John Courtney Murray

John Courtney Murray ( 12 September 1904 - 16 August 1967 ) is a Jesuit , a theologian and a prominent intellectual Catholic American , best known for his efforts to reconcile Catholicism with the pluralism of religion, freedom of conscience and religious freedom such that 'they are recognized by the institutions of a modern democratic State.

He played a key role in preparing the Declaration on Religious Liberty ( Dignitatis Humanae ) of the Council Vatican II.

Biography

Religious Training

Born in New York in 1904 , between John Courtney Murray in 1920 in New York Province of the Society of Jesus. He studied literature and philosophy at Boston College , and earned his degree (1926) and Master (1927). He went to the Philippines where he taught English literature and Latin at Manila. He returned to the United States in 1930 for his studies of theology and was ordained priest in 1933. It is then sent to the Gregorian University in Rome where he obtained his doctorate in theology in 1937.

Returning to the United States , he taught theology Trinitarian theologate the Jesuit Woodstock, Maryland , in 1941 , was appointed editor of the Jesuit journal Theological Studies. He held both positions until his death in New York in 1967.

While Murray's academic specialties were the theology of grace and the Trinity, his most significant contributions have been "public theology," especially as regards the relations between Church, State and Society.

Post war

Murray quickly became one of public figures of American Catholicism, with work focusing on the tensions between religion and public life. His best known book We Hold Thesis Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (1960) collects a number of his articles on these issues.

In his capacity as representative of the American Catholic Bishops and a consultant to the religious affairs section of the Allies , it helps to promote the draft Declaration on World Peace 1943 (principles for the reconstruction of post-war) and recommends a provision successfully Constitutional between allowing the restoration of institutional relations between the State and the Churches in Germany.

In the early 1950s , he collaborated with Robert Morrison MacIver of Columbia University to reflect on academic freedom and religious education in public universities in America. It is also consulted by various U.S. bishops on legal or moral. He argues against the enforcement provisions proposed by the most reactionary and commits to participation in public debate. The appeal to virtue in the public debate it seems more consistent with both the depth of moral commitment and sense of freedom in the United States.

In the context of the Cold War, 1958 to 1962 he worked at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions on relations between the U.S. and USSR and cases of possible war.

Murray watch these occasions its deep understanding of the American Constitution and esteem for it. This analysis and in 1954 , distinguishing the American liberal tradition and the French Jacobin tradition in religion: "The American thesis is that the government is not legally competent in all things. Its powers are limited, and one of the principles of limitation is the distinction between church and state in their aims, their methods and organizational arrangements. The thesis is basically Jacobin philosophical: it results from a sectarian conception of the autonomy of reason. She is also a theological conception involving sectarian religion and the Church. In contrast, the American thesis is simply politics. She says the theory of a free people under a limited government, a theory that is a recognizable part of the Christian political tradition, and quite defensible in the way it was implemented in American history. " , with a feature article on relations between American Catholics and the State.

Tensions with Rome

Public engagement Murray is complicated by the doctrine of salvation and the Catholic relations church and state, as interpreted when the United States. In 1944 , its implication for the full cooperation of Catholics with other believers (in the task of rebuilding post-war) led to complaints: it would endanger the Catholic faith in America. At that time, many American Catholics recommend indeed minimal cooperation with non-Catholics, lest the faith of Catholics is quite clear weakened these relationships.

Similarly, Murray advocates religious freedom as defined and protected by Amendment I of the Constitution of the United States. He argues that Catholic teaching on relations church and state is inadequate for the lives of contemporary people. The Anglo-American tradition has developed, he said, a broader truth about human dignity , namely the responsibility of all citizens to take the moral control over their own religious beliefs, without any state control. For Murray, this truth is an "intention of nature" or a new requirement resulting from the natural law and philosophy.

Murray's position that a new moral truth has emerged outside of the church led to a conflict with Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani , prefect to the Curia. At the request of his ecclesiastical superiors, so Murray continues to teach and publish on religious freedom in 1954.

Contribution to Vatican II

Although he can publish his research, Murray continues to write about religious freedom and submits its work in Rome, which are initially rejected.

When the council took its turn (first session of 1962)-Courtney Murray was invited as an expert at Vatican II and is involved from the second session ( 1963 ) (consultor of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity ). It is one of the major contributors to the drafting and revision of what later became the Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae council of Vatican II .

The Council will declare that "the human person has a right to religious freedom, which is that" all men should be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or social groups and every human power that is in such wise that no one is forced to act against his conscience or unable to act, within proper limits, according to his conscience in private and in public, alone or with others ". The Council states that religious freedom has its foundation "in the very dignity of the human person as made known the Word of God and by reason itself" .

After the Council

After the Council, Murray continues to write about, indicating that the arguments presented by the conciliar declaration remained unsatisfactory, although the assertion of religious freedom had been unequivocal. He then addressed the question of revivals that seem necessary. It calls especially Catholics to enter into a dialogue "on an equal footing" with non-Catholics and atheists , and it suggests that further reforms in the Church, which he thought she had overdeveloped the notions authority and hierarchy at the expense of bonds of love (more fundamental to define the Christian life).

After his death, several authors have used the work of Murray in legal theory and the interaction between religious commitment and civic life. His assertion that religious communities can and should recognize what is good in each of them has become a common theme of ecumenism and interfaith dialogue.

Bibliography

• John Courtney Murray, The Problem of God of the Bible to contemporary unbelief, Paris, Centurion, 1965
• John Courtney Murray, "Towards an understanding of the development of the Church's teaching on religious freedom" in Jerome Hamer, Yves Congar (ed.), Vatican II - Religious Freedom, Declaration "Dignitatis Humanae personae, Paris, Cerf , 1967, pp. 111-147
• Dominique Gonnet, Religious Freedom at Vatican II: the contribution of John Courtney Murray, Paris, Cerf, 1994

English

• John Courtney Murray, We Hold Thesis Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition, 1960
• John Courtney Murray, The Problem of God, Yesterday and Today, 1964
• John Courtney Murray, The Problem of Religious Freedom, 1965
• John Courtney Murray, Religious Liberty: Catholic Struggles With Pluralism, 1993
• John Courtney Murray, Bridging the Sacred & the Secular: Selecting Writings of John Courtney Murray, 1994

References

Related articles

• Catholic Theology
• Christian theologians famous
• Vatican II
• Religious freedom
• Dignitatis Humanae

External Links

• (In) This article is partially or entirely from the article in English entitled " John Courtney Murray "(see the list of authors )
• Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Freedom: Dignitatus Humanae Personae , 1965
• Religious Freedom and Economic Freedom by Robert A. Sirico (largely on John Courtney Murray)
• Public theology is really public? by William T. Cavanaugh, with a whole section on John Courtney Murray

English

• Murray Biography from American National Biography , by Leon Hooper, SJ Edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999
• Published and Unpublished Works
• A compilation of writings by and about Fr John Courtney Murray, SJ.
• John Courtney Murray, We Hold Thesis Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition , 1960 (text online)
• Essays on Murray's Thought
• John Courtney Murray and the American Catholic Experience by Michael J. Tortolani (With Much background Essay On The Debate In The Second Vatican Council)

• Christianity portal
• Catholicism portal

Leave a Reply