Happy Golden Anniversary, Horizons! This issue marks the first edition of volume fifty. The entire editorial staff is excited to bring our readers a celebration of fifty years of Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society. We decided that the fiftieth anniversary of a journal of Catholic theology created in the optimistic spirit of Vatican II and operated by the lay women and men who formed the College Theology Society deserved a two-volume celebration. The collective four issues of volumes fifty and fifty-one, therefore, will each feature an anniversary “Retrospective and Prospective” roundtable. The anniversary roundtable will reprint an article that the editors have deemed “a greatest hit” for Horizons. We will reprint the article and two scholars will respond to the article, noting its significance for its time and commenting on the needs of the present with regard to the topic at hand. We are also planning on brief reflections from former editors to be highlighted in this space. Finally, see the Horizons website for a special anniversary section that we will build out over the two-year celebration.
In this issue, our anniversary roundtable features Raymond E. Brown's article from Horizons 1:1 (1974), “‘Who Do Men Say that I Am?’—Modern Scholarship on Gospel Christology.” Pheme Perkins, Boston College, and Gilberto A. Ruiz, Saint Anselm College, respond. I would be remiss if I did not note that the Reverend Donald J. Senior, CP agreed to write for the inaugural anniversary roundtable. The staff of Horizons mourns his death. We are grateful to Pheme Perkins for agreeing to take Senior's place and to place her work in conversation with her former student (G. Ruiz).
Immediately following my introduction, founding coeditor Rodger Van Allen provides insights on the naming and founding of Horizons as a preface to reprinting his 1999 account of the origins of the journal. The current editors believe it is important to highlight our “origin story” for a new generation of readers and contributors. The authors of our peer-reviewed articles invite us to pause and consider the nature of our theological work in light of the pandemic; to probe the conundrum of the theological claim of the holiness of a church filled with sinful members; to query documents of the Eastern Orthodox Church and their understanding of the imago Dei as it relates to people with disabilities; and to reflect on the possible consequences for theological anthropology from taking the full humanity of adolescents and young adults seriously. The issue is rounded off by a second theological roundtable inspired by Jessie Daniels's Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It and our usual complement of book reviews.
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As we begin to celebrate our anniversary, I thank our authors past and present for sharing their scholarship with our readers, and I thank all of the members of the current Horizons editorial team for their collegiality, our spirit of mutual support, inspiring creativity, diligent work, and unwavering commitment to excellent scholarship. Let the celebration begin!
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As one of the founding co-editors of Horizons it is a special delight to participate in the fiftieth anniversary of the journal. As the preparatory work for the launch of Horizons was going forward some fifty-plus years ago, Norman E. Wagner of the Council for the Study of Religion said to me, “Rodger, the journal will be the life blood of the CTS.” Norman, a friend and booster of the CTS was right. In fact, Horizons has played a vigorous role in the emergence of leadership of Catholic theology in the Americas. Those who have contributed to this, including scholars, editors, readers, reviewers, administrators, librarians, proofreaders, and more, know who you are. Warmest congratulations to you.
And now, I want to remedy a fault in the article you are about to read. It offered no background or explanation for the selection of the title Horizons. In the preparative phase of the journal, I had simply assumed we would call it the Journal of the College Theology Society. Founding coeditor Bernard P. Prusak felt we could improve on that and proposed making the title Horizons with Journal of the College Theology Society moving to the subtitle. Bernie argued persuasively that adding Horizons to the title would indicate the expanse of the theological scholarship, cultural reflection, and educational application to which the journal was committed. Bernie was right then, and it is still right as it captures a single word that is looking to the future and opening up space for critical thinking and innovative ideas.
Ad multos annos Horizons!
[Editor: The following selection is a reprint of Rodger Van Allen's “Remembering the Beginnings of Horizons” from the Fall 1999 issue 26:2 commemorating the journal's twenty-fifth anniversary.]
