Word: weigel
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Jesuit Theologian Gustave Weigel is for understanding Protestants; see RELIGION, Dialogue for Siblings...
...sibling rivalry of the Christian family. Protestants and Catholics often carp at each other more like brothers and sisters than brethren in Christ. This kind of religious infighting in which slights outweigh insights has no appeal to Jesuit Theologian Gustave Weigel, professor of ecclesiology* at Maryland's Woodstock College. In the current issue of The Catholic World, Father Weigel provides an equably tempered, coolly reasoned analysis of what he calls "The Protestant Stance Today." Conventional Protestants who have given the matter little thought may be somewhat surprised at Father Weigel's spadework in the intellectual subsoil...
...Father Weigel sees it, three qualities characterize the style, or stance, of American Protestantism: 1) audacity, 2) intellectuality, 3) modernity. In each he finds a virtue and the defect of that virtue. By audacity, Father Weigel points out, he does not mean "a bullying spirit, much less rudeness." It consists rather of "a naive and energetic thrust forward from an idea sincerely conceived. From Luther's day onward, simplicity of soul and freedom of the spirit were always characteristic of the churches of the Reform." Liberal or fundamentalist, the Protestant derives an "enthusiastic assuredness" from his "unconcern for tradition...
Conversion, compromise and comprehension were the types of unification outlined by Fr. Weigel. He said that he and the Roman Catholic Church preferred conversion, by which "all the 250 to 300 Christian churches would adopt one as the real church of Christ...
Dean Horton disagreed with Fr. Weigel, declaring that comprehension, or understanding, which would allow the retention of "every single value anywhere," is the only feasible method of unification...