This article examines the place of wonder in Newman's account of university education. It pays particular attention to Newman's ‘Rise and Progress of Universities’ (1872) rather than to his better known The Idea of a University (1873). The article first introduces some ideas about wonders and wondering, as found in medieval thought and in Newman's writings, before proceeding to the wonder that was Newman's attempt to establish a university in Dublin, and that is his history (historia) of the university: a story (fabula) that is every bit as marvellous as any medieval tale. Newman's educational romance involves the islands of Britannia and Hibernia, and the cities of Athens, Rome and Dublin. The article also considers the place of personal encounter and the written word in Newman's idea and practice of education, before finally offering some brief reflections on the diversity of modern society and university education. The article closes by suggesting the necessity of wonder for the gaining of knowledge.

I want to speak about the place of Fides et Ratio within the parameters of the twentieth century Thomistic revival. To do that I must first describe the revival Three strains of Thomistic interpretation characterized the revival before Vatican II: Aristotelian Thomism, Existential Thomism and Transcendental Thomism. The first two were a posteriori in their epistemology. The mind abstractly draws its fundamental conceptual content from the human knower’s contact with the self-manifestly real things given in sensation. Among the concepts abstracted are the transcendentals, chief among which is the ratio ends, the notion or concept of being. It is an analogical commonality, and so a sameness within difference, whose analogates are absolutely everything, actual and conceivable.

The question of whether Peter was indeed the first bishop of Rome has recently gained popular prominence in the United States due to the best seller by historian and papal critic Garry Wills who vigorously dismisses the entire idea as myth. Although simplistically and sensationally presented, Wills’ thesis relies on the view of many, albeit more subtle, critical scholars that Peter could not have been a bishop at Rome because there were no bishops in Rome until the middle of the second century A.D. Several years ago, David Albert Jones O.P., challenged in this journal this common view of episcopacy in the first century. One scholar, Francis Sullivan S.J., recently responded specifically to Jones’ challenge by reaffirming the apparent majority view. This article will briefly refer to Sullivan’s critique of Jones, and will present in a new light the New Testament evidence showing that Jones’ questioning of the reigning critical view is indeed well-founded and long overdue.

The heart of Jones’ challenge is highlighting the flawed assumptions underlying the reasoning used to deny a first century episcopate: 1) the ideological tendency to view apostolic ministry as “free, loose, inspired and lay” while seeing “the emergence of clerical forms as a fall from primitive innocence” (Jones, p. 142); and 2) the denial of the existence of a first century episcopate based on the alleged silence of early documents. In essence, Jones rightly detects a pervasive bias in the critical literature against developed church structure as somehow contaminating the springtime of apostolic Christianity.

In this article, a number of findings of a series of focussed interviews with fifteen Roman Catholic clergy associated with four English parishes will be discussed in the light of a recent survey of clergy from three denominations. It will be shown that in a number of important respects the findings of this mail questionnaire survey were not supported by the evidence derived from taped interviews in the present research.

All the priests interviewed were or had been recently associated with one of the four parishes selected for the study of change in the Roman Catholic community in England. The parishes had been selected to reflect as far as possible with the resources available, both regional and social class variations. Two parishes were in the London area. One was a middle class commuter parish covering an area of some fifteen square miles, about 20 miles outside the city and with a Catholic density of around 8% of the population. The second was an inner-city parish occupying under one square mile in area with a large proportion of both Irish and New Commonwealth immigrants. In this parish Catholics comprised some 18% of the population. The remaining two parishes, both covering under one square mile in. area were in Preston where Catholics comprised between one quarter and one third of the population. Relatively few Catholics in Preston admitted to having any Irish ancestry. One parish was an inner-city, traditional working class parish in a state of population decline and aging associated with massive but arrested urban redevelopment programmes and the second, on the outskirts of Preston consisted mainly of new housing estates occupied by upwardly mobile people in professional, managerial and technical occupations.

There are two fairly commonplace facts about games which seem relevant to a discussion of Alice in Wonderland. First, games are rule-governed, and so orderly; but playing a game involves a creative application of the rules, as Wittgenstein reminds us in Philosophical Investigations, and thus allows for freedom: rules are fixed, but moves are to some extent unpredictable. Seen in this way, a game might appear as a paradigmatic fusion of order and liberty—one, perhaps, of some relevance to society. Second, games involve a means/ends rationality, but aren’t in themselves functional: they are played as ends in themselves and in that sense transcend considerations of sheer utility. From this viewpoint, games raise interesting questions about the relations between rational and ‘irrational’ for msof activity, and indeed this issue is touched on at the very beginning of Alice: the White Rabbit appears just as Alice is wondering ‘whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies’, pondering the relations between utilitarian effort and creative play. This, too, has a wider social application which the book brings out.

