HeyJ XLVI (2005), pp.

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SENSUS FIDEI: RECENT THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION (19902001)* PART I

JOHN J. BURKHARD

Washington Theological Union, Washington DC, USA

Several years ago, I examined the theological literature on the sensus dei (henceforth, SF) from the years 1965 to 1989.1 In the current article I propose to study the literature from 1990 to 2001 with a view to seeing whether the SF continues to occupy an important place in theological reection and whether theologians indicate any new ideas or directions for rethinking this important teaching of the Second Vatican Council.2 This article will attempt to establish the state of the question more than thirty-ve years after the conclusion of Vatican II. Before proceeding to the task at hand, let me recall for the reader the six observations I made on the SF at the conclusion of my article. In 1993, I wrote in summary:
There appears to be growing agreement among theologians on the following points. First, the SF is seen by the Council in the broader context of the infallibility of the whole Church. This means that it is ultimately an ecclesial reality. . . . Second, this infallibility, experienced and expressed as a sense of the faith, is the direct gift of the Lord of the Church through his Spirit to the whole Church and to each member. It is not derived from another ministry in the Church but it is oriented to ministry. . . . Third, the SF, however one may translate the expression, pertains to the realm of knowledge, but where knowledge is understood to be a form other than discursive reasoning. . . . Fourth, it is entirely inappropriate to speak of the SF as something passive, in contradistinction to an active exercise by the hierarchical magisterium or by theologians. . . . Fifth, a na ve explanation is to be avoided. The SF brings its own limitations, dangers and temptations. It is something to be welcomed but also to be achieved. Believers who receive the gift are also called to realize it. It is never automatic or mechanical. And persons bring the weight of their own fragility, desire for power, self-appointed goals and sinfulness into play.3

With these general conclusions in mind, let us proceed directly to the literature.
BRIEF ADDENDA TO THE LITERATURE FROM 19651989

In the course of my earlier research, several important articles did not come to my attention until after I had published my overview of the

r The Editor/Blackwell Publishing Ltd Oxford, UK and Boston, USA.

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literature. Not all need to be mentioned, but several did add signicant points to the general reection, and I propose to examine six of them before moving on to literature after 1989. In 1975, Michael Seybold published an article that glimpsed the possibility of greater understanding between Catholics and Christians of the Reformed tradition because of Vatican IIs teaching.4 Seybold began by expressing the concern of many non-Catholics regarding the sensitive issue of the relationship between Scripture and the magisterium. Might the Councils teaching on the SF be of service in redressing imbalances by both Catholics and Reformed Christians? Seybold showed how incomplete the teaching of Vatican I was on the Churchs infallibility when compared with Vatican II. One has to speak of real progress in understanding the matter of the relationship between believers and the hierarchical, or more precisely, the papal magisterium. The secret to understanding this progress can be found in the pneumatology and the Trinitarian theology of the Council. Both of these pointed to the secondary and ministerial character of ecclesiastical ofce or the magisterium. He pointed to the unity-in-tension of the Christological and the pneumatological dimensions of the Church as both intrinsically necessary and as surmounting any purely juridical understanding of them in the Church. Vatican II abandoned the abstract juridicism of a passive ` -vis the hierarchy by encompassing the latter in the role of the laity vis-a more global understanding of the Churchs faith as a fundamental unity in the faith (Glaubensu bereinstimmung) of all believers. Finally, Seybold examined the real problems connected with determining the SF in the Church. I will refer to just two important points he made. First, though it is true that the SF cannot be identied with public opinion among the faithful, since the former is a much more profound reality than polls could ever determine, in todays world opinion polls are one concrete aspect of an incarnational understanding of divine revelation, and hence cannot be completely ignored either. Second, given the Councils acceptance of the historicity of the Church, and not simply the worlds or humanitys historicity, the Church has to come to terms with the thorny issue of pluralism. Today, uniformity is not the best way to assure the unity of the faith expressed in the SF. But this challenge demands a more deeply rooted eschatological self-understanding by the individual believer and the community of believers, as well as a more pastoral approach by the magisterium to interpreting and dening the faith. Seybold clearly agreed with other scholars from the period in locating the SF in the context of the infallibility of the whole Church and as an active participation of the laity in the Churchs pursuit of the interpretation of revelation. What distinguished his work was the particular stress he placed on the Holy Spirit. Finally, mention must be made of his admirable denition of the SF as the experience of the faith in the Spirit and the faith conviction of the whole community of the faithful

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(p. 267), or later where he speaks of the SF as an interior predisposition for and an internal adhering to the whole of revelation (p. 274). In 1987, Gerald OCollins examined Cardinal Newmans famous work On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, asking what Newman today would have intended by the term the faithful and just how we might go about a process of consultation.5 These are thorny and notoriously difcult issues. Does one consult all believers, and if so, how, precisely? OCollins expands the contemporary consultation to include two categories of Christians whose special contribution has emerged in our century: prophetic persons and the oppressed and marginalized. OCollins fears that in a general process of consultation of the laity, these two categories of Christians might be overlooked. Finally, in a constructive move on the SF, OCollins points to Newmans highlighting the fact that the faithful should be consulted especially on matters of devotion and worship. At rst sight, this might appear somewhat minimal and patronizing on the part of the magisterium. However, OCollins shows that today we understand better how worship is constituted by signs and symbols that mediate the divine. The effectiveness of such signs and symbols is a rich area for the faithful to reect on and to share with their hierarchical leaders. Do the signs of the papacy or the sign of clerical celibacy today, for instance, really fulll their symbolical function? The faithful need to be heard on these and similar matters. At the conclusion of my article in 1993, I called for special attention to the poor and the excluded in determining the SF, and indicated the richness of their experience. I was delighted to learn subsequently of the insistence of OCollins on this matter. Still, I must register some misgivings about the way in which OCollins tends to present prophets, saints, and the suffering members of the Church almost at the expense of other believers. I agree that the voice and experience of the former are absolutely necessary in the Church today, but at the same time we must not forget that the SF pertains to all the faithful, and that we can learn from the ordinary, distracted, confused, ill-informed, sinful, and ecclesially marginalized members, e.g., the divorced and remarried, homosexual persons, alienated women, etc. In his major work on the ecclesiology of communion, the late JeanMarie Roger Tillard returned to the theme of the SF,6 which he had treated fourteen years earlier.7 He situates his discussion under the general heading of the Church of God, People of God in Communion (Chapter Two) and more specically under Part Two, The Church of God, People of Faith. In this section, Tillard treats successively the notions of the spoken Word of God, the sense of the faithful, reception, and the Word preserved in the memory of the Church. This long chapter of seventy-two pages is really a full treatment of the theology of the Word in the Church. I will concentrate on the section that treats the SF.

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If Gods Word is primarily a salvic event, then this word demands living continuity in the Spirit throughout history. Such continuity results from Christian communities living in communion and preserving the apostolic faith. Though the faith is one, the language in which it is communicated to successive generations and to different cultures must change, and the Church knows the identity of meaning in different formulations by comparing the new language with the enduring testimony of the Scriptures. A community can know this continuity of belief only by testing its faith expression in the context of the communion of the Church. In this complex process, all in the Church have a contribution to make, the faithful and the magisterium, each doing its part and acting out of a sense of mutuality. Respect for each others reciprocal competence in matters of faith is itself a form of communion. The primary place where this sensus or instinctus is found is in the whole people of God or Body of Christ, and not in any single ministry or in experts enjoying special competence in theology, exegesis, or other ` -vis branches of knowledge. The SF even enjoys a certain primacy vis-a other expressions of the faith in the Church. Though the SF and the role of the magisterium are ordered to one another, this fact does not exclude tensions and conict. Their communion is not something abstract and romantic, but is a real communion that arises out of the communion of local Churches and at the level of the local Church. Tillard highlights the role of the presbyterium in passing on the SF of the local Church to the bishop, so that in an ecclesiology of communion the SF might inform his ability to represent his Church to the communion of Churches. In this way, the mutuality of the SF as understood by Tillard takes on meaningful form. Since the presbyters must be close to their communities in a truly pastoral sense, the faithful sense their importance and the fact that they will be heard, while the bishop is conrmed in his sacramentally representative role. In this connection, Tillard speaks of a certain osmosis of roles. Finally, he explains the twofold character of the magisterium, namely its episcopal-pastoral and its theological-didactic forms. Here, too, mutuality is the rule. Theologians especially are called to remind the hierarchy that in fullling their important role of guarding the integrity of the faith they not forget that this faith is mediated by a plurality of theological expressions. The Second Vatican Council represented a genuine communion of tasks and abilities in the Church: communion among the bishops, communion of perceptions and efforts at scholarly research, a communion of efforts to listen to one another, and a communion of tensions felt at various levels of the Church. By considering the SF in the context of a full ecclesiology, Tillard advanced his former positions, while showing that the SF is not an ecclesiological afterthought. The notion of communion functioned in a unifying way by showing that the distinct contribution of each group in the Church had its contribution to make in the unity of the Body of

