The notion of a “celebrity priest” in American culture tends to conjure up images of televangelists, social media influencers and priestly popularizers of Catholic theology for a sound-bite generation. There was a time, however, when the country was visited by intellectual priests of a certain celebrity who could even compete with the likes of Archbishop Fulton Sheen for the attention of American Catholics: the periti of the Second Vatican Council.
After Vatican II, a number of the most prominent periti (theological experts brought by bishops to the council) went on speaking tours of the United States, including the Rev. Hans Küng, Henri de Lubac, S.J., Karl Rahner, S.J., and Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P. Those names still mean a great deal to theologians today, but in the years following the council they also drew large crowds of everyday Catholics to churches and lecture halls. My father once told me that he and my mother were in Harlem the night Malcolm X was murdered, and remembered the outpouring of grief and anger. What were they doing in Harlem? Attending a lecture by Father Küng. Well, it’s cheaper than a Broadway show.
Father Küng, as debonair as he was brilliant, seemed a natural for the lecture circuit; but Father Schillebeeckx was packing in the crowds, too, with talks on "the priesthood of all believers," despite a more bookish mien and the fact that much of his most important theological work was done after the council was completed—and despite the fact that he wasn’t actually a peritus at Vatican II. More on that below. His intellectual work, meanwhile, made him one of the most prominent theologians of the 20th century.
“From his groundbreaking first book, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter With God, to the final volume of his Christological trilogy, Church, the Human Story of God, Father Schillebeeckx helped readers grasp the core sacramental insight disclosed by the Incarnation: The mystery of God is to be encountered in human life and creation,” Mary Catherine Hilkert, O.P., wrote in a brief tribute to Father Schillebeeckx in America shortly after his death in 2010. “Throughout his teaching career and in his writing, Father Schillebeeckx emphasized that we experience God’s love, the creative and saving presence of God’s grace, wherever human persons minister to one another, especially to the neighbor in need. Human love is an embodiment, a sacrament, of God’s love.”
Born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1914, Father Schillebeeckx entered the Dominican order in 1934 and was ordained a priest in 1941. After brief service in the Belgian military at the beginning of World War II, he spent the rest of the war in Leuven, where he had studied philosophy and theology before ordination. He earned a doctorate in theology in 1952. After a short stint teaching at the Catholic University of Leuven, he became a professor of theology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen (the 11th word I misspelled in writing this essay, including Schillebeeckx thrice) in the Netherlands in 1958. He would teach there until his retirement in 1983 and became so associated with Dutch Catholicism that many scholars forget he was actually Belgian.
Despite his reputation as a prominent figure at Vatican II, Father Schillebeeckx actually had to work from the shadows a bit; according to historians, he was mistrusted by the powerful Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani for his help in ghostwriting a pastoral letter from the Dutch bishops before the council began. His contributions often came instead in the form of talks given to bishops and unofficial commentary on various documents, including “Dei Verbum” and “Lumen Gentium.” Like the other periti mentioned above, he was instrumental in the rejection of many of the initial proposed schemata in favor of the aggiornamento-inflected documents that emerged from the council.
In 1965, he joined with his fellow Dominicans Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar, along with Hans Küng, the Rev. Johann Baptist-Metz, Karl Rahner and others, in founding the influential theological journal Concilium. In 1966, he was one of the lead authors of the Dutch Catechism, a best-selling compendium of church teachings that was translated into numerous languages. Among his many other influential works are Jesus: An Experiment in Christology and Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord.
In an obituary for The New York Times in 2010, Peter Steinfels noted that while Schillebeeckx had studied Aquinas and was steeped in the neo-scholasticism that profoundly influenced Catholic intellectual life before Vatican II, his own intellectual work during and after the council departed in sometimes radical ways from traditional Catholic theological methods: “Strong emphases on human experience and on the importance of examining church teaching in historical context became hallmarks of Father Schillebeeckx’s work.” This could be seen especially in his work on Scripture and the experience of the early disciples of Jesus’ resurrection.
One result of this was fairly regular visits to the principal’s office: Father Schillebeeckx was investigated three separate times by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith): over his views on Jesus’ resurrection, the Eucharist, ministry in the church and sacramental theology. While none resulted in an official censure, the Vatican did issue a warning in 1986 that some of his teachings (especially on lay people presiding at the Eucharist) were “erroneous.”
The editors of America called the 1979 inquiry into Father Schillebeeckx’s works “a scandal” because “it has persuaded many that the concern of the church for human rights does not influence the procedures of the Congregation.” (A brief aside: In 1979, America editor in chief Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., noted the scholar’s sartorial style. Father Schillebeeckx, he wrote, “was pictured coming out of his encounter with the Congregation of the Faith with a more rumpled, academic look: grayish suit and sleeveless sweater over his shirt and tie. Not nearly as dapper as Father Küng and certainly not as eye-grabbing as the Pope’s scarlet-and-white ensembles. Father Schillebeeckx’s outfit was, though, a notch above those tacky leisure suits and turtlenecks that some American clerics fancy. But what should one wear to an inquisition?”)
“He was among the first Catholic theologians to take seriously the critical study of Scripture and integrate it consistently into his systematic theology,” said Roger Haight, S.J., a theologian somewhat familiar with Vatican investigations himself, in an interview with America shortly after Father Schillebeeckx died. “He had a large mind, a generous, open and honest spirit, and the range of the topics he considered over decades is simply extraordinary.”
In 1982, Father Schillebeeckx was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contributions to European culture; obituaries noted that he was the only theologian ever to be so honored. (Well, not really, unless you don’t consider Martin Buber a theologian, but neither I nor thee should worry about that.) He remained living at Nijmegen after retirement in 1983 until his death at the age of 95 on Dec. 23, 2009.
In her tribute to Father Schillebeeckx in America a month later, Sister Hilkert (who also edited a volume of essays on Father Schillebeeckx) noted that one of his comments at a symposium held in his honor at Leuven in 2008 offered a fine coda to his life and ministry: “Extra mundum nulla salus—There is no salvation outside the world.”
Watch Roger Haight, S.J., discuss the life and impact of Father Schillebeeckx here.
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Our poetry selection for this week is “Original Bodies,” by R/B Mertz. Readers can view all of America’s published poems here.
Members of the Catholic Book Club: We are taking a hiatus this summer while we retool the Catholic Book Club and pick a new selection.
In this space every week, America features reviews of and literary commentary on one particular writer or group of writers (both new and old; our archives span more than a century), as well as poetry and other offerings from America Media. We hope this will give us a chance to provide you with more in-depth coverage of our literary offerings. It also allows us to alert digital subscribers to some of our online content that doesn’t make it into our newsletters.
Other Catholic Book Club columns:
The spiritual depths of Toni Morrison
What’s all the fuss about Teilhard de Chardin?
Poet, feminist and nun: Sister Madeleva Wolff
Moira Walsh and the art of a brutal movie review
Father Hootie McCown: Flannery O’Connor’s Jesuit bestie and spiritual advisor
Who’s in hell? Hans Urs von Balthasar had thoughts.
Happy reading!
James T. Keane