Alice in Wonderland abounds in games; indeed, most of the central scenes—the Caucus Race, the tea-party, the croquet match, the lobster quadrille, even the trial—are games of a more or less direct kind. But, of course, these games are, by normal standards, very peculiar. The croquet game, for instance, is completely chaotic, since the players ignore the rules and the equipment won’t stay in place. Alice has to hit a rolled-up hedgehog through the arch of a doubled-up soldier with a flamingo, but the hedgehog keeps unfurling, the flamingo won’t keep still and the soldiers continually get up and stroll away at the crucial moment.

The mystical language of the 14th century Dominican, Meister Eckhart, can certainly be characterised as daring in its creativity. Indeed, Eckhart uses language like few others in his talk of the divine, employing bold paradoxes and unusual metaphors. But as Bernard McGinn has written, “while Eckhart’s creative handling of language is one of the major attractions of his style, it often does not make the task of understanding him any easier.” Part of the problem in failing to understand Eckhart’s words involves a failure to understand the context of his theological vision and his efforts to bring his listeners to a new appreciation of the divine. This has been especially true in the contemporary philosophy of religion. Philosophical analyses have failed to attend to the conditions in which the mystic’s words have their meaning and instead have generally been attempts to “penetrate” the phenomena. What is required instead is what the 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein has advised, namely, a grammatical investigation. When Eckhart writes, “The eye in which I see God is the same eye in which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye and one sight and one knowing and one loving”, it must be recognized that the meaning of such a statement can only be understood in seeing how Eckhart’s words are being used, for it is only in this context that these words have their significance. Rather than impose a philosophical explanation, therefore, it is important to note the grammar of Eckhart’s discourse and thus a description is offered.

The long-term ecclesiological trajectory of Pope Francis is towards a synodal Church. He has chosen this topic for the next World Synod of Bishops in 2022. Though a key theme of his pontificate, synodality is a contested notion. In 2018 the International Theological Commission (ITC) published its reflections on synodality in the life and mission of the Church. This article traces the understanding of synodality in the ITC document, offers an appraisal, and looks at some of the challenges facing Francis’ synodal project.

I. Speaking to Willing Ears

First of all, let me speak on behalf of the Third World, and thank those of you who represent the Haslemere Group for the Declaration which you are transforming into a programme of thought and action. I assure you, in my capacity as a man of the underdeveloped world, that your vision could not be clearer nor your attitude more courageous. This is what I have already said in Manchester, at the Manchester Student Congress, organized by the Student Christian Movement.

I have come here to co-operate with you; to urge you on in your effort in spite of the obstacles before you. I have come here to testify to the truth of the theme of this Conference.

I will try to show you quickly how the underdeveloped world is being crushed by a triple violence.

II. The Triple Violence against the Underdeveloped World

1. Internal colonialism, which means established violence

Taking Latin America as an example, when people ask me if I think our Continent is threatened by violence I feel that the question is looking ahead to the possible, eventual violence of those who are now oppressed, whereas it does not take into account the already existing violence of the oppressors—a small privileged group whose wealth is maintained at the expense of the misery of million of their countrymen.

Those who are unfamiliar with Latin America may think I am exaggerating; they may think I am being demagogic, or deliberately provocative.

The gospel-text chosen for today’s feast (John 17, 9—19) gives us the interpretative key we need in order to understand what it was that motivated the life of St Thomas at the deepest level. It discloses the point of departure from which that life began to take on shape and form. ‘Consecrate them in the truth,’ says our Lord on the evening before his death. By this prayer of his, he transformed the Old Testament liturgy of reconciliation into that ‘liturgy’ of the New Testament which consists in the Lord’s own living and dying.

‘Consecrate them in the truth’. The word ‘consecrate’ is founded on the term sacer, ‘sacred’, and ‘the Sacred’ is the characteristic being of God, the untouchableness of his majesty. ‘Consecrate’ signifies: make man, this poor and finite creature, able to enter into contact with God in his immense glory. How can man dare to approach God, with impure hands lay hold on the Untouchable One, the Pure One, the Infinite? The world religions have created ritual systems in order to qualify man for dealing with the sacred so as to resolve the tragic enigma whereby man needs contact with God in order to live, and yet is incapable of bearing that light inaccessible.

The paper describes the settings for an official dialogue between religious communities, including the Catholic Church, and the institutions of the European Union. It goes on to describe some important and necessary contributions that a Christian vision can make to the European project. Finally it considers how far certain styles (rather than content) of Catholic discourse can impede the reception of this vision, and so render effective dialogue more difficult.

