faith. Tradition itself, the verbum traditum believe everywhere, and by everyone, would be confused w of Tradition, the teachers and doctors who have tr 4. If it is taken as an objective norm as it sho wrong to understand it in both a positive and Understood positively it is true, because then v is consistent with it, that is, whatever doctri prerogatives of universality, antiquity, and con vinely revealed. But understood negatively it three notes are interpreted collectively, they truth at all having been divinely revealed. Vit that it may happen and actually has happer universality and consent were missing from by God and believed in from antiquity. From this analysis of the Rule the counci that the author never meant the Rule for for the individual Catholic to recognize the could be taken from the Rule against t fallibility. Specifically, the council was been taken by some outsiders in an ex with total disregard of the authority Rule did not clarify its argument fro absolute or relative. It neglected the plicit faith. It did not distinguish moral consent. Moral unanimity, ei bishops, is unnecessary for the ecc judgment on some question of fait! ture, Tradition, antiquity, and tr mentary upon the Rule was a co serve as a source and guide for the key Latin ..g of the on them; All of the s introduced Massilians. It influence the ..and charactervery frequently in 5: any doctrine at ; the entire deposit ed in the plural, all incur is the accepted judgment or conviction cha philological analysis? precisely the mind of the it that the Vatican Conci ule, which aroused so much asserting the immutability of strinal development. But it did text, leaving that to the future step to such a study is to investihimself. of progress as outlined by Vincent, rogress in the fervor of one's faith, I worship, and the use of more fring nal truths of the faith ted by two exquisite analogies of progress uch latitude of interpretation. "Religion," "dogma," is taken by Vincent to mean the ith professed by the Church. Its progress im gradibus-intelligentia, scientia, sapientia, sed in soo dem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu eademque sententia." C. Bannwart, and I. Umberg. Enchiridion Symbolorum celona: Herder, 1951), no. 150; J. M. A. Vacant, Erades et constitutions du Concile du Vatican Paris: Delhomme . II, pp. 296-319. is compared to the growth of the human body from infancy to old age, and to the growth of a seed into a perfect plant. Throughout their whole development, both the human body and the seed, in spite of accidental variations, remain specifically and identically the same. Man does not turn into an animal, nor does the plant convert into a stone. This is the pith of Vincent's much-detailed description of the third form of progress. The fourth form consists of the polishing and perfecting of a faith which has hitherto been unshaped and unfinished. Perhaps, although one risks reading too much into it, the fourth form is none other than the drawing up of dogmatic formulas. Despite the clearness of his principle, Vincent does not present an equally clear picture of his theory. Out of its context, as it is so often taken, the theory is brief, broad, and vague, but still very conservative and restricted by his own Rule and the general tone of the book. Vincent did not foresee how widely his theory would be applied by later theologians. On the other hand, an author writing about such new and elusive things as Tradition and progress, at so early a date, should not be expected to manage his thesis fully, accurately, and with great detail. He would naturally fail to see all its implications and tend to be more conservative than a posterity which can be more retrospective before gauging progress. Fata habent sua libri. In the course of centuries after its revival, the Commonitorium has shown both demerits and merits. Now it can be seen that one of its faults is that it envisions a Tradition of the past and hardly regards the flow of Tradition in the immediate present. For that reason too the authority of the Rule has been taken to be exclusive; it does not leave enough room for the higher authority of the magisterium. Moreover, its conservatism seems too strong when balanced against Vincent's theory of progress. The theory, though founded on a broad principle and embellished with two apt analogies, was left rather vague by the author. This bit of criticism should not blind us to the real merits of Vincent's book. He has emphasized the need of adhering to the Tradition of the past, to a doctrinal deposit bequeathed by Christ to his apostles and the Church. He has spoken up clearly and boldly for the progress of religion, a