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Christ. Without abandoning his earlier notion of the SF as a conspiratio, he was able to give it more denite ecclesiological form in terms of communio. Tillard was also honest in admitting that the SF is often experienced in terms of tension, but that this is not necessarily debilitating. A secondary contribution was his understanding of the role of the presbyters of a local Church as active agents in expressing the SF, but also by understanding them in their ancient sense as constituting a body of elders. In 1988 Tillard added to his writings on the SF.8 If Tillard was concerned earlier with tensions in the Church caused by the laitys rejection of certain teachings and changes in the liturgy, the issue which concerns him here is change and continuity in the faith. After reinterpreting an aspect of the Church as societas inaequalis in a communional sense with the help of the pneumatology of Vatican II, Tillard proceeds to show how the charism of episcopal ministry functions in communion with charisms of the Spirit given to all believers. These two charisms are not inimical of one another but are exercised in communion and in complementary, mutual service. Thus, the hierarchy ordinarily acts symbiotically with the sensus delium, and vice versa. As Tillard says, this symbiosis is that of the sensus delium with the service of memory (p. 339). The model of authority which Vatican II offers includes the life of the whole Church as People of God and the assurance of their identity by the service of memory. Deeper than consensus arrived at by various political and sociological means, e.g., opinion polls or forms of voting, the sensus delium is the presence of the sensus dei in each of the baptized (p. 340) which permits each believer to seize on what is in harmony with the authentic meaning of the Word of God or what follows from it (ibid.). The constitutive role of the SF is beyond dispute, but it is a role that is exercised only in ecclesial communion which seeks to understand Gods Word and to build up the Church.9 The primary recipient of the SF is the communion of believers, and each one exercises it only within that communion. Problems arise at the level of the insertion of the SF in concrete history: how is the Gospel to be lived in a determinate cultural, historical, social and geographical situation? In other words, how is the Word of God to be lived by the concrete person, both as an individual and a member of the Body of Christ, in ever-changing circumstances? In the Church, as well as in human society in general, the law of identity-in-change obtains, namely, that in order to be the same subject (semper ipse) a person cannot remain identically the same (nunquam idem). Change is inevitable, and the process involves self-realization. The interior understanding of the SF in all believers assures continuity, but it is an understanding that is less discursive or rigorously logical, more global, more instinctive, and deeply responsive to an underlying sense of evangelical authenticity. Today, diocesan synods and various other forms of sounding out this deep

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understanding of all believers are signs of the place of the sensus delium in the Church. When the law of identity-in-change is applied to the Church, it becomes clear that if the calls for change have their necessary place, they are realized by osmosis thanks to the ministry of memory rendered by the bishops primarily. The pole of faithfulness to its memory is equally constitutive of the Church. Its Gospel, Christian identity, Tradition, and the deposit of faith all belong to the Church as the same subject (semper ipsa), and in this way the Church is preserved in change. But why is the ministry of memory the specic role of the bishops and their presbyterium? Because in the Church memory has a special, biblical meaning: it is intimately linked with the Eucharist as the remembering of the Lord (in the strong sense of the Hebrew meaning of anamnesis). Preaching and teaching derive their power from being rooted in the memory of the person of Jesus and his salvic act of self-giving. The bond between both elements must be maintained, especially since the tendency is strong to separate the didactic, doctrinal and parenetic components from the communal celebration of the Eucharist. Thus (episcopal) presidency at the Eucharist involves promulgating the memoria Jesu to the community in worship and only then deciding what needs to be done in situations where identity-in-change is at stake. Basically, this effort calls for communion of both the sensus delium and the hierarchical ministry of memory, since communion is the principle of the Spirits guidance of the Church. By a process of reception, the bishops (who themselves as baptized believers do not cease to participate in the sensus delium) attend to what is being said in the Church and test it against the deposit of the memory of the People of God. The episcopal ministry of reception is of its nature somewhat conservative, i.e., it attempts to conserve the permanent values and truth of revelation, but for all that does not refuse to communicate with others. The bishops are constantly involved in the process of rethinking, weighing, testing and clarifying what the faithful (including theologians) are saying against their own sense of the memory of Christ. In a way, Vatican II can be understood as the episcopal reception of what many in the Church thought after Vatican I, viz., the need to fashion a more complete and more balanced ecclesiology. In this reection on the SF by Tillard, we note certain changes of accent. His communion ecclesiology is more pronounced and the role of the Spirit is accentuated. To the earlier image of conspiratio he has added that of symbiosis. This scientic image permits him to coordinate the two poles of the constant application of the Gospel to the realities of life and the necessary ministry of the memory of the Lord. He is careful to add that that ministry depends on the role of the bishop in presiding at the Eucharist, because the Eucharist preserves the Church in memory of the Lord. He brings this tension admirably to light in his formulation of

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the law of continuity in change. And nally, Tillard surprises us with a theory of reception in reverse (if I might be permitted this phrase), i.e., his accent is on the need of the bishops to attend to what the Spirit is saying in the Church as a whole, not by abandoning their judgment but by applying it carefully to the sensus delium. On the whole, I found this glise presentation more original and stimulating than his contribution in E glises, all the while building on his earlier presentations. dE In his contribution to the multi-volume commentary on Vatican II n Alszeghy treated the SF twenty-ve years after its convocation, Zolta from the point of view of the various epistemological issues involved.10 If the development of dogma is a given in theology, the role of the SF in that process, and particularly the SF as found in the faithful, is not assumed. In this process, Alszeghy singles out how a community becomes intellectually aware of certain problems that emerge only later in its understanding of a dogma, i.e., how the community judges that the overall revealed image of the economy of salvation cannot be reconciled with some statement that has emerged later in the history of thinking, or is inseparable from that statement (p. 141). In this unending hermeneutical process, he stresses the fact that it takes place primarily in the everyday faith-life of believers, and not simply in the writings of theologians. These problems in understanding the faith are resolved in a way akin to the three levels of discourse. Thus, in scientic discourse we are concerned with accurately describing some aspect of reality; in exhortatory discourse we challenge the listener to act in a certain way; and in poetic discourse we try to plumb the depths of human interiority. Now, the SF is not directly concerned with scientic or magisterial discourse, nor with exhortatory or norming discourse; it operates in the broad range of lived experience (captured in the German word Erlebnis). In an understanding of the development of dogma, this experience is open to all believers. Their experience is not amorphous, but rather is structured or tted into a pattern that emerges in the course of a persons life: It entails a structure of beliefs, opinions, affective attractions, and behavioral tendencies that he or she considers valid because it is testied to by the Spirit as a requirement and way of following Christ (p. 147). Thus, for Alszeghy, the SF is the capacity to recognize the intimate experience of adherence to Christ and to judge everything on the basis of this knowledge (ibid.). Alszeghy explains how the epistemological model of objective comprehension operates when persons encounter new realities not previously contemplated and try to integrate them into the objective and synthetic view of the whole order of salvation they already possess. Objective comprehension points out how these new experiences can or cannot be integrated into or harmonized with the existing synthesis, and what changes will be necessary to achieve a new synthesis. This epistemological model is especially helpful today in matters of evaluating

