The key question facing the cardinals, and being addressed in the general congregations taking place this week, is a perennial question: What does the church need at this moment in time?
The question is misunderstood when it is framed as a choice between a liberal pope and a more conservative leader. Those categories have lost much of their salience in describing contemporary politics and they are even less useful when seeking to understand the church.
At the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, there were two hermeneutical keys: aggiornamento, or bringing up to date, and ressourcement, or returning to the sources. By sources, the council fathers meant the Scripture and traditions of the church, especially the writings of the early church fathers.
Every document issued by the council reflects both hermeneutics and never once did the council prioritize one over the other. Instead, the two hermeneutics exist in creative tension: The path forward, the bringing up to date, is most clearly and soundly achieved by engaging the wellsprings of the tradition, the ressourcement. The two are inextricably intertwined.
This dynamic is not a Hegelian dialectic. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s method began by identifying the flaws in any given cultural thesis. For the church, the creative tension is dialogical, in the strictest sense, a discernment through the word, or the Word, the Logos, Jesus Christ.
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With thanks to National Catholic Reporter and Michael Sean Winters, where this article originally appeared.
