Roger Haight’s work on religious pluralism constitutes one of the best-known aspects of his theology. This is due to the pioneering character of Haight’s work, which – as is also reflected in this volume – has inspired fruitful and necessary discussions among theologians of different generations and faith traditions, who have engaged with Haight’s position on religious pluralism both critically and constructively. Part of the prominence of Haight’s work on religious pluralism, however, is also due to the controversial debates that followed the publication of the Notification of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (today Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) on Haight’s book Jesus Symbol of God in 2004, that judged Haight’s book as to contain “serious doctrinal errors”.1
Roger Haight’s work, the Notification and the debates that followed form part of the conflictive and still ongoing reception process of the Second Vatican Council, which opened a new chapter in the relationship between the Catholic Church and other faith traditions and religions by replacing an attitude of condemnation and scepticism with one of respect and dialogue. While the Council in its Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) famously declared that the “Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions [… and] regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men” (NA 2), the question how to articulate the relationship between the Church’s understanding of Jesus Christ and those other religions in a manner that would at the same time witness to the liberative dimension of the gospel, courageously engaging the signs of an unprecedented present, and also cohere with the principal testimonies of the Scripture and tradition, remained a matter of vivid debate.
Roger Haight belongs to a generation of theologians that, rooted deeply in the spirit of the Council, understood the Council’s shift of perspective on the religious other as encouragement and mandate to deepen interreligious studies and foster interreligious dialogue, thereby developing theological perspectives on religious pluralism that tried to do justice to the complexity of an increasingly globalized world. The publication of Jesus Symbol of God in 1999, however, encountered an ecclesiastical atmosphere which was by then already increasingly characterized by a far more critical assessment of modern, pluralist society and the concern that several of the new theological departures that had emerged in the aftermath of the Council might risk jeopardizing what the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith considered to be essential aspects of the Christian dogma. These debates crystallized significantly in the field of Christology as is exemplified in several publications of the Congregation that followed in quick succession from the turn of the millennium onwards: the Declaration ‘Dominus Iesus’ on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church (2000), the Notification on the book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, New York 1997) by Father Jacques Dupuis, S.J. (2001), the Notification on the book “Jesus Symbol of God” by Father Roger Haight S.J. (2004), and the Notification on the works of Father Jon Sobrino, SJ (2006) – a Spanish-Salvadorian liberation theologian and like Dupuis and Haight a member of the Society of Jesus.2
Since then, theological reflection on both religious pluralism and plurality within the Church has experienced a significant development and deepening, with the papacy and magisterium of Pope Francis being an important catalyst in this process. This has taken place in at least three dimensions that resonate well also with Roger Haight’s theology: First in Pope Francis’ emphasis on the pastoral character of the Church’s teaching, which is severely distorted when isolated from its orientation towards salvation and integral liberation of all human beings. Second in encouraging frank and open dialogue. Third in the emphasis on the polyhedric character of the Church, which includes a richer and more nuanced way of dealing with differences and plurality both within and outside of the Church and aims at strengthening the Church’s synodal character.
At a theological level, the awareness of the significance of this new phase in the reception of Vatican II, given impulse and represented by Francis, is reflected in the current intercontinental research project ‘Vatican II. Event and Mandate’, in which a group of 130 international scholars from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin-America, North-America and Oceania is working together on the first intercontinental theological commentary of Vatican II.3 The aim of the project is to accompany the Church in its transformation process from a “gregorian”,4 that is monolithic, “Latin” and “Western” church towards a truly Catholic “World Church”. This is driven by the assessment that the Second Vatican Council represents the decisive catalyst for this transformation process, but that the concrete forms of a polyhedric and synodal World Church still remain to be developed.
