Print this page
Thursday, March 20, 2014

Jesuit head: Religion isn't doctrine, but sensitivity to human experience

By: 
Rate this item
(20 votes)
Jesuit Superior General: Fr. Adolfo Nicolás Jesuit Superior General: Fr. Adolfo Nicolás

  National Catholic Reporter notes the following:

Nicolás, who as the superior general of the Society of Jesus leads approximately 17,000 Jesuits worldwide, spoke during an event Friday through Saturday at the Pontifical Gregorian University to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Jesuit-run Sophia University in Tokyo.

And what did Fr. Nicolas say at the Gregorian?

Religion is less a code of doctrines and teachings than a sensitivity to the "dimensions of transcendence" that underlie the human experience, the head of Pope Francis' Jesuit order said Friday.

Likening the religious experience to a person who can appreciate the intricacies and variations of classical music, Jesuit Fr. Adolfo Nicolás said "religion is first of all very much more like this musical sense than a rational system of teachings and explanations."

"Religion involves first of all a sensitivity to, an openness to, the dimensions of transcendence, of depth, of gratuity, of beauty that underlie our human experiences," Nicolás said.

Hmm…religion as experience. Where have we heard this before? As Fr. J. M. Bampton, S.J. explains:

In the Catholic sense, Revelation is something external, something that comes to the soul from without, from the oral teaching of Christ and the Church, and Faith is acceptance of that Revelation. In the Modernist sense, Revelation is wholly internal, a psychological experience, and Faith is the soul's response to it. To the Catholic, Revelation is statement, and Faith is belief in the statement made. To the Modernist, Revelation and Faith are experience.{4} To the Catholic, the content of Revelation, which is the object of Faith, is truth addressed to the intelligence. To the Modernist, it is truth addressed to the feelings, to the emotional faculty. That brings religion perilously near to Matthew Arnold's definition of religion: "Morality touched with emotion."

 

 

 

Published in Fetzen Fliegen
Last modified on Thursday, March 20, 2014
Chris Jackson | Remnant Columnist

Latest from Chris Jackson | Remnant Columnist