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technical development, economic and social progress, politics, human liberation, etc. It is evident how this model is open to wide use by the faithful in their day-to-day lives. Though Alszeghy has no intention of excluding the faithful from scientic theological activity and its appropriate epistemological model that he calls transconceptualization, in general the SF operates on the basis of the former model where personal behaviour depends more directly on the connection of experience to Christian faith. The results of the model of objective comprehension can be tested against the deepening of the convictions of the SF. He writes,
Consent becomes a sure criterion of truth when the community of believers perseveres in its spontaneous inclination toward a doctrine, becomes aware of all its aspects, considers the objections raised against it, and examines its consequences. We can, therefore, say that the sensus dei is sure when . . . a sufciently large community of believers perseveres for an extended period in the spontaneous, affectively experienced, conviction that a doctrine is inseparably linked to the experience in which the believer freely and wholly entrusts himself to God, who is the source of salvation (pp. 15152).

Not since the study on the criteriology of the SgF by Wolfgang Beinert in 197111 had a theologian devoted so much attention to understanding the process of the SF in terms of its epistemology. Alszeghy has made three contributions to the discussion. First, against the backdrop of current linguistic theory, which stresses the polyvalent nature of language as informative, performative and normative discourse, and with the help of the two theological models he presented, Alszeghy has given added theological weight to the SF. Second, he has helped us to understand it better by locating it within the wide range of human experience. And third, he has shown that far from being something amorphous or unruly, the epistemology of the SF points to an underlying structured synthesis of lived reality understood in the light of the Gospel. In these results, Alszeghy has made an important contribution to our understanding of the SF. My only observation is that his discussion tends, without really willing it, to separate unduly the three functions he pointed to, namely the scientic (theologians), the normative (the bishops) and the experiential (the faithful). The SF operates in each of these groups in a distinctive way, and the impression must be avoided that its proper place is in the unscholarly and non-hierarchical laity. The current change in the situation of ministry in many local Churches points to a more complex situation.12 In 1988, Luigi Sartori, who had already written on the SF,13 published a lengthy article on the sensus delium.14 The article consists of a shorter historical section and a longer systematic and ecumenical presentation. First, Sartori shows historically how the teaching of Vatican II on the SF did not appear out of the blue. In a number of observations made by

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bishops at Vatican I (e.g., Cardinal Guidi of Bologna and Bishop Gasser of Brixen, who was the relator), we can detect ideas that would become ofcial teaching at Vatican II.15 Moreover, this teaching can be found in various forms throughout the documents of Vatican II, such as Lumen Gentium 12, Dei Verbum 8, Gaudium et Spes 43 and Apostolicam Actuositatem. But Sartori is mainly concerned with addressing the issue of areas of competence that has emerged in the postconciliar discussion. In other words, because of the conciliar teaching of the special secular character of the lay vocation in the Church, are the laity limited to making a contribution on the Church in the world but not on intraecclesial matters and technical doctrinal issues? Did the Council mean to teach this rather neat separation of competencies? In order to answer this question, Sartori rst asks about the nature of the Church, and explains how theologically the historicity of the Church must be taken with absolute seriousness. But part of this historicity is the cultural-linguistic character of the expressions of our faith. Individuals and human society change in accordance with the law of historicity as it affects persons. So, too, the Church changes in many respects in accord with the law of historicity. Concretely, that means that the expressions of the Churchs beliefs must also change in order to mediate meaning to historically determined persons. But this is a complex process in which all the levels of society are involved, and not only its leaders. The same must be true for the Church, where a person receives the Word of God only to the extent that he or she also hands it on. In the incarnational theology of Chalcedon, this can only mean that the human and the divine are inseparably implicated in the hermeneutical and linguistic process of doctrinal formulation. Moreover, the Incarnation reects the innerTrinitarian life, where the Eternal Word is not only spoken forth or enunciated, but returns to the Father as Word in unending reexpression and in the love that is the Holy Spirit. Now, if we apply these theological insights to the Church, we see that the reception spoken about since the conclusion of the Council is none other than this activity of receiving, rethinking, applying and living by all believers. On the one hand, this certainly does not exclude the necessity of a magisterial teaching ofce in the Church, but this cannot mean that believers, and the laity especially, have no direct contribution to make here, even in the most abstruse of theological questions. Though the functions are different, the responsibility for (re)dening the faith belongs to all for theological and cultural-linguistic reasons. The law of specialization which seems to rule both our social life and our ecclesial life is not to be rejected out of hand, but neither is it to be so extended as to mean that common, ordinary experience plays no signicant role any longer in human life. In his ecumenical observations, Sartori points out how in the exercise of his magisterium the pope acts in a public way that includes a certain

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personalization of the Church and not as someone outside of, or above, the Church. At such moments, the pope does not act entirely alone because he becomes a personal expression of the faith of the whole Church. But this necessarily means that the faith of the whole Church as sensus delium comes to expression in authoritative magisterial statements. That faith, in fact, is the very heart of the authoritative teaching. Some meaningful form of consultation is needed, not as a condition of ofcial teaching but as a consequence of what it means to teach publicly. In the past, General Councils of the Church have expressed this aspect of public teaching well, inasmuch as each bishop was expected to lay forth the faith of his community before the other bishops in order to arrive at unanimity among themselves. Referring to an article by Lukas Vischer, Sartori shows how today this process is better accomplished in an ecumenical spirit of openness to the concrete experiences of historicity of all the Churches, and where Vischer speaks of a certain common magisterium among the Churches.16 Sartoris article was an important contribution to the discussion because it considered the SF against the presuppositions of historicity , the value of culture, and the role of language in expressing truth and meaning. What I also found important was how Sartori related this data of contemporary epistemology and hermeneutics to the fundamental Christian beliefs of the Incarnation and the Trinity and saw in them not a contradiction but a context for better understanding the human situation and the need for society to have voices of authority in dialogue with its members and with other societies, i.e., in this context with other Churches.

LITERATURE FROM 1990 TO 2001

We begin the review of literature on the SF after 1989 with the Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian [Donum veritatis] of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith [henceforth, the CDF], dated 24 May 1990.17 For an understanding of the instruction, it is important to recall that the teaching of Vatican II on the SF takes place in the context of a discussion entitled The Problem of Dissent [yy 3241]. The instruction seems to have been issued because of the growing tensions felt in the Vatican between the genuine role of theologians to clarify teachings in delity to the Churchs expressed faith and to bring them into fruitful dialogue with modern questions and conditions of living. The different explanations that often resulted from this effort seemed to be posed in terms of a dissenting view. The CDF was particularly dissatised with the publication and dissemination of differing theological views in the modern press and other forms of mass media. It was felt that undue pressure was being exerted by the media on

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the papal and episcopal magisterium, and that theologians were being caught up in this struggle. The CDF sought to limit public pressure by dening dissent in terms of public opposition, manipulation and pressure to conform to public opinion, the utilizing of forms of protest, undue critical opposition of theologians, and an invalid invocation of theological pluralism to justify cavalier dismissals of Church teachings. What was envisaged by the CDFs understanding of dissent was its modern form as public pressure brought to bear on the magisterium. In light of this context, the CDFs instruction reviewed the teaching of Vatican II on the SF. In paragraph 35, it states the following:
The sense of the faith is a property of theological faith; and as Gods gift which enables one to adhere personally to the truth, it cannot err. This personal faith is also the faith of the church, since God has given guardianship of the word to the church. Consequently, what the believer believes is what the church believes. The sensus dei implies then by its nature a profound agreement of spirit and heart with the church, sentire cum ecclesia. Although theological faith as such then cannot err, the believer can still have erroneous opinions since all his thoughts do not spring from faith. Not all the ideas which circulate among the people of God are compatible with the faith. This is all the more so given that people can be swayed by public opinion inuenced by modern communications media. Not without reason did the Second Vatican Council emphasize the indissoluble bond between the sensus dei and the guidance of Gods people by the magisterium of the pastors. These two realities cannot be separated. Magisterial interventions serve to guarantee the churchs unity in the truth of the Lord. They aid her to abide in the truth in the face of the arbitrary character of changeable opinions and are an expression of obedience to the word of God.

