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The Free Man in the Free Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Hamish Swanston
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Extract

Just over a hundred years ago Count Cavour enunciated the gran Principio: Libera Chiesa in libero Stato. Today, although there are still many places, not all of them professedly anti-Christian, where such a principle is not at work, theologians seem more eager to shew us that the freedom Christ has given us is not a freedom from opposition and contradiction but a freedom to live responsibly in the free Church. The emphasis on freedom is no rash and young intrusion, it is an emphasis encouraged by the first authority.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 19 , Issue 214 , July 1964 , pp. 23 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Osservatore Romano, 18 February, 1950.

2 THEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS, VOLUME II, MAN IN THE CHURCH, by Karl Rahner translated by K-H Kruger; Darton, Longman and Todd, 55s.

3 Among many other difficulties engendered by this view is the problem of those who die as babies. On this matter Rahner is ambiguous. Does he revive the dubious theory of Daniel Feuling that they have a moment of free decision for faith?

4 Rahner's concern that our attempts to lessen physical and mental suffering should not be disguises for dodging the cross of Christ might well have been balanced by a reference to the contrary danger of indifference to other men’s pain being masked by a pious refusal to thwart the just plan of God. Physician and priest, surgery and sacrament of penance are as much the gifts of God as suffering suit guilt.