Bishop Barron on Hans Urs von Balthasar (Part 1 of 2)

[Music] well I'll tell ya little bit about a theologian who was very influential on st. Pope John Paul the second in fact John Paul named him a cardinal of the church also a theologian who's a bit in the news today because he's associated with a certain controversial issue what I want to do those give a little bit background on him who he was and what his theological project was I'm talking about a hunted arm with Karl Rahner the most important Catholic theologian of the 20th century little question about that both I was born in Lucerne Switzerland in 1905 so he's almost exactly the same age as as Karl Rahner being born in Switzerland was important he was born in the Catholic a kind of section if you want of Switzerland and especially when Catholicism is more of a minority of religion it tends to assert itself in a more bold way let's say so he grew up with a very energetic confident boldly expressed Catholicism and that comes through in a lot of his writing throughout his career as a young kid his interest is not philosophy so much as it often is for theologians its music he became a devotee of Mozart as a young man and was a quite an accomplished of pianist in fact they say he could have pursued a career as a concert izing pianist he knew Mozart so well that at one point in his young manhood he gave away all his Mozart records you ask why the answer was because he had memorized them he had that kind of orchestra conductors of memory for music he goes into the university and of course Germans to the present day don't so much go to a university they go to a number of universities around the german-speaking world and paul sartre did the same thing his focus though was not philosophy was not religion it was what the Germans call German East ich German East ich is a study of the German language it would combine elements of you know grammar of linguistics of philosophy of language and of German culture it's kind of all woven into one and that's what pulsar does he studies literature basically and philosophy of the aesthetic side of philosophy his dissertation is doctoral work is on the eschatological problem but in German literature not so much in German theology or philosophy so that very much shapes his approach to theology which will be aesthetic rather than philosophical when he is a young guy he's about to 22 he goes on a Ignatian retreat and those who've been on Ignatian retreats know that the purpose of an Ignatian exercise is to clarify your vocation and it really worked the case of young Baltazar he does the three-day Ignatian retreat at the end of which he decides he'll become a jesuit priest and so he joins the jesuit novitiate and commences his long years of preparation now at the time 1920s you're becoming a Jesuit you would have studied the standard scholastic of presentation of Thomas Aquinas so young Balthazar gets that and he said if that's all he ever received of theology he would have left he found it so dry and lifeless and really unconvincing he had the good fortune of being sent for further studies to Lyon to a famous Jesuit theological Center and the director studies there was a man just a little bit older than he called Omri de Lubich young Jesuit who was making a name for himself as one of the fathers of the lace ocimum movement that means back to the sources movement so there were a number of people who said we're kind of stuck on this neo scholastic reading of medieval philosophy and theology why don't we go back to the great pristine sources of a Christian life namely the scriptures and the Church Fathers so de luboc became a patristic specialist in fact he's the editor of this massive and magnificent work called a soup the end Christian sources now it's a standard work in Catholic libraries all over the world so the young des luboc teaches the young Baltazar the father's we're talking here about origin about Chrysostom about Jerome about san agustin about Maximus the Confessor etc and for Baltazar this was like a breath of fresh air it was like it was like a new theological world and he reveled in it so think of the aesthetic background music and Gherman mystique now think of this richly patristic background and you're catching now some of the major influences on his is later thinking he's ordained a Jesuit priest and he doesn't despite his background pursue a career in academics it's very interesting baltar never has a major teaching position in a university instead he becomes a chaplain student chaplain who gives the Ignatian exercises now we saw the exercises and a big impact on him personally now he begins to give them to direct people in them here's a third major influence on his thinking is Ignatius of Loyola and the discernment of spirits the Ignatian approach to the spiritual life becomes basic in his later theology I'll just say a quick word about Adrienne von spire who becomes a spiritual direct D of his she's a fascinating figure complex controversial character but she was by all accounts a mystic both are thought she's one of the most extraordinary mystics in the history of the church and had a number of experiences that he then helped her to interpret theologically and she had a big impact on his thinking it would take a whole other set of videos to explore that adequately