Digital Logos Edition
The twentieth-century patristics movement that contributed theologically to the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council is generally well known. Less well known, but no less important, is the similarly dynamic return to the ancient ecclesial sources that took place in nineteenth-century theology, which profoundly shaped the Catholic articulation of the relation of faith and reason, the development of doctrine, the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, and the nature of the Church.
In Engaging the Church Fathers in Nineteenth-Century Catholicism, Joseph Carola, S.J., tracks the theological movement of the Scuola Romana, a contemporaneous, interconnected return to patristic sources pursued by Jesuit theologians at the Roman College—Giovanni Perrone, Carlo Passaglia, Clemens Schrader, and Johann Baptist Franzelin—and their precursors, interlocutors, and intellectual progeny, including the Tübingen theologian Johann Adam Möhler, the Oxonian John Henry Newman, and the Cologne theologian Matthias Joseph Scheeben. Situating these seven theologians’ lives and labors within the broader historical context of nineteenth-century Catholicism, Carola introduces readers to a rich theological world rarely explored, providing both biographical depth and attentive distillation of their writings, methodologies, and impacts.
As Carola shows, these extraordinary theologians engaged the Church Fathers and the Church’s entire tradition with intellectual rigor, revitalizing the nineteenth-century Catholic Church at her very heart and providing, in turn, a refined patristic methodology and faithful theological vision that are just as vital for the Church in the twenty-first century as they were in the nineteenth.
Engaging the Church Fathers in Nineteenth-Century Catholicism by Joseph Carola is a fascinating journey through the most prominent figures of the Scuola Romana to rediscover these Roman theologians, for too long neglected and simply labelled as neo-scholastics. Carola convincingly shows that they actually are part of that theological renewal already started in the nineteenth century. With profound expertise, he points out the Scuola Romana’s patristic methodology and highlights its connections with some of the most significant Catholic theologians of that time: J. A. Möhler, J. H. Newman, and M. J. Scheeben. Carola’s ponderous monograph is undoubtedly an indispensable work for anyone wishing to delve into the study of the Scuola Romana and the Catholic theology of the nineteenth century
—Valfredo Maria Rossi, Pontifical Gregorian University
What a tremendous gift to Catholic theologians of whatever stripe. I know of no other work on the Roman School that is as theologically informative and historically gripping as Engaging the Church Fathers in Nineteenth-Century Catholicism. Fr. Carola not only gifts us with detailed treatments of the neglected Perrone, Passaglia, Schrader, and Franzelin, but goes further and highlights for us the historical and intellectual connections with their forebearer, Möhler, their contemporary, Newman, and their student, Scheeben. Fr. Carola provides not only delightful historical vignettes, nuance, and detail, but also a rich, intelligible, and substantiated narrative about these theologians. We can learn so much from the Roman School, and this book puts us in a position to do so
—Andrew Meszaros, St. Patrick’s Pontifical University
The fruit of decades of research, Carola’s Engaging the Church Fathers in Nineteenth-Century Catholicism will soon become the standard work on the Roman School and its influence in any language. It brings together lively biographical portraits of its figures, a thorough grasp of their intellectual networks (often established by little-known archival sources), and an expert’s knowledge of the patristic sources by which they attempted to rejuvenate the theology of their day. Puncturing tenacious myths, Carola shows that the most influential Latin-language theologians of the nineteenth century were not in fact ‘neo-scholastics’ but ‘positive’ theologians engaged in a far-reaching ressourcement.
—Fr. Aaron Pidel, S.J., Marquette University / Pontifical Gregorian University