On the happy occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Horizons, I write to share a bit more historical detail on the events leading to the founding of this now well-established and distinguished journal. The History of the College Theology Society (1983) by Rosemary Rodgers, O.P., has a capably written chapter, “The Seventies: Research and Publication” (43-84), that contains the essential information, but I hope to amplify somewhat the two pages in that book that deal with the founding of the journal.
Francis J. Buckley, S.J., of the University of San Francisco, was the particularly energetic and capable CTS president from 1972–74, when Horizons came to life. The context was not only the full vigor of post-Conciliar Catholicism. It was also a time of very creative movements among professional societies dealing with the study of religion. The Council for the Study of Religion had begun in 1970. Claude Welch, then of the University of Pennsylvania, was an early leader in these developments, and I believe the Eastern Pennsylvania Region of the CTS, which I then chaired, was the first in the country to have a joint meeting with the American Academy of Religion. I also recall a wonderful dinner gathering hosted by Terrence Toland, S.J., then the president of St. Joseph's University, which included a report by Claude Welch and a splendid brainstorming session by twenty or so religion scholars and others with an interest in the academic study of religion and theology. I served as what was then called the Editorial Correspondent of the College Theology Society to the Bulletin of the Council on the Study of Religion, and had been a member of the board of directors of the CTS since 1970.
It was a time when the CTS was reflecting on its distinctive role, identity, and future. On February 2, 1971, James T. Burtchaell, C.S.C. of The University of Notre Dame, the first Catholic president of the America Academy of Religion, sent a letter to James Wieland of Sacred Heart University, the CTS president, suggesting that the CTS join the AAR as a group. “I should like to put it to you . . . and your fellows in the C.T.S. . . . that our two societies should merge.” Wieland did not favor the merger, and Mark Heath, O.P., who had been CTS president from 1968–70 and was therefore still on the Board, was outspokenly against it, saying as I recall that if the CTS did merge with the AAR, he and like-minded others would work to launch a new CTS, which, under whatever new name, would be committed to performing the functions that he understood the CTS was distinctively and valuably committed to.
Actually the change of name of the Society in 1967 and reactions pro and con to it had already contributed to this context of reflection regarding the distinctive role, identity, and future of the Society. Not many wanted to cling to the 1954 founding name of the Society of Catholic College Teachers of Sacred Doctrine, which even when you had mastered the acronym, SCCTSD, was still a mouthful that almost always dazzled with confusion those who heard it for the first time. But some felt the name-change had been slipped through somewhat inappropriately, and a good number seemed dismayed at the loss of the word Catholic in the title. These are my recollections, quite impressionistic, and recorded by one who could not be present at that 1967 convention. I have sometimes wondered if the group would not have simply become the Catholic Theology Society if that name were not too close to that of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA). In fact, if the CTSA had in its earlier history been more open to women and to the college and university context for theology, rather than principally the seminary context, there might never have been a CTS. I am grateful, however, that there was a Sister Rose Eileen Masterman, C.S.C. of Dunbarton College of the Holy Cross and other founders of the Society who saw both the problems and the possibilities in the Catholic college and university context for theology.
It was really their vision which created the eventual emergence of Horizons. When Frank Buckley became CTS president in 1972, he established a Committee on Publications consisting of George Devine and Gerald Pire from Seton Hall University, Thomas McFadden from St. Joseph's, Robert Kleinhans from St. Xavier's College, and myself. In that year, the eighteenth annual convention of the CTS was held in conjunction with the International Congress of Learned Societies in the Field of Religion over Labor Day weekend, September 1–5, in Los Angeles. Some 2,500 participants representing fifteen scholarly associations in various areas of religious studies were present. It was a production, and a very successful one, of the Council for the Study of Religion. Part of the program included specialized meetings, exploring ways in which the Council (CSR) could facilitate and service the emergence of publications for its constituent societies. Frank Buckley had particularly enjoined me to attend and participate in all these meetings since, as I recall, other members of the Publications Committee were not able to be present. Norman Wagner (of Wilfrid Laurier University, in Waterloo, Ontario) was the very able and service-oriented executive director of the CSR, and he and others shared the ways in which page production, printing, list-keeping, and other functions could be provided in a highly professional and economic way. In a meeting of the full Publications Committee later that fall at Seton Hall University, the information from the Los Angeles meeting was shared and we tried to list comprehensively all the publication options or initiatives the Society might wish to consider. At that initial meeting, of all the options, a monograph series seemed to be the most attractive, and a full journal to be simply too much work, or too ambitious to undertake. We resolved, however, to have each member assigned to one of the several options with a charge to prepare a very concrete concept and the pros and cons that option presented. I was assigned to the journal possibility. At the initial meeting I had been part of the general consensus that given the teaching, research, and service responsibilities that were characteristic in the CTS, the journal option was probably unrealistic, as getting something like that going was simply too much work. But as my report for the next Committee meeting took shape and as I talked with local and national colleagues about what might be done with such a journal, and borrowed liberally their ideas, about the only negative, if it could be called that, was that it would be labor-intensive.
