. In particular, two more labels may be applied here: Ressourcement and Augustinian Thomism. The term ressourcement is generally descriptive of the calls of a not so cohesive group of theologians of the past century to "return to the sources" (primarily Scripture and the Fathers) for the renewal of the Catholic Church in the modern age. Through such a return to the sources, the Church could pursue an aggiornamento, or an updating of the disciplines, theology, and liturgical practices of the Church. Some of the ressourcement theologians would include: Romano Guardini, Karl Adam, Joseph Peiper, Msgr. Giusanni, Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou, Yves Congar, Marie-Dominique Chenu, Louis Bouyer, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean Danielou. These theologians had a great impact on Vatican II.

Following the Council, there was a struggle between two groups regarding the aggiornamento. These differences can be seen in two of the principle theological journals following the Council: Concilium (Kung, Schillebeeckx, et al) and Communio (Ratzinger, von Balthasar, et al). Following the Council, there was a rapid process of aggiornamento without the balance of an in-depth ressourcement to guide it, which led quite frankly to utter chaos.

Among those orthodox Catholics who appreciate the ressourcement theologians and look positively upon Vatican II, two groups also emerge. The "Whig Thomists" (similar to the neoconservative movement) and the "Augustinian Thomists". These two groups differ in how they view modern political and economic thought. You can read the links below regarding these two groups if you aren't completely disinterested by now.

So, for the sake of identifying myself with having sympathies for certain labelled expressions of orthodox Catholic thought I offer the following. I prefer the Ressourcement theologians to traditional Thomists or neo-Thomists, and I prefer Augustinian Thomism to Whig Thomism. So in a very real way J. Owen's Christmas gift of a book/poem by Charles Peguy for myself was a providentially perfect purchase.

Here are some websites that I have enjoyed over the past few months related to the Ressourcement theologians: http://ressourcement.blogspot.com
http://nouvelletheologie.blogspot.com/

A good article regarding Whig Thomists and Augustinian Thomists:
http://www.tcrnews2.com/Augustianian_Whig.html