progress confined to its own orbit and incapable of corrupting. He has given indications that true and safe Tradition is in the hands of the teaching body of the Church. It is to his credit that he ventured to deal with the antinomic aspects of Tradition and progress in the faith. Crosier House of Studies Fort Wayne, Indiana JOSEPH A. FICHTNER, O.S.C. FIFTY YEARS AGO ... The leading article in The American Ecclesiastical Review for September, 1913, by Dr. Herman Heuser, the editor, is entitled "Suggestions toward a Uniform Plan of Studies in the Department of Theology for Seminaries in the United States." It is a paper that was read before the Seminary Department of the Catholic Educational Association at its annual meeting in June, 1913. Dr. Heuser calls for less overlapping in the courses and the elimination of unnecessary matter. Some of the suggestions contained in the article have subsequently been included in the directives issued for seminaries by the Holy See. . . . Fr. J. Arendzen, writing from England, gives a paraphrase of Psalm 67, Exsurgat Deus. . . . Fr. H. T. Henry writes on the origin of the music of "Holy God." Although some have stated that it arose in Protestant hymnals, the author believes that it first appeared in a Catholic book of hymns, published in Germany about 1774. . . . Writing on “The Leisure of Clerics and Religious," Fr. A. B. O'Neill, C.S.C., states that "priests and religious lack most frequently, not time, but orderly system in organizing time; not real leisure but method in the performance of their various duties". . . . Dr. A. O'Malley, writing on "The Physical Science in St. Thomas's Summa," points out some of the strange (according to modern scientific knowledge) views in the Angelic Doctor's writings. St. Thomas believed that woman is merely a mas occasionatus—as Aristotle said, something deficiens. . . . Fr. D. Quinn, discussing "Greek in Seminaries," states that "it should now be admitted that for many an ecclesiastical student Greek is useless, if not also harmful." . . . The Analecta contain some decrees of the Biblical Commission on the Acts of the Apostles and on the pastoral Epistles of St. Paul. . . . The editor informs us that he has received many letters from priests concerning the mitigation of the eucharistic fast, but is not publishing them since the matter has been sufficiently discussed. . . . A correspondent complains about some of the hymns that are sung at Catholic Church weddings. ... ... F. J. C. THE LAY APOSTOLATE Hopefully we look to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Risen Christ Our Head, to renew the Mystical Body through the new series of meetings of the Second Vatican Council, to make her younger and more energetic, to give her a new spring time. We look for this renewal through the clear, courageous teaching of Our Holy Father together with the bishops of the world in Council and through the loyal, generous acceptance of this teaching by all the faithful, priests and laymen. The sources and the fields of this teaching of the Second Vatican Council will be manifold, as the preparations show. One vital field will be the lay apostolate, and one very important source for this field will be the teaching of Pius XII. It is of interest, then, to investigate the teaching of Pius XII on the lay apostolate. Pius XII addressed the First and Second World Congress of the Lay Apostolate on October 14, 1951 and on October 5, 1957, respectively. These two addresses are his most significant teaching on the lay apostolate. Two earlier documents, Mystici Corporis of June 29, 1943 and the Address to the New Cardinals of February 20, 1946, make valuable contributions. We shall briefly consider the teaching of Pius XII in these four documents, and then endeavor in the spirit of this teaching to formulate a definition of the lay apostolate. In his address to the First World Congress of the Lay Apostolate. Plus the XII treats the place and role of the lay apostolate today in the light of past history and considers three problems: who is called to the lay apostolate, what the relation of the lay apostolate to the ecclesiastical hierarchy is, and what kind of work the lay apostolate is to do The lay apostolate is not something new. It is as old as the history of the Church. The last four centuries since the Protestant Revolt and the Council of Trent, far from being exclusively clerical, have seen the steady and rapid growth of the lay apostolate. Two striking historical examples Illustrate this: the Marian congregations of men lay apostles working in all the domains of public 1440 4 38), 84 “The Lay Aarske Is Need Today" is the pile of the NOWO mancation |