Fr. Matthew L Lamb (d. January 12, 2018--RIP)

This is a fifty-two year old article that continues to attract interest.  I used "Synthesis" rather than "unification" as at that time the latter was reductionistic.  Lonergan's world view of emergent probability provides an open and ongoing method for correlating the sciences.  It shows the complementarity of classical, statistical, genetic, and dialectical methods.

The fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican
Council occasioned many reflections on the histories, the texts, the
hermeneutics and the consequences of what has been termed the
most important religious event in the twentieth century. Rather than
discussing the superficial mass media framework on the Council,
along with those who follow its division between ‘conservative’
and ‘liberal’ camps, the announced retirement of Pope Benedict
XVI invites us to consider how well he has guided the Church’s
implementation of Vatican II. Pope Benedict was not surprised by
the confusion so rampant after the Council. He called attention
to the conflicts in interpretation that tend to follow significant
ecumenical councils.

Papal Primacy and Episcopacy: In the light of the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, the essay examines how the long Apostolic millennial tradition on Petrine Primacy and Episcopacy informs the teaching of Vatican II.

Robert Cardinal Sarah’s important "The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise" shows the fundamental significance of monastic contemplation and silence for a God-centered renewal of society and culture.  Before I would teach at Catholic theological faculties, I realized that I should draw upon an intellectual and contemplative formation I had received previous to any teaching.  The occasion of this essay was a Lifetime Achievement Award I recently received from the American Maritain Association.

Sainted Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in her love and service of the poorest of the poor, illustrates the importance of the universality of human reason gifted to all by God.  Mother Teresa often affirmed that she and her Missionaries of Charity were caring for the poorest of the poor, no matter what their religious affiliation or lack thereof.  All in need were welcomed into the care of the sisters and brothers whether they were Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, or whatever.  The sainted Mother simply affirmed that all in need should be welcomed into their care.

The genius of Thomas Aquinas is evident in his Summa Theologiae where he applies, for the first time, the distinction between operative and cooperative to both habitual grace and actual grace.  Any change brought about by the exercise of the will is a change in the effect, not in the cause as such.  There is no change in the cause but only in the effect.

Modern Liberalism fails to distinguish authority from authoritarianism.  Metz's political theology critiques this as a deep cultural amnesia in modernity, failing to recover ancient, medieval, and contemporary notions of genuine authority.  Published in Downey, Manemann, & Ostrich (ads.) Missing God:Cultural Amnesia and Political Theology (LIT, 2006)

Few theologians in our time have done as much for medieval studies in philosophy and theology as Professor Stephen Brown. When the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at Toronto had to downsize drastically for financial reasons, Brown founded the Institute of Medieval Philosophy and Theology at Boston College. With faculty from philosophy and theology, and thanks to his own intrepid fund-raising, the Institute supported doctoral students and conferences that drew internationally renowned scholars. The title of this Festschrift aptly refers to the 'long Middle Ages', for Brown's Institute and conferences have encouraged scholarship from the patristic period through the Renaissance and Reformation into the modern era. A hallmark of Brown's scholarly work is its wonderful combination of attention to myriad textual details and variations and to the great speculative questions that so moved the high Middle Ages. Indeed, it was declines in the areas of medieval paleography and in study of the speculative philosophy and theology of the high Middle Ages that led Brown to found the Institute. The great Erasmus captured well the Herculean labors of those like Brown who are dedicated to the retrieval of the 'ancients'; Brown is a contemporary exemplar of the grand humanistic tradition that Erasmus depicts:

Chapter in a Festschrift for Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P. Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life (Catholic University of America Press, 2010) 312-329
The many publications of Fr. Romanus Cessario, as well as the many publishing ventures he has initiated or guided, testify to the fruitfulness of his Dominican vocation.

The whole of theology is profoundly eschatological according to St Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. Theology is a knowledge or science that is dependent upon the knowledge of God and of the blessed in heaven for its principles.
Published in Aquinas on Doctrine (T&T Clark & Continuum, 2004) 225-240

I shall first sketch briefly the epochal, indeed, millennial, challenge of Fides et Ratio.  In a second section the important achievements of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas in mediating faith and reason through wisdom will be presented in order to show how we are to move, as the Holy Father says we must in the opening quotation, from phenomenon to foundations.  Finally, the need for this wisdom at the dawn of the new millennium will be explored as contemporary cultures struggle with the dehumanizing nihilism, pragmatism, and historicism analyzed in the encyclical.