This summary of Vatican II is not so much incorrect as incomplete. The tone is begrudging when it comes to the true role of all the faithful laity and pastors alike in helping to express the underlying faith of the Church as a whole. No mention, for instance, is made that each of the baptized really participates in the roles [munera] of Christ as prophet, priest and shepherd-king by reason of their being anointed in the Spirit. The text argues too quickly to the possibility of error on the part of the faithful and their being easily led astray by todays mass media. Vatican II urged all the faithful to participate actively in clarifying, formulating, and proclaiming the faith of the Church. Moreover, at the Council the hierarchical or pastoral magisterium was encouraged to listen to and to support the genuine insights of all the faithful, including the lay faithful. The bishops, too, have an obligation to engage in fraternal and open dialogue with their ocks. Unfortunately, by its selective use of Vatican II on the sensus dei, the Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian only advanced the climate of competition between leaders and faithful that it sought to oppose.18 In an article that appeared in 1991, Patrick J. Hartin rst explains the teaching of Vatican I and II on the exercise of infallibility by the bishops

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in Council and by the pope, and how these forms are related to the underlying gift of infallibility by Christ to his Church.19 His main purpose, however, is to show how Vatican IIs teaching on the SF must be extended to include all the Christian churches. To date, the teaching has been too narrowly focused on the SF in the Catholic Church, whereas the Council was concerned more broadly about the Church of Christ, even though it subsists in the Catholic Church. As Hartin says, we need the wider perception of sensus delium as applying to the whole body of the Christian faithful and not simply to the Roman Catholic Church (p. 83). He shows that this was the case because of the extent of Vatican IIs reappropriation of many elements better preserved and better integrated into their ecclesial lives by many Churches of the Reform, as well as by the Orthodox Churches. But how would this be worked out in a practical way so many years after the Council? Basing his argument on sociological ndings among Catholics and on the ofcial teaching of other non-Catholic Churches, as well as on sociological data among their members, Hartin attempts to show that the rejection by many Christians (the vast majority?) of the teaching of Paul VI on the sinfulness of all forms of articial contraception, and the unambiguous support of this papal teaching by John Paul II, is not supported by the sensus delium in the Church of Christ on its broadest understanding, i.e, as including all Christians. Why then does the Roman Catholic magisterium continue to reject articial contraception as sinful when the faithful seem to be so convinced that it is not sinful and that in many instances is even necessary? Hartin shows how this teaching, because of its anthropological grounding, cannot be understood apart from human experience. He writes: Ones understanding of human nature and subsequent action do not simply come directly through the revealed word of scripture, but the various sciences also help to throw light upon human nature, and attention must always be given to the discoveries coming from their research (p. 86). In particular, he shows how the reasoning of the magisterium continues to be bound to an outdated anthropology, which was expressed by Thomas Aquinas in its classical form, that saw the beginning of life in terms of full potentiality for human life in the male semen. In radice, everything is already given in the male semen and is only received by a women and sheltered in her womb. To stop this life is tantamount to homicide. Today, neither science nor believers accept this anthropology and its consequences for conception of human life. In short, it pertains neither to the deposit of the faith nor to contingent truths connected with revelation. If the magisterium saw the indispensability of the sensus delium on the broadest level of all believers, it might be inclined to reexamine its teaching on this sensitive and divisive matter. I think Hartins insight that the SF needs to be seen in terms of the whole Church of Christ is an important one that other scholars have

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failed to consider. However, I have two reservations. First, regarding his interpretation of Lumen gentium 12, I am not convinced that in article 12 the bishops at Vatican II thought that they were teaching about the sensus delium in this broadest or universal sense. The description of an episcopally structured Church that follows and the explicit reference to the sacred magisterium sound like expressions of how the sensus delium is understood in the Roman Catholic Church. Second, I do not think that the example of birth control is a helpful one for making his point, at least not in terms of its obvious application to the Roman Catholic Church. It seems evident to Hartin that the widespread rejection of papal teaching on articial contraception is an expression of the sensus delium. Hartin might be right, but that is not certain. In my opinion, we are still too close in time to the magisterial teaching of Paul VI to be able to say he was denitely right or that he was denitely wrong. The teaching of Humanae vitae might represent only a rst stage in the Churchs reformulation of its teaching on the means of limiting conception in marriage. We have moved into a second stage where the papal teaching is being engaged by the conjugal experience of the faithful and by broader currents of thought in the various human sciences. At this point we really cannot predict what the nal formulation of the teaching will be. It might be in a form that modies and nuances both the ofcial papal teaching and the popularly formulated dissent from this teaching by many of the faithful, not to mention the objections of theologians. We are in the midst of the process of reception of the Churchs teaching, and it is hardly possible to predict what its nal form will be. To be human is to be historical and so to some extent to be open to real change and development, not as expressions of a certain biological or psychological determinism, but as an expression of human self-transcendence in freedom. In a Roman Catholic perspective, it is a simplication to say the pope is right and the majority of the faithful are wrong, or to say that the pope is wrong and the majority of the faithful are correct. Such disjunctive thinking is unproductive and misleading. understands the complexity of the On the other hand, Bernard Sesbou e issue of determining the sensus delium in his article published the is concerned following year.20 The rst thing we notice is that Sesbou e with the role of the SF in moral matters, and he examines the specic case of the change in the Churchs ofcial position on lending money at interest, which had been judged to be immoral from the early Church in determining several onwards. The clarity of this case helps Sesbou e aspects of the SF which is not permitted by too hasty a recourse to the contemporary situation of the widespread rejection of the Catholic Churchs ofcial position on articial birth control. First, the determination of the SF cannot be rushed, and for this reason opinion polls are not helpful in coming to a conclusion. It is an almost maddeningly slow process. Only after much experience do the different levels of believers

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the faithful, theologians, experts, the bishops, the pope come to agreement on a disputed matter. Second, it pertains primarily to understanding human experience and not to interpreting creedal statements or technical issues. Furthermore, it can be detected in what people in the Church, and the laity in particular, do and how they decide a , in determining the sensus delium on matter of conscience. For Sesbou e an issue of the practice of the faith, the laity in question include primarily those believers who are truly engaged in their faith, i.e., whose faith exacts something from them. The theologian, whether cleric or lay person, contributes by helping to articulate the non-verbal or ambiguous experience of such convinced and often conicted Christians. They lend their skill at expressing this experience and thereby helping to communicate it better to the bishops who have yet another responsibility of teaching the Christian faith and practice in an authoritative way. The formation of schools of thought, discussion and debate among the hierarchy, theologians and the faithful eventually leads to clarication of points on which all can agree. But this demands time and liberty of reection, research and discussion. demonstrates the components of the process he has outlined Sesbou e by drawing on the history of the controversy surrounding the exclusion by the ofcial Church of demanding interest on loans. He demonstrates the necessity of something genuinely new intervening in order to justify a change in teaching or practice. Thus, what might have been morally acceptable in the light of banking practices before the advent of new economic principles in the fteenth and sixteenth centuries had to give way to questioning and the formulating of interim moral positions in the light of new social principles. The process was not without cost: the acceptance of considerable ambiguity, respect for the ofcial position of the Church while entertaining personal doubts and engaging in questionable practices, and being engaged to some degree in open conict with ones fellow Christians or ones leaders. has made an important contribution to the discussion by Sesbou e highlighting the role of new social conditions in life, the value and richness of human experience, the inevitability of change in life, but also the need for time and the challenge from authority to effect change in a constructive way. Especially in matters of engagement in the world and questions of conscience, the faithful have an indispensable role to play in the formulation of principles of Christian moral conduct. However, I do , and that is his need to register one major disagreement with Sesbou e virtual limitation of a contribution in these matters to what we often call practicing Catholics despite the ambiguity of the designation. The teaching of Vatican II on the SF refers to all believers and makes no such distinction among the faithful. Obviously, there are real differences of engagement in the faith and in the Church on the part of Christians. However, to insist too much on the differences results in diminishing our