For Margit Eckholdt, member of the steering committee of the project, the Second Vatican Council – understood both as “event” and in its central documents5 – serves as central reference point for this process of a renewed “ecclesiogenesis”.6 Despite being inscribed itself in a still largely (Western) European perspective, the texts of the Council “remain the central reference for decision-making processes and identity negotiations in a global church. They themselves provide criteria for dealing with power, with regard to drawing boundaries and the danger of wanting to profile one’s own identity at the expense of others, be it internally with regard to the new actors – lay people, women, indigenous peoples – or externally with regard to ecumenism and interreligious dialogue.”7
To leverage the transformative potential of the documents of Vatican II in the context of a pluricultural World Church requires new methodologies that “break with Eurocentrism”8 and the integration of a broad variety of hitherto neglected perspectives and reception processes of Vatican II in the different regions of the world. The project thus aims at a “polyphonic”, “multi-handed”9 writing that also engages the asymmetries of power within the Church and pays special attention to what the Church in Europe (and North-America) might learn from other, less well represented Churches. For Eckholt this leads – among other aspects – to a renewed focus on two interconnected issues that lie also at the heart of Roger Haight’s work: the theological (and not only ethical) significance of poverty and social justice, as testified to especially by the Latin-American Church and liberation theology, and the relevance of religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue, which has already for decades been a central concern for the church in Asia. The documents of the Federation of Asian Bishop’s Conferences (FABC) express the intersection of these two fields thereby in a manner which not only comes surprisingly close to Roger Haight’s pneumatological approach,10 but is also significant for a “postcolonial rereading” of the documents of Vatican II.11
Because such an intercontinental rereading of Vatican II implies also “a new approach to the normativity of the Council”,12 it also develops new perspectives on the “functioning of the Church’s magisterium”13 which must itself leave behind “Eurocentric thinking and corresponding regulatory systems”.14 Eckholt is aware that the intercontinental commentary “can only prepare this new perspective for the exercise of ecclesial authority and […] decision-making processes”15 in the church. That this hope is not in vain, however, finds expression in corresponding concerns that have recently been expressed by Pope Francis. In his letter to the new Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardenal Víctor Manuel Fernández (July 2023),16 Francis outlines the mission of the Dicastery as one that should rather “promot[e] theological knowledge” than pursue “possible doctrinal errors”, whereby the “fundamental criterion” is characterized as follows: “to consider that ‘all theological notions that ultimately call into question the very omnipotence of God, and his mercy in particular, are inadequate’. We need a way of thinking which can convincingly present a God who loves, who forgives, who saves, who liberates, who promotes people and calls them to fraternal service.” The work of the Dicastery should therefore not foster a “‘desk-bound theology’ with ‘a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything’”, but the “‘understanding and transmission of the faith in the service of evangelization, so that its light may be a criterion for understanding the meaning of existence, especially in the face of the questions posed by the progress of the sciences and the development of society’”. To fulfil this mission the church as a whole is according to Francis in continuous need to “‘grow in her interpretation of the revealed word and in her understanding of truth’ without this implying the imposition of a single way of expressing it’. For ‘differing currents of thought in philosophy, theology and pastoral practice, if open to being reconciled by the Spirit in respect and love, can enable the Church to grow’”.17 In his response to the “Dubia” of five cardinals issued on the occasion of the First Assembly of the Synod on Synodality Francis acknowledges that “for those who long for a monolithic body of doctrine guarded by all and leaving no room for nuance, this might appear as undesirable and leading to confusion. But in fact, such variety serves to bring out and develop different facets of the inexhaustible riches of the Gospel.”18 The “harmonious growth will preserve Christian doctrine more effectively than any control mechanism.”19
The emphasis Pope Francis puts in the mentioned statements on 1) salvation and integral liberation as fundamental criterion, 2) the Church’s need to grow in the understanding of the revealed word in the service of evangelization amid the challenges of contemporary society, 3) the critique of any attitude of dominion, and 4) the role of the Spirit to reconcile a legitimate plurality of context-sensitive theological expressions of divine revelation, correspond well to the principles of the intercontinental commentary of Vatican II. At the same time, they also reflect central concerns of Roger Haight’s work on religious pluralism. This correspondence does of course not mean that every theological opinion based on these principles is already as such equally valid, as “every theological line has its risks, but also its opportunities”.20 It does, however, point to the new horizon, in which the basic concerns, impulses and questions at the heart of the christological debates mentioned above can be fruitfully readdressed with regard to the present-day challenges of an ever more diverse21 and at the same time painfully divided world.
It is in this vein that Roger Haight opens the discussion in Part III of this book with a “forward looking retrospective” on his influential works Jesus Symbol of God (1999) and Alternative Vision: An Interpretation of Liberation Theology (1985), closely linking the concerns for a truly liberating and socially engaged theology, as exposed in part II, to the matter of religious pluralism. Haight understands his text as a “commentary on how positions developed earlier are relevant in a later period” that does not aim to “offer a solution” – as matters of such crucial importance according to Haight only can “get resolved corporately over time”. The text, however, wants to address and contribute to the further discussion of a challenge that is of crucial importance for the future of Christian faith in plural societies. Grounded in an understanding of Jesus’ teaching and divinity as being themselves supportive of religious pluralism, Haight sketches the central principles of a Christology that recognizes and welcomes the legitimate autonomy and validity of other faith traditions instead of merely tolerating them. The intimate connection of the commitment to integral liberation and respect of the religious other finds thereby its expression in the term ‘Liberating Christology’ which refers both to a Christology that expresses, mediates and impels social transformation towards a more just and equal society, and to a Christology which is itself in need of being liberated from any spirit of domination, supremacy and resentment. The intersection of both aspects is more urgent than ever before within the context of disturbing alliances between forms of white and Christian supremacy (both within and beyond the US context) today.