After two millennia we are still only at the beginning of the mission of Christ to redeem the human race. " The mission of Christ the redeemer, which is entrusted to the church, is still very far from completion. As the second millennium after Christ's coming draws to an end, an overall view of the human race shows that this mission is still only beginning and that we must commit ourselves wholeheartedly to its service… [T]he church's function in every age, and particularly in ours, is to direct man's gaze, to point the awareness and experience of the whole of humanity toward the mystery of Christ. " This is a wonderfully Catholic perspective on the call to evangelization which Pope John Paul II has issued from the beginning of his pontificate. The mission of the Church is the continuation down through all ages of the mission of the Word Incarnate. Especially in modern times it is important to acknowledge how what is new — in this case the " new evangelization " — does not contradict or oppose what was old. Innovation does not negate tradition. There is a tension between tradition and innovation, and that tension is present in every age. It came to the fore in the Vatican II Council, as its two tasks were usually seen as both a Ressourcement, a recovery of the tradition, and an Aggiornomento, a bringing up to date, an innovation. It has ever been the responsibility of the teaching authority of the Church and theologians to foster both of these elements, without letting one overrule or negate the other. In this essay I shall first revisit Catholicism's criticisms of modernism and Americanism. This revisiting will be dialectical rather than historical. Theologians have unfinished work in these areas. I indicate how the new dedication to evangelization called for by John Paul II points the way toward transforming modern cultures. Then I shall outline some major dialectical differences between

If the function of theology is to mediate the significance and role of religion within a cultural matrix, and if the foundations of such an enterprise are conversions, then theology has inescapable social and political consequences insofar as any culture has social and political dimensions.  By referring to a "cultural matrix", Lonergan was indicating the generative and transformative relations between religion, culture, and theology.

Dom Sebastian Moore, O.S.B., has dedicated most of his theological work to deepening his understanding of the experience of redemption revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  His explorations of the psychological dimensions of redemption concede nothing to the all too facile subjectivism of much new age pop psychologizing of the spiritual.  Quite the contrary.  For Moore the objective reality of the Triune God’s infinite understanding and love is the origin and goal of creation, of the redemptive mission of the Son and of the sanctifying mission of the Spirit.  Moore does not confuse symbol and metaphor with divine Infinite reality.  God is infinitely more than paltry human images and ideas.  For all of creation “to be” is “to be received”, to be loved into existence.  Human subjectivity, as Moore repeatedly reminds us, is radically a desire, a thirst; an inner longing which can find complete fulfillment only in the Triune God.

My task is to provide some systematic theological reflections on the process of inculturation. The title and subtitle are rather daunting. Who is the subject for " the dialogical experience between the Gospel and Culture? " " Western Culture " would be, to quote Gandhi, a wonderful idea. Christianity is certainly integral to any understanding of Western cultures. To address the issues involved in the topic requires attention to certain transcultural achievements in Catholic Theology.

A fundamental tenet of Ernest Fortin’s learning and teaching – if not a basic orientation of his entire intellectual life – is the realization that classical philosophers and theologians can teach us lessons most important to contemporary culture and thought. Fortin’s essays carry forward the ongoing debates between the ancients and the moderns, masterfully illustrating how many a modern genius failed to understand this or that classical thinker.  There is no hint of archaism in Fortin’s writings; he is not an archeologist of the past retrieving the ancients only to entomb their teachings in crusty museum reliquaries.  Rather, Fortin is adept at showing the relevance of ancient wisdom to some of the most pressing issues of our time.

This is a letter dated 12.4.1966 from Fr. Matthew Lamb to Fr. Bernard Lonergan.  There is a whole folder of letters to and from Fr. Lonergan. In this letter, Fr. Lamb discussed some problems in the theology and philosophy programs at the Greg. He also was thinking about writing his dissertation on Bultmann and how Lonergan can add some corrections and clarifications to hermeneutics. It reveals his gifts and interest in the dialectical mediation of positions.

This paper dealing with hermeneutics was written by Fr. Lamb while a graduate student.  One can see already his natural gift in engaging various positions dialectically, sorting through the basis of those positions in the search and uncovering of truth.

This is a presentation Fr. Lamb wrote while at Manhattanville College.  It is an heuristic mediation of Metz's notion of the free subject as a member of the Church developed in relationship to eschatology and modern notions of subjectivity and social order.  In this context, it looks at freedom especially in its social political aspects and the dialectical contrasts of this found in figures such as Hegel, Marx, Freud, Descartes, and Kant.