c. 2007 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Why is a Georgetown University theology professor, born in Vietnam and educated in Rome and London, under the microscope of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?
The answer is in the first sentence. The professor’s international background gives him an international outlook, and his starting point is Asia, not Rome or even Europe.
The Rev. Peter C. Phan, 64, came to the United States when he was 32. Then a Salesian priest _ now a priest of the Diocese of Dallas, Texas _ Phan successively taught at a number of American institutions. He holds Georgetown’s Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought, and writes on interreligious dialogue. His work has been translated into Italian, German, French, Spanish, Polish, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese.
Three of his recent books _ “Christianity with an Asian Face,” “In Our Own Tongues” and “Being Religious Interreligiously” _ seem to have caught the Vatican’s eye. The books are not exactly page-turners; he assuredly does not rival Harry Potter.
But Phan’s modest book sales belie his influence. Phan heads a well-funded doctoral program at Georgetown in interreligious dialogue and is past president of the influential Catholic Theological Society of America. His theoretical discussions strike at the heart of Catholicism’s hierarchical system.
Enter the European theological mindset, framed in the terms of Greek philosophy. Christianity can be explained in only one way: theirs.
Not so, says Phan. Perhaps there are other ways of saying the same thing _ non-European ways.
Phan has been “translating” Christianity to the Asian context. His critics question him on the unique and universal mission of Jesus and the Catholic Church, and the place of non-Christian religions in salvation history. Most scholars don’t think he has crossed any lines.
The current Roman siege on a simple faculty office in Washington, D.C., boils down to a question discussed during the Second Vatican Council: Is salvation possible outside the church?
Wait a minute. Didn’t all that get settled in 1965 with Nostra Aetate, the Vatican document on relations with non-Christian religions? When Pope Paul VI, referring to Hinduism and Buddhism, said, “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions,” he knew that they _ and not Christianity _ were the dominant religions of Asia.
Indeed, the landmark document admits that other religions’ teachings “often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.” Catholicism must insist on Christ as the focus _ as “the way, the truth and the life” _ but it also must respect every other religion and look for commonalities.
So, what is Rome’s problem with Peter Phan? Is it his rip-roaring essays with enticing titles, such as “Particular Doctrines as Focii to Achieve Unity in Catechesis”? Or is it the simpler, perhaps subtler question of his exploring the ways Christianity can be understood by the non-Western mind, in non-Western terms, even, perhaps, through non-Western philosophy?
While he is well-schooled in the Greek philosophy and Thomistic theology that dominate official Catholic teaching, Phan has come smack up against Pope Benedict XVI’s stated problem of relativism _ essentially, one view is as good as the next.
But is Phan “relativizing” Christianity, or is he translating it to his own culture in his own time? European thought and culture are insufficient as the sole carriers of the gospel message. Even Mother Teresa argued for ministry by members of local cultures _ she wanted Indians to minister to Indians, Chinese to Chinese, and so on.
Whether the case of Father Phan will rise to international prominence or fade from view could turn on Rome’s often inscrutable logic. Their questioning turns back upon itself. What is the message they want to send? And to whom?
(Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books in Catholic Studies.)
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