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'How do i get into your church?'

an appreciation of cardinal avery cardinal dulles, 1918-2008

By The Most Rev. Edward K. Braxton


One day, while browsing in a Catholic book store in 1940, the youthful Avery Dulles asked the clerk, “How do I get into your Church?” Once he found his way into the Catholic Church, he committed himself completely to his faith. That commitment had a profound impact on the Catholic Church, influencing the understanding of Catholicism of bishops, priests, deacons, religious, and laity around the world, who may have never read one of his 24 books of Catholic theology. So great was his contribution that Pope John Paul II appointed him to the College of Cardinals, though he was not a bishop, and, at the age of 83, he was beyond the age limit (80) of participating in a papal conclave.

The death of His Eminence, Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, 90, on Friday, Dec. 12, 2008, at the Jesuit infirmary of Fordham University, N.Y., has silenced the voice of one of the most eloquent Catholic ecclesiologists and apologists in the world. Cardinal Dulles’s years of service as a professor of theology, his dozens of books and more than 800 articles, and his numerous lectures on almost every substantive topic concerning the nature of the Catholic Church, have been a seminal influence on the theological formation of generations of Catholic thinkers and pastoral ministers, including myself.

During my seminary years I looked forward to the publication of every new book by Father Dulles. After my ordination I worked with him on a variety of committees and panels, especially those dealing with the unity between the Catholic Church and other Christian traditions. It was, in part, at his encouragement that I pursued my doctoral studies at the Catholic University of Louvain. When I taught theology at the Catholic University of America, Avery Dulles was a distinguished professor there. I remember well the lively discussions among the students, “Is he too ‘liberal’ or too ‘conservative?’?”

Such categories did not apply. He was simply faithful. It had been my intention to be in Rome at the consistory on Feb. 22, 2001 in which Pope John Paul II created him a cardinal. However, I was installed as the second Bishop of Lake Charles, La., that same day. We exchanged treasured notes about our new responsibilities, his as a Cardinal-theologian, who was not a bishop, mine as a bishop, trained as a theologian. I and many other bishops concelebrated the Liturgy of Christian Burial for the Cardinal at St. Patrick Cathedral in New York on Thursday afternoon, Dec. 18, 2008. The principal celebrant was His Eminence, Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York. We mourned the death of the most influential Catholic theologian in the United States and gave thanks to God for his extraordinary service to the Church.

The cardinal’s quiet, unassuming manner did not call attention to his prominent family. Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., is named for his father, John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His grandfather, Allen Macy Dulles, was an influential Presbyterian theologian. His uncle, Allen Dulles, served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. As a student at Harvard College in the 1930s, the future cardinal thought of himself as an agnostic.

“I considered it a proved fact that the sufficient cause of the whole universe was physical matter.”
His study of The New Testament and Greek philosophy (especially Plato’s examination of knowing and doing what is just) led him to inquire about the source of our obligation to act justly and to ask to whom are we accountable. This line of thought opened his heart to considering Christianity. He devoured books on Catholic thought, which led to an encyclopedic knowledge of Catholic theology. Considering himself to be more a man of ideas and critical reason than a man of feelings and emotions, his journey to God, to Jesus Christ, to the sacraments and to the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church was very much a journey of the mind, “a quest for truth.” This quest led him into that Catholic book store and the question, “How do I get into your Church?” He spoke of God as, “Him who moved the stars, and made the lilacs bloom.” He described his eventual conversion to the Catholic Church in 1940 as “A Testimonial to Grace.”

Ordained a priest in 1956, just prior to the dawn of the Second Vatican Council, the cardinal’s long career spanned the entire era of the Council and post-Conciliar decades from the 1960s to the present. He participated in the creative exploration of new theological trends yet at the same time he argued forcefully against the view that the bishops at the Council had set the Church on a path that breaks dramatically with the entire earlier history and tradition of the Church. He held the theology “faith is seeking understanding” and it must always be at the service of the Church. While supporting the Church’s dialogue with contemporary culture and a need for pastoral and theological aggiornamento, he rejected the views that seemed to suggest that the Church should embrace and be transformed by the secular world.

Instead, he believed the secular world should be transformed by the light of the Gospel of Christ. Acknowledging that the Church is always under the purifying influence of the Holy Spirit, he parted company with theological views that undermined the uniqueness of Catholicism. These, he said, not only diminished the Church they also made ecumenical progress more difficult. Avery Dulles was a theologian in the Church and for the Church. He carefully examined the arguments of theologians holding diverse points of view. However, he clearly stated that finally, “I am willingly adhering to the testimony of Scripture and perennial Catholic tradition.” When he was asked, “What is the appropriate role of dissent in the Church?” He replied, “Dissent should be rare, respectful and reluctant. One’s first reaction as a Catholic is to embrace the official teaching of the Church.”

Some of Cardinal Dulles’s critics, including fellow theologians, strongly disagreed with this position. They argued that authentic service to the Church by a theologian must never be subservient. True service not only explains, illuminates, and clarifies the Christian faith; it also challenges, confronts, and even contradicts formulations of that faith when the findings of diligent scholarship and critical methodology warrant it. Thus, if an ecclesio-centric or a Christo-centric world view seems incompatible with the goodness found in other religious faiths, a theologian might be compelled to embrace a theo-centric world view in which Jesus Christ is one of many paths to salvation, even if this is contrary to the Catholic teaching.

Critics who disagreed with the cardinal sometimes argued that there were two distinct “teaching offices” in the Church. One magisterium is that of the scholar and professionally trained and active theologian. The other magisterium is that of the Holy Father and the bishops of the Church exercising their teaching and pastoral office. The pope and the bishops cannot claim to be adequately articulating a truth of faith if they are unable to provide critically grounded, rigorous arguments that refute the positions of opposing scholars, concerning questions such as the hierarchical constitution of the Church, or the nature of the priesthood. The cardinal’s broad and deep knowledge of theology made it impossible for him to accept any suggestion that the bishops’ sure charism for truth was a quasi mechanical power which they could exercise without careful study, prayer, and an awareness of the sensus fidelium. However, he held with the tenacity of a convert’s confidence that Christ did not burden the Church with two warring teaching offices (the chair in the cathedral and the chair in the university) of equal authority. The primacy of the teaching authority of bishops to “hold and teach the Catholic faith that comes to us from the apostles” was clear to him. It was equally clear to him that harm could come to the Church if bishops exercised this teaching authority in a cavalier manner, ignoring the best available theological wisdom.

Last April, during the pastoral visit of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, many of the American bishops greeted the Pontiff at an energetic youth celebration on the campus of St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, N. Y. While encouraging the young Church leaders of the future, the pope also encouraged and comforted an infirmed, eminent church leader from the past and present. There was a private visit between the Holy Father and Cardinal Dulles, who was completing twenty years as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham. The pope greeted the first American theologian to be named a cardinal as “Herr Professor,” an expression used in German universities as a sign that a teacher is held in very high esteem.

Throughout his life Cardinal Dulles devoted his protean intelligence, prodigious writing, and profound personal Ignatian spirituality to nurturing the dialogue between faith and reason, assisting others in answering fundamental questions. How do I get into your Church? How do I remain in the Church? How do I find the path to authentic Christian unity in the Church? How do I come to a deeper understanding of the Church? How does a committed Christ-centered member of the Church enter into genuine dialogue with people of other faith traditions? And how do I submit humbly to the authority of the magisterium of the Church, without being subservient, continuing to inquire, probe, and wonder?” As a priest and as a bishop the person and the writings of dear Avery Dulles have been a most welcome and deeply appreciated companion on the life-long journey of faith.