After being interrupted by a million things, I have finally finished reading A Guide to the Sacraments by John MacQuarrie. I would not recommend this book as an introduction to the sacraments or to sacramental theology as it is not very detailed, but I do think that it would be good for someone immersed in a Ludwig Ott/Francis Hall approach to the sacraments to read, as it discusses them on more of broad, conceptual and philosophical level in the context of postmodernity. Like a lot of MacQuarrie's works, it is mind-expanding and quite thought-provoking. The older books like Hall and Ott have their place - one must know and master the traditional formulations and ideas - but they are unsuitable in and of themselves in today's postmodern situation.
My reading schedule, incidently, consists of short reads and long reads read concurrently. The sacraments book was a quick read, as it is short (200 pages) and the topic is familiar to me. My "long read" has been "Jesus and the Victory of God" by N.T. Wright. I plan on getting a few more short reads in while reading this long one.
So, my next "short read" is actually going to be a re-read: Creative Fidelity by Francis Sullivan, SJ. This book is required reading at many US Catholic seminaries. I had to read it as part of my Fundamental Theology class. The author was a professor at the Gregorian University (where many future bishops and theologians of the Church go) for many years. It is about how to weigh and interpret the documents of the magesterium. This book is so important because it shows that nothing can escape the need for interpretation and reinterpretation, not even papal documents. It discusses what dogma is; what magesterium in its various forms is; how to identify defined dogmas in papal documents; the disagreements Catholic theologians have on what these defined dogmas are and how the number of them has shrunk over the years; and it gives examples of interpretation in action. It is a very well-written and fascinating book that should be read by every Catholic and Anglican.
One of the most interesting parts about it is the afterward, where Sullivan (who, to my knowledge, is considered a centrist/conservative theologian) addresses Ordinatio Sacerdotalis by JPII, which is about the ordination of women. Sullivan does the "Catholic fudge" and says that the magesterium has not spoken infallibly on the issue, and that CDF's 11/18/1995 statement saying it has been infallibly taught, and that it is part of the Deposit of Faith is wrong. Hmmmmm. Fascinating. Then he writes: "The changes in church doctrine that have actually taken place in the course of history show that a tradition could hold firm until advances in human knowledge or culture obliged the church to look at the question in a new light. Through honest reexamination of its tradition in this new light, the church has sometimes come to see that the reasons for holding to its previous position were not decisive after all." (pp. 181-184)
Yikes.
