"I don't have many emotions or feelings. I tend to have ideas."

From a 2001 interview with Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.:

Q. Your journey to Catholicism strikes me as having been more intellectual than spiritual.

A. I think that's probably true. I hope there was some spiritual aspect to it, but I've never had any great taste for what's called spirituality. I think it deals so much with emotions and feelings. I don't have many emotions or feelings. I tend to have ideas. I was interested in Catholicism ideally, intellectually. I was convinced that it was true. I was interested in truth.

Q. How has your life changed since you've become a cardinal?

A. I get more invitations to lectures and things like that. I try to get out of them when I can, but I'm on the road a good bit. And then some things you have to get dressed up for.

Q. What is the appropriate role of dissent in the church?

A. Dissent should be rare, respectful and reluctant. One's first reaction as a Catholic is to agree with the official teaching of the church.

Q. Can you imagine married priests, or female priests, in the church?

A. Married priests is a much easier question. We have married priests. In the early centuries many of the priests and bishops were married, and Eastern Rite Catholics have a married clergy, and we have a number of converts from Protestantism who are married priests who function as priests and enjoy their family life. So that's possible. The question of women is a doctrinal issue. I think the weight of scripture and tradition is decisively against it. In the early '70s I was not sure the question had been decided, I was kind of open. But after 1976, Paul VI answered the question pretty thoroughly. That pretty much settled my mind on the point.

Q. You have said one of the roles is to critique the culture. What is your critique of American culture?

A. Our technology is so advanced, we sometimes get the feeling that we can reconstruct everything, and we define power, so we have a hard time accepting anything that we cannot change. So we want to reconstruct the church, we want to rewrite all the dogmas of the church. We feel that we can replace everything by our own power, and according to our own preference. Our notion of freedom needs to be critiqued. We don't have a moral freedom to do what is wrong. We're under a higher law.

Then we want instant satisfaction. Part of the American culture is to produce as much as possible and consume as much as possible, so we consume an inordinate amount of the world's resources. Our consumption should be governed by need, and needs to be restrained more than it is. We need to take greater care of the needs of the poor who are left out of the capitalist process.

I suppose that Cardinal Dulles' comments about feelings and ideas might put off some people, or at least strike them as a bit imbalanced. But I think his testimony is both personal and objective; he was quite honest about who he was. In addition, it highlights one of the beautiful aspects of Catholicism—it is, of course, for every sort of person: emotional, contemplative, active, intellectual, simple, outgoing, quiet, aesthetic, blue collar, highly educated, and so forth and so on. It also points to the beauty of the communion of the saints, and how we benefit so much (and often so unknowingly) from the gifts of others. Where would I be without the talents and gifts of our Blessed Mother, St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Chesterton, Walker Percy, Russell Kirk, Joseph Ratzinger, John Paul II, Henri de Lubac (to name just a few)? And where would I be without the prayers and support of so many "ordinary" Catholics who will be remembered in heaven long after they are forgotten on earth?

Money quote (for my money): "One's first reaction as a Catholic is to agree with the official teaching of the church." And that from one of the great Catholic thinkers and theologians of the past few decades, a man who forgot more about authentic Catholic teaching and living than those Catholics who seem interested only in dissenting from Church teaching and getting their fifteen minutes of fame for doing so.

Comments

[Ed Peters]

"I suppose that Cardinal Dulles' comments about feelings and ideas might put off some people."

Maybe so, but I quite understand where he's coming from. It describes me. Granted, I've come in the last several years to apprecaite the intellectual rigor that at least some "feelings" people bring to their Faith, so I don't overlook it like I used to, but they are, it appears, not typical of the class, and in any case, it not's me. I reserve my "feelings" for folks who think truth is measured by feelings.

One thought on "One's first reaction as a Catholic is to agree with the official teaching of the church." Coming from Dulles, it's a safe enough comment. But I would have phrased it "One's first reaction as a Catholic is to agree with the official teaching of the church, as is one's second reaction, and one's third, and so on, until one gets to a level of inquiry that Newman himself might countenance." fwiw.

[American Phoenix]

Ed, it also describes me. My natural inclination is always to be suspicious of the emotionalism that so permeates our culture these days. My reversion was more a matter of being convinced that our Catholic faith contains the fullness of truth. I became an attorney because truth is attractive.

May God bless Cardinal Dulles. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord; and may Your perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.

