A Church That Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching by John T. Noonan, Jr (review)

624 BOOK REVIEWS unfolds. In others words, to proceed regressively would have been, perhaps, more illuminating. That would have avoided too-trenchant appreciations such as, "If his form of dogmatic theology failed to win the day at the Second Vatican Council, we will see that his most passionately held spiritual propositions were incorporated into official Catholic teaching by the Council Fathers" (179). On the contrary, Vatican H discretely but really, for important dogmatic points, supposes and uses the proper wisdom of speculative scholastic theology. For example, the order of the two first chapters of Lumen gentium-Church as mystery and Church as people of God-presents the Christian community first from the point of view of its essence, and then from the point of view of history: the reality which is developing in history is exactly the reality given at Pentecost. A speculative theology founded upon a metaphysic is necessary to explain this teaching. For another example: the conclusion of the first chapter of Lumen gentium (8) first presents the constitutive being of the Church ("one" [§1] and "unique" [§2]), and then mentions the moral aspect of this being (Church without sin but with sinners [§3]). The one who wants to understand this teaching apart from the scientific Scholastic notions runs the risk-realized after Vatican II by some theologians-of misunderstanding the Church's supernatural self-consciousness, a datum of faith. Criticisms aside, I fully agree with the author's basic conviction. Although I would have presented this matter differently, nonetheless we may be grateful to him for the contribution he makes toward identifying a better knowledge of the necessary or useful conditions for an actual speculative theology. For this effort, Garrigou-Lagrange remains one of the Masters (and not "Monster") to whom we must be able to appeal. University ofFribourg Fribourg, Switzerland BENOIT-DOMINIQUE DE LA SOUJEOLE, 0.P. A Church That Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching. By JOHN T. NOONAN, JR. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Pp. 297 + xiv. $30.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-26803603 -9. John Noonan wants to do for the commandments what John Newman did for the creed. Just as Newman showed there have been developments in the Church's understanding of the creed, so Noonan wants to show there have been developments in the Church's understanding of morals. As Newman had his test cases, things like Nicea and devotion to the saints and the papacy, so Noonan has his test cases. He treats Church teaching on slavery, usury, religious freedom, BOOK REVIEWS 625 and divorce. One of Newman's criteria for a true development was that it did not contradict past teaching. Noonan, however, claims to discover that this test does not hold for development in morals. Later teaching, he thinks, has flatly contradicted prior teaching.Newman discerned several tests for the development of doctrine (just one of which was logical consistency with prior teaching). Noonan ends up with but one test for the development of moral doctrine; namely, that it be true to the "rule of faith," by which he means, not the creed, but the commandments of love, and according as love proceeds in such a way that we are attentive to our collective moral experience and careful to cultivate empathy with our fellow man. Nature, or insight into nature, especially human nature, is discarded as a criterion, except insofar as it tells us of the inviolability of the human person. Past that, love is left to discover its own way, by experience and empathy. To some, this will seem less like a description of the progress of Catholic moral wisdom than an embrace of modern liberalism. Evidently, if true, Noonan's conclusion is important, suggesting as it does an entire (if slimmed-down) program of moral discovery and teaching, giving us to anticipate the most astonishing developments and preparing us to accept them with equanimity. Is it true? Everything depends on whether or not present Catholic moral teaching really does contradict past teaching (for if it does, then indeed there will be love alone and by itself, blindly groping its way). Noonan says it does. The Church once condemned usury...