A Much-Abused Letter

This letter was written by Father Tyrrell to a Professor of Anthropology in the Continental University, who found it difficult, if not impossible, to square his science with his faith as a Catholic.Father Tyrrell, in an Introduction to the letter, gives an account of the whole matter, and vindicates the position which he took up in dealing with the doubts and fears of his correspondent.* * * * *Those who were interested in a recent significant incident in ecclesiastical circles will find themselves fully informed here as to details. Father Tyrrell gives an explanation, at once lucid, charitable and strong, of the reasons for his dismissal from the Society of Jesus, together with the full text of the famous letter which led to the event, and extracts from his correspondence with the General of the Jesuits.Father Tyrrell, in an Introduction to the letter, gives an account of the whole matter, and vindicates the position which he took up in dealing with the doubts and fears of his correspondent.--The Cambridge Review, Volume 28 [1907]In a private letter, the appearance of portions of which in an Italian journal led to his expulsion from the Society of Jesus, and which has since been published with an introduction and notes in a volume entitled A Much-Abused Letter, Tyrrell says: "It seems to me that a man might have great faith in the Church, in the people of God, in the unformulated ideas, sentiments, and tendencies at work in the great body of the faithful, and constituting the Christian and Catholic 'spirit'; and yet regard the Church's consciously formulated ideas and intentions about herself as more or less untrue to her deepest nature; that he might refuse to believe her own account of herself as against his instinctive conviction of her true character; that he might say to her: 'Nescitis cujus spiritus estis'--'You know not your own essential spirit'" (pp. 56f.). And in the volume on Medievalism already quoted he says, "I ask myself whether a consensus in purely theological matters could ever possibly be more than that of a mere handful of experts; whether the general acquiescence of the crowd can have the slightest confirmatory value, any more than that of a class of schoolboys can be said to confirm the teachings of their master" (pp. 81f.). In other words, in the last analysis the religious experience of those truly Christian, and of those alone, is the only competent and adequate authority. "A general consensus of the faithful," he says, "can only obtain in regard to those matters where all may be experts; matters within the potential experience of each; matters which interest and affect their daily spiritual life-- the life of Faith in virtue of which they are called 'the faithful.'" "If Faith were theology its problems could never be settled by general consensus. But because it is not theology, but the Gospel, because its object is that life of which Christ is the Divine Revelation, and not the analysis of that life, every believer may, as an expert, speak of his own personal response to the Gospel. Each is a judge of faith; and the agreement of all is an infallible judgment, eliminating private errors and idiosyncrasies" (p. 82).--The Harvard Theological Review [1910]