In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The American Catholic Revolution: How the ‘60s Changed the Church Forever
  • Philip Gleason

IV

The topics Father Massa has selected for analysis are unquestionably key elements in the Catholic revolution of the 1960s. By exploring them in detail, he contributes greatly to our understanding of the larger phenomenon. His book is also provocative – that is, it raises questions in the reader’s mind. For me, the most important questions cluster about the term “historical consciousness,” which Massa offers as the master explanation of the larger phenomenon.

“Things Change,” the title of the concluding chapter, might be taken as the last word. But, as Father Massa well knows, there is a difference between recognizing that change occurs and having a theory of change. What theory does the expression “historical consciousness” embody? What principle does it offer for evaluating change? How does it relate to the spectrum of theories ranging from divine providence, through the idea of progress, Hegelian and Marxist formulations, Newman’s development, Darwin’s evolution, Teilhard’s movement toward the Omega point, various forms of liberation theology, and the “historicism” elaborated by Dilthey and others?

Father Massa mentions the ambiguities of “historicism” but doesn’t pause to explore them in depth. Nor am I equipped to do so. Its most radical version, however, affirms that history is all there is – which means that there is no “Other” to be encountered in history, and [End Page 68] that divine “immanence” is no more admissible than the “two-story universe with God ‘up there’ and humanity ‘down here’” (155). For Christians, this is surely a formidable “ambiguity” attending usage of the term “historical consciousness.”

Another problematic feature of the expression is that, as it was used in the sixties, “historical consciousness” often implied dismissal of the work-a-day study of history as pointless. At the same conference where Bernard Lonergan set forth his formulation of the notion, another participant roundly asserted that “the past is irrelevant and the future will be essentially different.” (155) I myself heard the same thing from the president of a Catholic college in the mid-sixties. The reasoning seemed to be: Everything changes! The past is over and done with! Don’t waste your time studying it! Others reached the same conclusion by a different route. For them, “historical consciousness” revealed such “discontinuities,” and implied such “relativism” of ideas and values, that one simply couldn’t penetrate to the mind of a different age.

The ambiguities of “historical consciousness” also make it difficult to discern that, as Emil Fackenheim put it, “the doctrine of historicity is not an empirical generalization but a metaphysical thesis.” That is, of course, not true of all usages of the term, but ontological overtones – however unintended or unremarked – nevertheless suffuse discussions where the concept is employed.

Finally, historical consciousness is a concept easily, even unconsciously, reified, i.e., treated as a real entity that makes things happen. True, Massa offers it as an explanation, not a cause; but as he himself insists, ideas take on a life of their own. And a “mentality” that shapes an age (as in the case of Lonergan’s “Classicist World View”) certainly suggests agency.

Philip Gleason
University of Notre Dame, emeritus
...

pdf

Share