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appreciation of the real bonds of baptism. This is where I think Hartin is clearer in seeing the role of all Christians, and not just Catholics, in fails to appreciate coming to an understanding of the faith. What Sesbou e is that the Spirit can also be addressing the wider Church precisely through the radical questioning, rejection, or indifference toward the Church of the marginally involved or even by the Churchs hostile critics. The SF also calls for making room for a forum in which all the baptized can be involved. It is salutary and startling to recall just how appreciative Jesus was of the religiously alienated persons of his day and their conicts with their religious leaders. In his contribution the same year, James L. Heft set himself the task of asking how the sense of the faithful contributed to the formulation of the dogmas of Marys Immaculate Conception and her Assumption, and what signicance this has for ecumenical dialogue.21 Heft rst reviews the thesis of J. Robert Dionne, that history shows us that ofcial Church doctrine is sometimes received by the Church, while at other times doctrines are not received over the long haul, but reveal a history of discontinuity, detours and even dead ends.22 Given this empirical fact, Dionne has argued for caution by the papal magisterium on matters that have not been solemnly dened as dogmas. The argument moves in the , namely, same general direction as the articles by Hardin and Sesbou e sometimes papal teaching is upheld by the bishops and the faithful, while at other times it submits to change with the concurrence of the bishops. At any rate, doctrines are rather open, even if ofcial teaching, and the ofcial Church should not rush to dogmatize them because of a supposed infallible ordinary teaching of the episcopal magisterium. As a result, the pope and the bishops also receive doctrine from the sensus delium and this fact accounts for the possibility of change regarding doctrine in the Church. The fact that the popes felt it necessary to consult the faithful conrms the fact that the magisterium also really learns from the faithful. The ecumenical implications of Dionnes position are important, and Christians of the Reformed tradition are encouraged to take note of the essential role played by the SF in the denition of the faith in Catholic sources. It is not so simple as drawing a line of absolute separation between dogmatic matters (e.g., Christology or the Trinity) reserved to the pope and bishops, and moral, family or social issues, which are open to contribution by the laity. In fact, Heft shows, the Marian doctrines of the last two centuries often deal with issues of anthropology and eschatology that the faithful seem quite competent to deal with in the way appropriate to them. We must be careful in making too rigid a distinction between dogma and doctrine, with all the implications of this distinction ` -vis the role of the faithful. Like Hardin, Heft also calls for vis-a broadening our understanding of the sensus delium to include nonCatholic Christians, and here the ecumenical implications begin to

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emerge clearly. Henceforth, future consultation of the faithful by the pope and the bishops needs to include consultation with all the Churches of East and West. Far from being divisive, therefore, the recent Marian dogmas open up important areas for reection and discussion among all Christians. Heft challenges non-Catholics to be open to rethinking the Marian doctrines, in as much as they are not just about Mary in a narrow sense but include Christological and ecclesiological elements that are indispensable for them to consider. As with all dogmas, so too with the Marian dogmas, we still need to speak of their development in terms of understanding and appropriate formulation. Far from being an area sealed off from further reection, the Marian dogmas are fertile ground for the process of a deepening appreciation and have a positive ecumenical contribution to make. In his article on the SF, Heft has conrmed the intuitions of some theologians on a number of issues and raised some interesting questions. His contribution has not so much broken new ground as shown that the discussion of the sensus delium is not only an intra-Catholic matter but an inter-Christian one. Even doctrinal matters which at rst blush seem to be divisive and might better be avoided, upon closer examination show dogmatic positions which are held in common or at least are urgent issues for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. An important aspect of this issue is to see the role played by Christian experience in such matters, and that part of the ecumenical dialogue includes an ecumenically sensitive sharing of this experience with one another. The same year, Paul G. Crowley published a richly suggestive article on Cardinal Newmans understanding of the nature of doctrine and its relevance in a new ecclesial context.23 After explaining Newmans understanding of Christian revelation in terms of an idea, i.e., something living, developing, multifaceted and corporately shared by believers, Crowley asks how we should understand Newmans organic pattern of development of understanding in our intellectual and cultural condition. First, he reminds us of Karl Rahners position on the status of the Church today as world Church, and no longer primarily Eurocentric. What is dominant in this understanding is the primacy of the local societies and faith communities in all their particularity for experiencing and living the faith. In this changed social condition, the Church as universal or catholic necessarily expresses itself in richly diverse ways that call for genuine inculturation of the faith. A world Church calls forth inculturated faith and not rigid uniformity of faith expressions and Christian praxis. In the late twentieth century and beyond, inculturation is the form in which Newmans idea of Christian faith will develop. Next, recognizing that our thought-world is no longer one dominated by metaphysics or epistemology but by hermeneutical issues of understanding and communication of what is understood, a hermeneutical theory like that of Hans-Georg Gadamer can be of great help. Drawing

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on Gadamers theory of a fusion of horizons, Crowley shows how it helps to explain current understanding from a fusion of the horizon of understanding of a past statement (in Scripture or tradition) with subsequent expressions, now constituting a tradition of interpretations, and especially with a new historically conditioned understanding shared by believers today. Such a fusion of understandings does not mean the rejection of past interpretations, but a moving beyond them in terms of their meaning for today. In turn, todays meaning will become a moment in a new, future process of the fusion of horizons. In Crowleys words, In this fusion of horizons the subjects current horizon is broadened. The horizon of the tradition, in turn, becomes more sharply focused within the consciousness of the subject, in this case, within the faith consciousness of the local church. The result of this process is a new horizon of meaning which does not obliterate the former understandings, but rather transcends them (p. 169). With Gadamers help we can see that the process of inculturating the faith today need not be understood as the collision of incommensurable cultures but as a fusion of horizons in which all the cultures encountering each other can only benet from deeper understanding, however different they may be. Finally, Crowley sees the importance of the sensus delium in terms of the role it plays in the process of inculturation as the collective understanding that results from living the faith in particular historical, cultural conditions. In todays circumstances of a world Church and the ineluctability of inculturated forms of the faith, the sensus delium plays an analogous role to the one it played for Newman in his teaching of a development of the idea of Christianity. Crowleys article is important because he shows the relevance of the hermeneutical question in todays thought-world. He is successful in this attempt because he realizes that it is the underlying issue of the need for inculturating the faith and the new circumstances of being a world Church that we nd ourselves in today. Newman still has much to teach us, especially in his stress on the need for a dynamic collective understanding of the faith, but Crowley views Newman in a changed philosophical context. My own article from 1992 examined the teaching of Vatican II on the SF.24 I stressed the grounding of the teaching in the Councils rethinking of ministry in the Church in terms of the threefold ofce of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King. The Council clearly taught that Christ shared these ofces with the whole People of God and not just with the members of the hierarchy. According to Vatican II, the clearest evidence of Christs sharing his salvic work with all believers is its teaching about the charisms given freely and liberally by the Holy Spirit in the Church. Finally, I pointed to several ideas regarding the future of the conciliar teaching. I especially stressed the need to familiarize the Catholic faithful with the Councils high regard for their dignity and the importance of

