I remember as thirteen year old, being hit around the head with a textbook by Mr Henderson, and him shouting, "Forget what the ****** textbook says, read the actual words, Boy, and think, think, think. You have got brain, use it to question!"It was the first time I ever heard a teacher swear, they didn't in those days. He would be sacked nowadays, but what he wanted us to do was to be critical about assumptions, especially those which weren't questioned, and return the primary sources, he wanted us to search for the truth.
The Pope reminds me of a gentler, non-violent Mr Henderson, he wants us to return to primary sources, to scripture, to the teaching of the Church Fathers, the witnesses to the Tradition (the great call of Vatican II) and to the texts of the Vatican Council itself.
In this week's Chiesa article Sandro Magister illustrates how we are being called to ask pretty fundamental questions about what many .
Have the changes of the conciliar era affected the essence of Catholicism, or not? "L'Osservatore Romano" brings the great Swiss thinker back into vogue. And archbishop Agostino Marchetto demolishes the theses of his adversaries: the "Bologna school" founded by Dossetti and Alberigo.
read his fascinating article here
2 comments:
I used to have a history teacher just like that - a Mr Allt. I used to do impressions of him for my classmates. One reason I'm still alive is that he never once caught me!
I was in my 30's before I learned this lesson. While your history teacher may have been brusque in his ways I think he gave you quite a gem. You were very lucky.
I used to read for flavour, to get a general idea of meaning. I never actually thought that words had actual and specific meaning and intent. I seen them as vague approximations of the author's ideas. More often than not it was my mind that was filling in the blanks that were not there. Had I taken the author at his word I would have seen this.
On the other hand, sometimes the old approach results in a far more charitable reading. You make allowances for fudges and discrepancies. You assume understanding beyond/despite the text.
There is also the issue of culture. In my culture we don't use language in an exact way. Words are picked for rhythm, sound, undulation and timing over their exact accuracy. It's the flow of language not the accuracy of ideas that takes precedent. A rather extreme example of this can be found in the writings of Father Wax Myself Lyrical to the Point Of Oblivion Daniel O'Leary. He simply worships the english language, not for what it means, but how it can flow, how the words form in the mouth and emerge into the open. He'd make a great poet I think.
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