[Innocent]

I am very, very glad I read the response of Cardinal Dulles to the first question. I am somewhat of a "revert" to the faith myself, and I got there mainly through reading Lewis, Chesterton, Tolkien, Newman, John Paul II, and others. I have often been disturbed about whether my near absence of any religious emotions indicated some sort of problem I had. Now that I know that such an orthodox Catholic like Cardinal Dulles too had the same mental dispositions, I can be relieved that there's nothing seriously wrong with me, after all!

[Raymond Barry]

Why are ideas not thought of as spiritual- that is, spiritual as opposed to material. Feelings are far more closely tied to the material world which we perceive through the senses. But where do ideas come from, if not from the realm of the spirit?

[Matthew]

WOW! I think hell just froze over. No offense, American Phoenix, but an attorney attracted to truth!!!! I did not think it possible.

[Jackson]

"I became an attorney because truth is attractive."

Funny, I quit being an attorney because truth is attractive!

[Ed Peters]

A lot of people quit being lawyers because they love the law.

[American Phoenix]

Gentlemen, enough with the attorney jokes! Yes, truth IS attractive! Truth is attractive because it's both good and beautiful at the same time. It can't help but be so. Our lives here on earth, including our professional lives, will never be perfect but they are infinitely perfectible. So we have a lot of work to do and it won't be done sitting on the sidelines. Though perhaps I should have become a canon lawyer like Ed Peters.

[Ed Peters]

Who's joking? :)

Actually, I'm credentialed in both systems, you know. Like you guys, I know many civil lawyers who have dropped out of practice because of their (genuine) disillusionment with the legal system. But that doesn't always mean they are sitting on the sidelines. They might indeed be trying to restore the philosophical and moral foundations that make law functional.

In the meantime, I know some killer lawyer jokes. But on 2nd thought, we'd better save those; this is a monitored board, you know.

[Justin Nickelsen]

It was with deep sadness that I learned of the death of Cardinal Dulles on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was first introduced to Dulles as an undergraduate student in theology who, like many, was assigned Models of the Church as one of my texts for Ecclesiology. Ever since, I have been impressed with Dulles’ ability to stay above the fray of theologian-status-dichotomies: “liberal”, “conservative”, “progressive”, “traditionalist”. Better: “brilliant theologian” and “faithful son of the Church”—an unfortunately rare combination, especially in the English speaking world.

May he rest in peace…

Justin Nickelsen
NouvellTheologie (at) Hotmail (dot) com

[Joe]

Fascicnating all. Dulles was a gift to the Church, in the end. But I am struck that there is no mention of his earliy and important affiliation with -- and admiration for -- Fr. Feeney (a modern embrrassment, it seems), given the way their two lives so vivfied differing trajectories post- Vatican II. Readers ought to read Dulles' obit for Feeney in America Magazine, and compare it with his own prose in the book 'The New World of Faith.' Such a comparison suggests what has been lost in a generation.

[Kirk]

"...I've never had any great taste for what's called spirituality. I think it deals so much with emotions and feelings. I don't have many emotions or feelings."

I am not sure that I understand this quote, so I readily admit I may be on the wrong track with my comments. However, clearly, the Church has a theology of spirituality that is not based on emotions and feelings. I need not rehearse the litany of saints whose names are associated with this spiritual legacy the Church presents to us.

I tend not to have too many emotions or feelings either, but I do not consider that normal and am not sure anyone else should either. Rather, maybe our disposition should be that we are wounded and need healing in this facet of our lives, regardless of the objective truth we know. Jesus Christ did not become man simply to redeem our minds. The Gospels and the rest of the New Testament are packed with good feelings and emotions! Rejoice!

Yes, I am orthodox, a loyal son of the Church and a devout Catholic, not a relativist driven by feelings. However, feelings are not bad things if they do not obscure the objective truth, and amazingly, those same feelings can bring insight into truth and even provide a greater substantiation of the very truth the Church defends! If you doubt this, you might ask a devout Catholic who knows and teaches great literature.

[Ed Peters]

Joe, most of us have had the experience of liking someone in our youth, quite genuinely, who later turned out to be, well, less likable. nbd. But that AD has long been on to the salvation question in general is not suprising at all. The last talk I heard him give, just a couple years back, is exactly on this point. Eschatology is making a long over-due come back, boys! Time to get those classic manuals out, as the moderns (pace AD, and Ralph Martin) have next to nothing useful to say about it.