The opening paragraph in the report for the Committee said the function of the journal
is to serve the scholarly interests of the CTS membership in the institutions in which they teach. This opens the journal to religious studies in its broadest sense, but for the most part defines the journal as concerned with theology and religious studies in Catholic colleges and universities, and with the emergent Roman Catholic Studies program in other institutions. This will give the journal both the openness and the distinctive identity necessary for a successful journal, qualities that have also been the hallmarks of the CTS itself.
The content for the journal would consist of research studies both in theology and religion; bibliographical surveys, i.e., competent reviews of the literature in particular areas of theology, after the fashion of “Notes on Moral Theology” in Theological Studies; a forum on creative teaching (the Society for Religion in Higher Education had produced a notable single-volume collection that year), and our journal would commit regularly to this; curriculum studies; book reviews, a serious and extensive approach; and reader response.
A long and careful discussion at the next Publications Committee meeting at Seton Hall resulted in unanimous enthusiasm for the journal project. Frank Buckley was pleased and enthusiastic too and the journal project was discussed fully by those at the convention in Philadelphia and approved by the CTS Board there on April 23, 1973.
My colleague and friend Bernard P. Prusak and I submitted our application to serve as co-editors of the new journal. Bernie had already been the principal colleague with whom I had brainstormed for the journal's concept and contents. We were grateful to be chosen by the Selection Committee that consisted of Robert Kleinhans, William E. May (Catholic University of America), and Rosalie Ryan, C.S.J. (College of St. Catharine).
So many people were helpful to us. At Villanova, Francis Eigo, O.S.A., in the Theology Department Chair, and Richard Breslin, O.S.A., the Arts and Sciences Dean, saw the significance of the project, gave it their complete support, and played key roles in securing the institutional support which Villanova President John M. Driscoll, O.S.A. initiated and Villanova has graciously provided since that time. Leonard Swidler and Paul Mojzes of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies shared their considerable savvy with editorial process and procedure. Joseph Cunneen of Cross Currents was likewise helpful. Edward S. Skillin of Commonweal gave us, without charge, the full back cover of Commonweal to help promote the journal. It seems almost every CTS member contributed in some fashion. We cannot mention every name, but we must not fail to mention Thomas McFadden, chair of the CTS Publication Committee during the founding, James Biechler, the first Book Review Editor, Thomas Ryan, the first Business Editor, and Gerard Sloyan, who has always “been there” for Horizons. Finally, I know Bernard Prusak shares with me the pleasure and satisfaction we have taken in seeing the remarkably distinguished contribution Walter Conn has made as editor since 1980. Among much acclaim and appreciation for Horizons during his tenure, one finds several Awards for Excellence from the Catholic Press Association, including those for Best Scholarly Journal, Best Review Section, and Best Scholarly Article.
The conviction that drove the founding of Horizons (credit for the name goes to Bernard Prusak), was that the focus for serious leadership in theology was shifting and would continue to shift to the college and university context. We noted the responsibility, the challenge, and the importance of this. We knew that the CTS had been in great measure called into existence for this, and that Horizons could be the special vehicle through which great service could be given.