Haight’s opening is followed by two contributions of Cornelia Dockter and Reinhold Bernhardt who engage Haight’s work on religious pluralism by bringing it into dialogue with Islamic and Protestant perspectives.
Cornelia Dockter’s contribution relates Haight’s pneumatological Christology to Qur’anic perspectives on the Word and the Spirit of God. This allows Dockter to develop Roger Haight’s impulses in dialogue with Islamic perspectives, but also to accent the relationship of the Word and the Spirit of God slightly differently. Drawing attention to the intimate relatedness the Word and the Spirit of God entertain in the Qu’ran – which even refers to Jesus as a ‘Word of God’ (Q 3:45) – Dockter argues that affirming Jesus as the Word of God does not necessarily imply overemphasizing either the divinity or the exclusivity of Jesus, but can be understood as simply signifying the externally perceptible concreteness of God’s revelation. Following Karl Rahner’s and Aaron Langenfeld’s distinction between ‘transcendental’ and ‘categorical’ revelation Dockter builds on these findings to affirm the dual structure of a Christian understanding of God’s revelation in Word and Spirit. While ‘Spirit’ would correspond to the transcendental self-communication of God, ‘Word’ relates to the concrete realization of the openness to divine grace in history, which in Jesus gains such form and density as to allow him to be understood as the Divine Word. This emphasis on the dual structure of revelation does not, for Dockter, however, exclude the possibility that the Word of God reveals itself to people in many different ways. Rather it testifies to what Roger Haight himself would identify as the need for the experience of an ‘objective’, ‘solid’ and ‘enduring’ mediation as the foundational basis of ‘any deep and lasting notion of salvation’.
From a protestant perspective, Reinhold Bernhardt contrasts Roger Haight’s ‘symbolic’ understanding of Jesus with a representational approach. Such a perspective at once shares central features with Haight’s ‘symbolic’ understanding of Jesus, but also differs from it in some aspects. On the basis of a relational ontology, Bernhardt unfolds the two representational processes that constitute the mission and person of Christ as the corresponding representation of 1) God’s Word, Wisdom, Spirit, Love and Power, and 2) the representation of true and fulfilled humanity. Similar to Haight’s ‘symbolic’ understanding, representation is for Bernhardt historically limited. Precisely because Jesus represents God’s universal salvific presence, the possibility of other representations of that representandum cannot be excluded. Unlike Haight, however, Bernhardt affirms the importance of some other aspects he feels come short in Haight’s Christology ‘from below’: the cross and resurrection, the priestly and kingly offices of Christ and God’s eschatological rule over history. According to Bernhardt, the stronger integration of these ‘interpretative perspectives’ of Christ’s mission does not distract from but rather contributes to a more integral understanding of what is also key in Haight’s Christology, namely the experience of salvation as mediated by Jesus.
Bibliography
Church Documents
Concilium Oecumenicum Vaticanum II: Declaratio de Ecclesiae Habitudine ad Religiones Non-Christianas Nostra Aetate, in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 58 (1966), pp. 740–744.
Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei: Declaratio de Iesu Christi atque Ecclesia unicitate et universalitate salvifica – Dominus Iesus, in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 92 (2000), pp. 742–765.
Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei: Notificatio de quodam scripto p. Iacobi Dupuis e Societate Iesu, in: Acata Apostolicae Sedis 94 (2002), pp. 141–145.
Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei: Notificatio de opere “Jesus Symbol of God” a patre Rogerio Haight S.J. edito, in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 97 (2/2005), pp. 194–203.
Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei: Notificatio de operibus P. Jon Sobrino S.I.: Jesucristo liberador. Lectura histórico-teológica de Jesús de Nazaret (Madrid 1991) y La fe en Jesucristo. Ensayo desde las víctiams (San Salvador, 1999), in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 99 (2007), pp. 181–194.
Francis: Responsa ad “Dubia” Cardinalium eorundam, in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 115 (10/2023), pp. 1154–1161. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_risposta-dubia-2023_en.html [date of last access: 05.03.2025].