The art of sculpture as formerly practised by the peoples of India is, in epitome, an exhibition of all that British rule, there, as in England, must inevitably destroy. This may be for many a matter for considerable rejoicing, for, like the Romans in their decline, and for that matter, as it seems, throughout the whole of their history, the British people, though mitigating its appetite for commercial power by a sense of justice and fair play, is almost totally blind to any absolute value in Beauty.

Admirable as it may appear to be in many of its achievements, a civilisation submitting to the widespread and predominant use of mechanical contrivances whose sole claim to existence lies in the fact that by their means things can be made in greater quantity for the same expenditure of time and money is a civilisation wilfully denying itself the possession of things of Beauty, and destroying in itself both the power to produce such things and the ability to recognise them when they are produced.

Those of us who are concerned for the existence of Beauty in the world are often accused, by so-called practical men of business, of a lack of disinterestedness. It is supposed that we desire Beauty because we are artists, and that were we not artists we should be as indifferent in the matter as they are. It is supposed that as the cocoa-manufacturer wages war against the drinking of beer, because he may thus hope to increase the sales of his cocoa, and it is not to be supposed that he can have any other motive, So the artist wages his ‘forlorn hope’ against commercialism because thus he may hope to increase the sales of works of art.

Islam contains a greater plurality of theology than is often realised. Here two “alternative voices” are chosen as examples of how cultural accretions can be questioned to what is taken to be the original, pure voice of Islam. Amina Wadud has led a mixed congregation in prayer in New York and has demonstrated, not without opposition, that women can be imams. There follows a discussion of the historical debate about women as imams and reactions to Wadud's actions. The second voice is Hasan Askari, an Indian Muslim who has written widely on inter-faith dialogue. He maintains that to reduce differences between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, differences should be interpreted symbolically rather than literally. He questions all claims to finality in any religion and he believes that historical Islam has yet to be transformed to “universal Islam”. Religious differences can only be finally transcended at a level of mystical experience.

Many years ago, when I was unsettled about the Anglican position, I read Salmon’s Infallibility with great care. It had been recommended to me as ‘a devastatingly unanswerable criticism of the validity of the Roman claims’.

Though I did not realise it then, this book was a determining factor in my decision to become a Catholic. I had read at the same time Wilfrid Ward’s Life of Cardinal Newman and Newman’s own Essay on Development, the classical exposition in English of the doctrine of tradition. I saw at once that the infallibility which Salmon was attacking was not the infallibility which the Catholic Church claims and which had been defined with greater precision by the Vatican Council. I realised, too, that when Salmon wrote of tradition he meant something different from the tradition so clearly analysed and cogently expounded by Newman.

I knew that according to Catholic theology reason can go so far as to show the consonance of revealed truth with knowledge acquired by reason, and even to infer that what is revealed is true and should be believed. The assent of faith however is supernatural and cannot be produced by such knowledge, but is wholly dependent on the word of God in revelation. It was plain that Salmon had no clear conception of this distinction and was in constant confusion about the respective functions of faith and reason.

The notion of ‘the feminine Other’ is a vexed one for feminists. In the opening pages of The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir asks, ‘Are there women, really? Most assuredly the theory of the eternal feminine still has its adherents who will whisper in your ear: “Even in Russia women still are women”.’ For de Beauvoir the verbal symmetry of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine is merely a matter of linguistic form. In the real world of work and love—in life in general—man is the norm and woman is man’s ‘other’, thus her famous remark, ‘He is the Subject... she is the Other’, the ‘not man’ defined by men.

Levinas may be a ‘recent read’ for many of us but already, writing in 1949, de Beauvoir quotes him; ‘Otherness’, says Levinas, ‘reaches its full flowering in the feminine, a term of the same rank as consciousness but of opposite meaning.’ T suppose’ de Beauvoir comments, ‘that Levinas does not forget that woman, too, is aware of her own consciousness. . . . But it is striking that he deliberately takes a man’s point of view. When he writes that “woman is mystery”, he implies that she is mystery for man. Thus his description, which is intended to be objective, is in fact an assertion of masculine privilege.’3 And one which, we can note with de Beauvoir, can stand in a long line of philosophical evocation of ‘the female’ and ‘the feminine’ from the pre-Socratics to Nietzsche and beyond.

In the existentialist rubric of The Second Sex de Beauvoir sees the problem as this—a woman, like anyone else, is an autonomous freedom, yet she discovers herself in a world where men force her to assume herself as the ‘Other’. Woman, philosophically speaking, lacks her own subjectivity.