but she's another strong impact on his theological thought in the 1950s Baltar becomes a great friend of Karl Barth Karl Bart was the greatest Protestant theologian of a 20th century also from Basel they were in the same city at this time they became friends not just intellectual interlocutors but real friends and of Bart's thinking and you know his approach which was - to be opposed to liberalism the liberalism that came up from people like Friedrich Schleiermacher and others had shaped much of Protestant thinking it began very much with human experience it began with a turn towards subjectivity and Bart calls the process in church back to a vibrant sense of the objectivity of biblical revelation so again we do a semester course on Carl Bart but that objectivity and the biblical focus become very strong themes for Baltazar as well so that's still another strand that contributes to his his theology all this comes together in his masterpiece and I'll refer to it now broadly grandly as the trilogy the trilogy is made up of actually about a dozen books the first set of books in English we call them the glory of the Lord in German is called heritage kite that means it's it's kind of ambiguous engine German because heritage kite Hale means the Lord but also here'sh kite means glory so the english rendering glory of the lord catches that rather well that's the first part of the trilogy it's a consideration of beauty and that's his route of access to theology second part made up of about five volumes is called the deo dramatique or the Theo drama both are wanted to recover a sense of the dramatic character of the Christian life very Ignatian Ignatius you know compels us to make a choice you have to decide are you in Satan's army you in Christ's army and upon that decision everything will flow follow and so Baltar wants to recover the dramatic quality that it's a play between divine freedom and human freedom and finally that the final volume is called the Theo lo geek or the Theo logic and now that's an articulation of the truth of the faith but he's moved from the beautiful to the good to the true and I'll say more about that in a following video but that's his great a trilogy which becomes in time one of the recognized masterpieces of 20th century theology students begin to read it more carefully in the 60 and 70s including a lot of Americans who came over to Europe to get their doctorates and many to study with Karl Rahner who became too busy with students and he would say go visit this man Hans von Balthasar who's brilliant and wonderful so that's where a lot of students came from and began to study his work and to make it popular in this country um after vatican ii so Baltazar is influential at vatican ii certainly he would have been associated with the more progressive elements of vatican ii which include young joseph ratzinger and young carol whitey wa and de lu bach his mentor Don EA Lu Cheng are many others but then in the wake of the council along with rotzinger and de Lubich he breaks with the standard reading of Vatican 2 which you find in the concilium group of theologians they produced this journal called Concilium meant to perpetuate the spirit of the council Baltazar rotzinger de Luba break off and they form a new journal called Camus neo and it's very instructive to read his reflections on why he broke with Concilium the bottom line was they felt that Concilium was pushing the church way beyond what the lysosome all movement wanted they wanted a recovery of the patristic not so much an embrace of modernity but a recovery of the patristic wealth of the church again I'll say more about that in a follow-up video but Baltazar emerges as a you might say a key member of the loyal opposition to the liberal establishment after Vatican 2 someone who comes very much under the influence of this communal group is the now Archbishop of Krakow of Carroll vojta WA and so when void tema becomes Pope notice how all three of these people - luboc he names a cardinal ratzinger is already a cardinal but he becomes head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then Baltazar John Paul tries several times the name of a cardinal and both are booked twice and said no I don't want that and finally the third time John Paul insisted so Baltazar 1988 accepts the red hand as he's preparing to go to Rome to get the red hand he dies and that led many of his followers to say look he didn't want it now it's very clear why at his funeral the eulogy is given by Joseph Ratzinger who was his great colleague in these years after vatican ii so it's no great surprise that under john paul's papacy when rotzinger is his head of the doctrine of the faith that Balthazar is brought very much to the fore another key figure in the baltar revival is Cardinal schönborn who becomes the general editor of the Catechism of 1992 and you read that text you see a lot of Baltazar ian's themes so that's a little overview a little sketch of his life and times in a follow-up video I want to talk a bit more about his work but urge everybody to dip into his work and get better acquainted with this very important theological figure [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

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Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Tue May 20 2014