In the nineteenth century, various themes arose to prominence within the mind of the church. Some surfaced from within, by the natural process of maturation and development, while others resulted from sharp reminders given by a rapidly changing secular world. Among these, perhaps the most significant, and that because its influence was so far-reaching, was the awakening to a sense of history.¹ This questioned fundamentally the prevailing certainties of knowledge, and had the potential to transform the intellectual disciplines completely. To become aware of historicity is to acknowledge a sense of contingency, pluralism, and the possibility of change. Much that...

René Latourelle is a theologian typical of the focus phase¹ in the history of fundamental theology. Born in Montreal in 1918, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1938 and, after completing doctoral studies in both history and theology, he began in 1959 to teach theology at the Gregorian University, where he subsequently became dean of the faculty of theology.² Latourelle’s career as a student, theologian, and teacher spans the era of the development of fundamental theology through phases that he later calls “Reaction,” “Expansion,” and “Focusing.” Educated within the era of classical apologetics, he was involved with the development...

Avery Dulles wrote one of the first and best critical appraisals of René Latourelle’sThéologie de la Révélation. Not only did he recognise the work as an “enormous step forward,”¹ but he recognized in it “a number of major questions . . . which would seem to call for concentrated labour on the part of Catholic theologians.”² Whether his extensive writings in fundamental theology are a conscious response to the invitation he recognized in Latourelle’s work remains uncertain, but the points of issue that he identifies in his 1964 article “The Theology of Revelation” are ones that remain central to...

Achille Maria Triacca suggests that “it would be worth writing a biography of Marsili to show its course parallel with the history of the liturgical movement in Italy, in a way that elevates the contribution to liturgical renewal of the meritorious Benedictine.”¹ Though far from a biography, it is hoped that this chapter will make apparent some of the more important connections between the work of other theologians of the liturgical renewal and the particular contribution of Salvatore Marsili. Yet there are other interesting parallels to be drawn from the biography of Marsili that are perhaps more pertinent to this...

That the lives of the four theologians of our study are roughly contemporary, that their theological enterprises are not dissimilar, and their vocations as teachers and formators the same, means that by this stage the benefits of a cumulative and composite picture are beginning to be felt. Hopefully, with each chapter, further depth and a changed perspective are provided to the central question. Yet, while similarities in the broad outlines of the writers’ lives allow for the establishment of certain coordinates, the unique response of each provides particularity and nuance.¹ Such parallels, intersections, similarities, and distinctions should become apparent from...

The particular period in which the four writers of this study were contemporaries offered a unique opportunity for the employment and expression of their theological gifts. To look to their particular contribution is to look to the specific tasks that the moment set before them. Born within a decade that saw the burgeoning of progressive currents in Catholic theology, they witnessed both the suspicion and suppression of these themes in the last reaches of the Modernist crisis and their acceptance and legitimation at the Second Vatican Council. At the peak of production in the postconciliar period, each labored for the...