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their contributions in the formulating of Christian doctrine and in the process of evangelization. Finally, the Churchs appreciation of the teaching on the SF will need to mature as regards the Church as communio, the very nature of revelation and how it is formulated, the category of ordinariness as the locus of salvation, the nature of ministry as coterminous with Christian existence, and the need to continue to encourage Vatican IIs call for coresponsibility in the Church on the part of everyone. In the following year, a study on the SF by ve scholars appeared in German.25 Five articles in the collection constitute a self-contained study of the SF. I propose to treat all ve studies together before offering a critique of the entire work. First, Walter Kirchschla ger examined whether the New Testament supports the idea of the SF in the Church.26 Though the term sensus delium appears nowhere in the New Testament, the reality is very evident. In studies of Paul, the Fourth Gospel, and Acts of the Apostles, Kirchschla ger insists on two important theological data: the collegial character of the communities and their witness to Christ and the role of the Holy Spirit in continuing to bring the communities into the fullness of Christs revelation. He writes: The sensus dei is articulated in the common action of the whole community. A pronounced opposition between the authority structure of the community and the rest of its members is nowhere to be found. Instead, a conscious effort is made to integrate them (p. 20). The author concludes by remarking that for the New Testament the SF does not exclude but rather includes a diversity (Vielfalt) of expression of belief. Unity in the faith and plurality of expressions of the faith are not mutually exclusive. In his contribution, Josef Steinruck turned to the history of the Church.27 He examined ve areas of Church life in which the faithful were active: the liturgy, including the sacrament of Order; issues of faith, piety, and the formation of confraternities; the lling of Church ofces; participation at ecumenical councils and synods; and the administration of Church goods. Steinruck gives particular attention to the role the laity have played in the election of their bishops and pastors. In general, the picture that emerges from the history of the Church is one in which the faithful have participated in a broad variety of activities and that their participation was not seen as something unusual or as a challenge to the role of hierarchical authority. Another conclusion the author draws is that the Church has always developed its lived structures in dialogue with the structures then accepted in the civil society at large. Though this never meant a simple adopting of these structures, e.g., the absolute monarchies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it did mean taking over many elements from them. He then suggests that the same will necessarily be true for the Church today as it continues this process in an era inuenced by democratic principles.

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The systematician, Wolfgang Beinert added to his already important studies on the SF by his new contribution for the book.28 Beinert says forthrightly that today we need to state clearly that the witness character of Christian truth comes from ve interrelated sources: Scripture, tradition, the magisterium, theological research, and the sensus delium. Each is necessary today, and each strengthens the other in its task of giving witness to Christ. But each also operates differently from the others. The faithful understand the faith consciously or precognitively, but generally not in the same way as bishops or theologians do. The faithful are challenged to work toward the consonance of the truth as they experience it in the whole of their lives with the teaching of the magisterium. Nor does the perception of this consonance emerge without conict. The growing importance of the Church understood as communio means that the highly vertical way of understanding truth (from the pope and bishops downward) needs to make room for a more horizontal understanding in which the role of each group of believers is respected. To achieve this, Roman Catholic theology needs to continue to incorporate pneumatology more effectively into its ecclesiological theory and practice. One such gain is clearly a greater appreciation of the role of all charisms in the Church. A major problem with the sensus delium remains the ways it is determined. Beinert helps advance the issue by giving us four rules. First, there is a certain proportionality between the commitment of the believer to Christian praxis and that persons degree of credibility in expressing the SF. Second, what the SF claims shows itself to be of benet to the whole Church or to a group of believers for whom it is demanded and for whom the praxis fosters true Christian life. Third, a statement of the sensus delium must be in conformity with the content of the Gospel as understood in accordance with generally accepted hermeneutical principles. And fourth, the rule of dialogue always obtains, since the magisterium, theologians, and the faithful all three can arrive at an appropriate statement and lived praxis only by showing mutual respect and communicating with one another, generally over a longer period of time. The SF can be neither forced nor rushed. Dietrich Wiederkehr studies the difculty with the acceptance of the teaching of Vatican II on the SF.29 He does this concretely by examining two cases, the call by the local Church of Basel gathered in synod in 1974 for changes regarding the exercise of the ordained ministry, and the case of the condemnation of Liberation Theology by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1984. In both instances, the roles of local bishops, theologians, and the faithful were given little attention by Roman ofcials. In the second case, the Congregation did nuance its criticisms in a later statement (1986) and this leads the author to hope for yet more sensitive ofcial responses to positions taken by the sensus delium. Still, the tone of the article remains far from optimistic and challenges the

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magisterium in particular to greater willingness to engage in dialogue in the Church. In his contribution, Gu nter Koch examines some of the pastoral consequences of the SF in the Church.30 In particular, he develops a theology of dialogue, also called for by Beinert and Wiederkehr. The only way to avoid the danger of identifying the sensus delium with inadequate means of expression, such as opinion polls or the tallying of percentages on divisive topics, is for Church authorities to encourage genuine dialogue in which each person and group in the Church can be heard and where tolerance is shown. However, dialogue is not easy. It demands a real spirituality, an appropriate asceticism, and meaningful opportunities for it to come to expression. The latter include the liturgy, a parishs catechetical program, and adult education. Real questions and solid positions do not happen in a vacuum but only where sincere efforts at education take place. Kochs ideal is one of a polyphony of voices, in which each voice adds to the richness of the whole work. Mitsprache im Glauben? was the rst full-length book to treat the topic of the SF in a way that presented a synthesis of the fundamental questions in a way accessible to most lay readers.31 By and large the work was successful in achieving its goals, and the articles by Steinruck and Beinert in particular helped to advance the theological discussion as well. If only for the reason that it was the rst such book to appear in print since the Council, it would deserve attention. At a meeting of German-speaking Catholic professors of systematic and fundamental theology in 1992, the topic of the sensus dei was treated in depth.32 The six presentations given on that occasion, however, were not published until 1994 a year after Mitsprache im Glauben? The objective of this meeting was obviously to advance the question of the SF, to relate it to other elds of study, and to offer criticisms. I will look at certain articles in the collection that t into the present summary of the literature. First, I propose to look at the contribution by the sociologist FranzXaver Kaufmann.33 The author asks the probing question as to the very utility of the term sensus delium and focuses on the issue of the communication of the faith today in the light of the general crisis of Western civilization. For the Church, two crises have emerged at the same time, a crisis of tradition which the Church shares in general with Western societies affected by modernity and a crisis of communicating the faith. Kaufmann concentrates on the second crisis, since it questions the very concept of the sensus delium. He fears that using the term creates the impression that a consensus delium exists and that the forms of such communication are at hand in the Church. Instead of consensus, today we must speak of widespread communicative dissent even among those who can be classied as practicing Catholics. Kaufmann sees little hope for change so long as the dominant ecclesiology remains ecclesiocentric

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and refuses to become communional, i.e., an ecclesiology that makes its peace with pluralism, freedom, conscience, participation, consent, an open attitude, and with constructive dissent as a means toward solving the crisis of communicating the faith to a future generation. Efforts to reinforce the authority of the magisterium or to insist on a purported unity of expression (e.g., the Catechism of the Catholic Church) remain ecclesiocentric and cannot resolve the problem. But in the context of a communional model of the Church, the term sensus delium can take on real meaning. Kaufmann points to two important features of the postmodern ecclesial situation. First, postmodernism speaks openly about the return of religion in its critique of modernity. The postmodern ethos is less atheistic than modernity in its heyday. On the other hand, this religiosity is very ambiguous and diffuse. Postmodernity seems to present Catholicism with a real opportunity, but one that has its price, and that is that the Church must become a teaching and a learning community. To accomplish this, the Church must be willing to foster real, meaningful communication among all its members. Such an ecclesial community can create the social practicability structures (Relevanzstrukturen) without which the Church in a postmodern world will continue to be divided internally and can only stagnate. With such practicability structures the Church can go about the necessary business of building a body of knowledge commonly held and common practices that provide meaning and that are the prerequisites for effective socialization of future generations of Christians. The author insists on the necessity of a network of organizational structures that both facilitate the teaching and learning of communicative praxis locally and still connect this more local experience with a sense of universality or of an overarching sense of meaning and place in the world and history. Finally, he reviews briey some of the possibilities available in the literature of social theory and cognitive science. In her contribution, Sabine Pemsel-Maier, too, points out the danger of a naive understanding of the sensus delium in the Church.34 It is often assumed that the SF has to do with the role played by the faithful exclusively in the development of dogma. Thus, what the faithful express imperfectly, from an epistemological point of view, by their actions, e.g., forms of Marian devotion, is raised to a higher epistemological level by the hierarchical magisterium, e.g., in the denitions of Marys Immaculate Conception and Assumption. Within the context of a growing awareness of what it means to become a subject in society, but also in the Church, the author shows the importance of the role of experience both in order to become a subject in the modern sense of the term and in terms of what this means for the ecclesial notion of the SF. If one lays greater stress on the role played by experience, with all the richness this term has come to assume philosophically, the role of the faithful in bearing and

