Hans Urs von Balthasar and Some Contemporary Catholic Writers‪.‬

This Article Has Two Parts. The first is-for lack of a better Word--theoretical and concentrates on Hans Urs von Balthasar and his work as it illuminates the Catholic intellectual heritage and confronts, or enters into dialogue with an increasingly secular heritage. The second part is an application of those insights to a work by each of three twentieth-century Catholic writers: the novelist Jon Hassler, the playwright Brian Friel, and the poet Denise Levertov. Two amazing things about the Catholic intellectual heritage: it is more than intellectual, and it is Catholic--with both the small and capital "C." "Catholic" with a small "c" means universal. Catholicism is not only multinational but multiethnic and multidisciplinary. It is more than the biblical "coat of many colors." It is more than a rainbow. Catholicism is the richness of life itself. As the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes asserts--alluding to the Roman playwright Terence--"nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo" in the hearts of the followers of Christ. (1) Because of the Incarnation, because God became a human being in the person of Jesus, all that belongs to human life was given profound, inestimable value. Catholicism and the doctrine of the Incarnation gave not only value to the world but an attitude toward it--no Platonic aloofness hankering for a world of forms, no Roman stoicism, no Norse or Teutonic fatalism toward the world. Though Catholicism has engaged and been transformed by all those forces-and many more besides-it continues to be a unique and dynamic living heritage. The portion of the Catholic intellectual heritage I shall consider in this article is the Catholic intellectual heritage of the West. Maligned by multiculturalists and postcolonialists (to name just a few of its critics), it is the heritage that many of us were born into and within which we live and breathe. It is a birthright, a treasure, a limitation, something of a scandal, and an obligation. Therefore, except for a brief glance or two, I must overlook the East and Africa and Catholicism in other parts of the world.