Francis: Ad novum Praefectum Dicasterii pro Doctrina Fidei, in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 115 (7/2023), pp. 745–747. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2023/07/01/230701a.html [date of last access: 11.03.2025].
Vatican: Vatican2Legacy, https://vatican2legacy.com/ [date of last access: 06.03.2025].
Other Sources
Arenas, Sandra et. al (eds.): Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil. Allgemeine Einführung und Hermeneutik. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder 2024.
Eckholt, Margit: Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils. Hermeneutische Fragen und ekklesiologische Herausforderungen, in: Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 104 (1–2/2020), pp. 68–83.
Fornet-Ponse, Thomas: Christologie als Konfliktgeschichte. Die Konflikte um Edward Schillebeeckx, Jon Sobrino und Jacques Dupuis und ihr Beitrag zu einer fundamentaltheologischen Konflikttheorie. Paderborn: Brill/Schöningh 2021.
Haight, Roger: Jesus, Symbol of God. Maryknoll: Orbis Books 1999.
Tan, Jonathan: The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC). Bearing Witness to the Gospel and the Reign of God in Asia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2021.
Tan, Jonathan: Mission Inter Gentes. Towards a New Paradigm in the Mission Theology of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), in: Mission Studies 21 (1/2004), pp. 65–95.
Vertovec, Steven: Superdiversity. Migration and Social Complexity. London: Routledge 2022.
Other Sources
Arenas, Sandra et. al (eds.): Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil. Allgemeine Einführung und Hermeneutik. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder 2024.
Eckholt, Margit: Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils. Hermeneutische Fragen und ekklesiologische Herausforderungen, in: Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 104 (1–2/2020), pp. 68–83.
Fornet-Ponse, Thomas: Christologie als Konfliktgeschichte. Die Konflikte um Edward Schillebeeckx, Jon Sobrino und Jacques Dupuis und ihr Beitrag zu einer fundamentaltheologischen Konflikttheorie. Paderborn: Brill/Schöningh 2021.
Haight, Roger: Jesus, Symbol of God. Maryknoll: Orbis Books 1999.
Tan, Jonathan: The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC). Bearing Witness to the Gospel and the Reign of God in Asia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2021.
Tan, Jonathan: Mission Inter Gentes. Towards a New Paradigm in the Mission Theology of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), in: Mission Studies 21 (1/2004), pp. 65–95.
Vertovec, Steven: Superdiversity. Migration and Social Complexity. London: Routledge 2022.
Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei, Notificatio, p. 194. For more details on some of the points of criticism raised in the Notification cf. Reinhold Bernhardt’s contribution.
For a detailed analysis of the structure of the christological conflicts in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council based on the examples of Edward Schillebeeckx, Jon Sobrino and Jacques Dupuis, cf. Fornet-Ponse, Christologie als Konfliktgeschichte.
For more information on the project cf. the official website Vatican2Legacy. The commentary will consist of 12 volumes that are planned to be published in English and German between 2024 and 2027. The first volume, dedicated to hermeneutical and methodological questions, was published at the end of 2024. Cf. Arenas et. al (eds.), Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 70, with reference to Christoph Theobald (translation here and in the following quotations mine).
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 70.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 81.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 83.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 72.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 72.
In the Final Statement of the 1995 FABC Hindu-Christian Dialogue it reads: “Beyond the extremes of inclusivism and exclusivism, pluralism is accepted in resonance with the constitutive plurality of reality. Religions, as they are manifested in history, are complementary perceptions of the ineffable divine mystery, the God-beyond-God. All religions are visions of the divine mystery. No particular religion can raise the claim of being the norm for all others. We religious believers are co-pilgrims, who share intimate spiritual experiences and reflections with one another with concern and compassion, with genuine openness to truth and the freedom of spiritual seekers (sadhakas). In this process we become increasingly sensitive to human suffering and collaborate in promoting justice, peace and ecological wholeness” (Bishops’ Institute for Interreligious Affairs (BIRA) V/3, art. 6; quoted in Tan, Missio Inter Gentes, p. 71 et seq.). For a comprehensive study of the rich contributions of the FABC to the question of religious pluralism cf. Tan, Bearing Witness.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 78.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 78.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 79.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 70.
Eckholt, Eine interkontinentale Kommentierung, p. 82.
Pope Francis, Ad novum.
Pope Francis, Ad novum, p. 746. The quotes in the quotes refer to the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 271, and to the introduction of the Motu proprio Fidem servare.
Pope Francis, Responsa, p. 1158.
Pope Francis, Ad novum, p. 746.
Pope Francis, Responsa, p. 1158.
Vertovec, Superdiversity.