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explicating the SF is expanded greatly. The author demonstrates this fact briey by referring to the documents of Vatican II. The contribution by Dietrich Wiederkehr examines the SF against contemporary understandings of truth.35 Like the participants before him, Wiederkehr too is sceptical of a simplistic understanding of the sensus delium. Beginning with an examination of the pluralism of our times and its characteristics, he passes on to what he calls a politics of truth (Wahrheitspolitik). Like many today, he understands truth not in terms of some xed, self-evident content, but more as understanding that emerges in a process that tends toward a future, or eschatological, goal. The truth we seek is determined by its location in human history and by the conditions of knowledge which today are understood increasingly as socially and culturally determined. To a Westerner, the concept of truth has taken on a new meaning, one that is more processive, participative, dialogical, and, as eschatological, open to further completion. The teaching of Vatican II on the sensus delium, therefore, needs to be rethought in terms of these changed perspectives with regards to truth. The accent is less that of a purported full possession of the truth by the body of believers in the Church, or on the magisteriums more perfect grasp of the truth and its demand for obedience, and more on the search for truth (Suchbewegung) as constitutive of truth. The sensus delium in fact is just this process of seeking the truth that must lead to consensus and be revealed in it. The demand to seek consensus, however, is better achieved locally and within specic cultural circumstances, and has the advantage of involving individuals and groups meaningfully in the process of consensusbuilding. In this perspective, too, the role of episcopal conferences take on added meaning and force. But all of this demands condence in the abiding presence of the Spirit throughout the process, respect for subsidiarity, and patience in the face of the time and effort that are needed to reach consensus. In this process, there is genuine need for institutional support and direction. As the author indicates, Only by intending and struggling in individual acts, together with institutional support, can there be consensus in the faith as emerging convergence on truth (p. 197). Thus, far from being excluded, the magisterium plays an essential role in the search for truth. Wiederkehr points to ve areas in particular where this role needs to be exercised: by providing a sense of security (Vergewisserung) as to the origin of faith, by assuring continuity in tradition, by insisting on the need to keep alive the fullness of the Churchs truth, by assuring mutual communication, and by insisting on the demand to remain open to eschatological fullness.36 Finally, I would like to examine the article by Wolfgang Beinert in this collection.37 After a rather lengthy presentation of the history of the term at Vatican II, in the postconciliar magisterial literature, and its use in ecumenical documents, Beinert turns again to an examination from the

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perspective of systematic theology. He stresses the ecclesial character of faith and shows how the sensus dei leads to the sensus delium in the Church as congregatio delium. The issue of consensus then is not an incidental one but is at the heart of the Churchs proclamation of the faith and of its credibility. Because the SF is shown in the fullness of Christian life and involves all of the believers activities in the world as well, systematic theology needs to be open to all the richness of the SF, even prophetic and mystical movements. The SF is a genuine mediation of Gods revelation. This means that it needs to be tested only against this revelation and not primarily because it can be shown to echo the magisterium. In other words, the SF is a true theological resource (locus theologicus) and possesses its own formal authority. It stands together with the hierarchical magisterium and the magisterium of theologians as a testimony to revelation communicated in Scripture and tradition, but also communicated in a living way in the richness of human experience. In this often difcult process, openness to dialogue, struggling to reach consensus, and the patient acceptance of inevitable tensions are the hallmarks of the SF. Beinert concludes his contribution by pointing to the many questions that remain both as to a full understanding of the SF as well as questions of how it should be implemented concretely or institutionally in the Church. Even though much needs to be claried, the fact remains that the SF is a real factor in the life of the Church and in the proclamation of the Gospel in particular. Each of the articles in this collection points to problems associated with the SF. One has the feeling that thirty years after the proclamation of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, many in the Church are coming to the realization that we are moving into another period of reection, one in which the problems surrounding human knowledge and the search for truth, the phenomenon of the ever-increasing pluralism of positions, and the growing sense of lostness in a de-centred world. These studies point to the past represented by Vatican II and the postconciliar discussion of the SF almost as expressions of a certain naivete that is impotent in the face of the ever more urgent questions of late modernity. This is the contribution of the collection: not a denial of the teaching of Vatican II on the sensus delium but a challenge to rethink it courageously in the light of new questions, and the realization that at some point the sensus delium has to lead to some form of consensus delium.
Notes
*In Grateful Memory of Jean-Marie Roger Tillard, O. P. (19272000). The second part of this article will appear in the January 2006 issue of the Hey J.

1 Sensus Fidei: Theological Reection Since Vatican II (19651989), HeyJ XXXIV (1993), pp. 4159. and 12336.

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2 The central passage for the conciliar teaching is the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 12. 3 HeyJ XXXIV (1993), p. 133. 4 Kirchliches Lehramt und allgemeiner Glaubenssinn. Ein Reformatorisches Anliegen aus der Sicht des I. und II. Vatikanischen Konzils, Theologie und Glaube 65 (1975), pp. 26677. ` Cattolica 138/4 (1988), 5 Note a proposito della consultazione dei fedeli, La Civilta pp. 4045. glise dE glises. Lecclesiologie de communion (Paris: Cerf, 1987), pp. 14354. ET. Church 6 E of Churches: The Ecclesiology of Communion, by R. C. De Peaux (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), pp. 10818. exion the ologique and, in 7 See my discussion of Tillards article Le Sensus Fidelium. Re reaction, the papers by Fernand Dumont and Emilien Lamirande in art. cit., pp. 4854. In 1982 ologie et vie Tillard returned to the subject of the sensus delium in his contribution The ` la pratique de la theologie, siale in Bernard Lauret and Franc (eds.), Initiation a eccle ois Refoule vol. 1 (Paris: Cerf, 1982), pp. 16182. In this chapter, Tillard approaches the topic in a way very tudes similar to his pioneering presentation in 1974 at the Fifth Colloquium of the Centre de dhistoire des religions populaires. His later presentations benetted greatly from considering the sensus delium in a much broader ecclesiological context, as we will see below. et me moire dans le glise, Irenikon 61 (1988), pp. 33646 and 48184. 8 Autorite 9 On the specic role of the SF in the laity, see the short article by Jesu s Sancho Bielsa, El sensus dei en los laicos in A. Sarmiento, T. Rincon, J. M. Yanguas and A. Quiros (eds.), n del laico en la Iglesia y en el mundo. VIII Simposio Internacional de Teologa de la La misio Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1987), pp. 54551. Latourelle (ed.), Vatican II: 10 The Sensus Fidei and the Development of Dogma in Rene Assessment and Perspectives Twenty-Five Years After (19621987), vol. 1 (New York: Paulist, 1988), pp. 13856. 11 See Bedeutung und Begru ndung des Glaubenssinnes (Sensus dei) als eines dogmatischen Erkenntniskriteriums, Catholica 25 (1971), pp. 45086 and my discussion of this article in Sensus Fidei: Theological Reection Since Vatican II (19651989), HeyJ XXXIV (1993), pp. 4547. 12 Early in 1988, Giandomenico Mucci published an article on the infallibility of the Church and the roles of the magisterium and the faithful in witnessing to and determining Christian faith. Unfortunately, despite good intentions, his study does little to advance the issue of the nature and role of the SF or to answer the question of the relationship of the two poles or expressions of belief. Curiously, he continues to maintain the passive role of the laity with respect to infallibility by referring to it consistently as infallibilitas in credendo, whereas the role of the magisterium as infallibilitas in docendo is an active exercise. Instead of trying to relate the two expressions of the SF, each distinct yet interconnected, Mucci insists on keeping them quite separate. His real fear is that any acknowledgment of a doctrinal role, or of the doctrinal authority of the faithful, will lead inevitably to the confusion of employing opinion polls, pressure group tactics associated with democratic politics, forms of voting which favor the majority, etc. This fear prevents any serious investigation of the role of genuine consultation in ` della Chiesa, Magistero et the Church and the appropriate forms for today. See Infallibilita ` Cattolica 139/1 (1988), pp. 43142. ` dottrinale dei fedeli, La Civilta autorita 13 What is the Criterion for the Sensus Fidelium? in Ju rgen Moltmann and Hans Ku ng (eds.), Who Has the Say in the Church? Concilium 148, (New York: Seabury, 1981), pp. 5660. 14 Il sensus delium del popolo di Dio e il concorso dei laici nelle determinazione dottrinali, Studi Ecumenici 6 (1988), pp. 3357. 15 Cardinal Guidi, the Archbishop of Bologna, delivered one of the most memorable discourses at Vatican I. Guidi supported the majority view of the conciliar bishops who favoured a strong denition of papal infallibility. However, as a Dominican theologian familiar with the Thomistic position on infallibility, he also had a keen sense that papal infallibility was not simply a personal prerogative of the pope but served as an expression of the Churchs infallibility. Papal infallibility could not be divorced from the Churchs own infallibility. Guidis cautions were not intended to saddle the papal exercise of infallibility with conditions of its exercise but with making it unmistakable that any exercise of infallibility by the pope is always also an attestation of the underlying belief of the whole Church, particularly as given expression by the bishops as leaders who witness to the faith of their communities. His intervention brought about an important change in the formulation of the doctrine of papal infallibility at Vatican I and so kept the continuing role of the episcopate in the Churchs consciousness even while he supported the

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papal claims. Bishop Vincent Gasser of Brixen also belonged to the majority, but as the ofcial relator for the Deputation of the Faith, or the one responsible for explaining Chapter IV of the Constitution Pastor aeternus, he was also instrumental in shepherding the constitution through to its nal approval on 18 July 1870. In particular, Gasser was successful in explaining the phrase that when the pope teaches infallibly it is by way of issuing a teaching ex cathedra. The intent was to make it clear to all the bishops that the exercise of papal infallibility was rare, was the highest possible exercise of his magisterium, was not a purely personal exercise of infallibility but an ecclesial act, and that it was strictly limited to the deposit of revealed truth. See the discussions by Cuthbert Butler in Christopher Butler (ed.), The Vatican Council 18691870, Based on Bishop Ullathornes Letters, (London: Collins and Harvill Press, 1962), pp. 35355, where Guidi is quoted extensively, and ibid., pp. 38699 (Bishop Gassers Exposition) on Gassers presentation to the bishops. See also Klaus Schatz, Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present, translated by John A. Otto and Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 15766 for a particularly lucid and careful presentation and explanation of the underlying ecclesiological issues, as well as the points of agreement and disagreement among the bishops at Vatican I. 16 How Does the Church Teach Authoritatively Today? in Who Has the Say in the Church?, pp. 110. 17 See Origins 20/8 (5 July 1990), pp. 11726. -Ninot, Sensus Fidei in Rene Latourelle and Rino 18 Also from 1990, see Salvador Pie Fisichella (eds.), Dictionary of Fundamental Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1995), pp. 99295. The author presents a ne history of the concept from the early Church to such postconciliar documents as John Paul IIs Apostolic Exhortation The Lay Members of Christs Faithful People [Christideles Laici], art. 14 an extended summary of Vatican IIs teaching on the SF. The focus of the article, however, is on the sensus dei as an epistemological criterion for establishing Christian belief. The author has concisely outlined the principal issues and questions regarding the sensus delium and the teaching authority of the hierarchy, the contribution of praxis by Christians to the Churchs teachings, and the emerging importance of ecclesial synodality and consultation for determining the consensus delium. Mention should also be made of Michael J. McGinniss, Sensus Fidelium, USA: Laity and Church Structures for the Future, Listening, No. 25 (1990), pp. 7185. The article is primarily dedicated to the topic of the place of laity and the growth of lay ministry in particular in the postconciliar Church in the United States of America. 19 Sensus Fidelium: A Roman Catholic Reection on Its Signicance for Ecumenical Thought, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 28 (1991), pp. 7487. ` la lumie ` re de Vatican II, Le Supplement 181 (1992), 20 Le sensus delium en morale a pp. 15366. 21 Sensus Fidelium and the Marian Dogmas, One in Christ 28 (1992), pp. 10625. 22 The Papacy and the Church: A Study of Praxis and Reception in Ecumenical Perspective (New York: Philosophical Library, 1987). 23 Catholicity, Inculturation and Newmans Sensus Fidelium, HeyJ XXXIII (1992), pp. 16174. 24 Sensus dei: Meaning, Role and Future of a Teaching of Vatican II, Louvain Studies 17 (1992), pp. 1834. 25 Gu nter Koch, ed., Mitsprache im Glauben? Vom Glaubenssinn der Glaubigen (Wu rzburg: Echter, 1993). 26 Was das Neue Testament u ubigen sagt (ibid., pp. 724). ber den Glaubenssinn der Gla 27 Was die Gla ubigen in der Geschichte der Kirche zu vermelden hatten (ibid., pp. 2550). 28 Der Glaubenssinn der Gla ubigen in der systematischen Theologie (ibid., pp. 5178). See also the authors Bedeutung und Begru ndung des Glaubenssinnes (Sensus dei) als eines dogmatischen Erkenntniskriteriums, Catholica 25 (1971), pp. 271303 and Das Finden und Verku nden der Wahrheit in der Gemeinschaft der Kirche, Catholica 43 (1989), pp. 130 and my discussion of these articles in Sensus Fidei: Theological Reection Since Vatican II (19651989), pp. 4547 and 131133. 29 Glaubenssinn des Volkes: Einbahnstrasse oder Gegenverkehr? in Mitsprache im Glauben?, pp. 7998. 30 Glaubenssinn Wahrheitsndung im Miteinander. Theologische Grundlagen pastorale Konsequenzen (ibid., pp. 99114). 31 Earlier works, such as Foi populaire, foi savante Cogitatio dei 87 (Paris: Cerf, 1976) and Johann B. Metz and Edward Schillebeeckx (eds.), The Teaching Authority of Believers Concilium 180 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985) had treated more specialized questions and were intended primarily for theologians.

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32 Dietrich Wiederkehr (ed.), Der Glaubenssinn des Gottesvolkes Konkurrent oder Partner des Lehramts? Quaestiones disputatae 151 (Freiburg: Herder, 1994). 33 Glaube und Kommunikation: eine soziologische Perspektive (ibid., pp. 13260). 34 Differenzierte Subjektwerdung im Volke Gottes in ibid., pp. 16181. 35 Sensus vor Consensus: auf dem Weg zu einem partizipativen Glauben Reexionen einer Wahrheitspolitik (ibid., pp. 182206). 36 After Wiederkehrs article, there is a short and suggestive contribution by Werner Bo ckenfo rde, a canon lawyer, entitled Statement aus der Sicht eines Kirchenrechtlers ( ibid., pp. 20713). 37 Der Glaubenssinn der Gla ubigen in Theologie- und Dogmengeschichte. Ein u berblick (ibid., pp. 66131, including eight pages of bibliography).