The Genealogy of "Heresy" Leslie Dewart As Icon of the Catholic 1960s
This article sketches a portrait of Leslie Dewart as philosopher-prophet of renewal, advocate of de-hellenization, and unlikely icon of religious revolution during a period of singular turbulence in the Catholic Church in the United States. This portrait is framed against the background of the Unive...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
American Catholic Historical Society
2002
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| In: |
American catholic studies
Year: 2002, Volume: 113, Issue: 1/2, Pages: 65-77 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article sketches a portrait of Leslie Dewart as philosopher-prophet of renewal, advocate of de-hellenization, and unlikely icon of religious revolution during a period of singular turbulence in the Catholic Church in the United States. This portrait is framed against the background of the University of Dayton "Heresy Affair" of 1967. Prominent participants in the "heresy affair" were students of the Spanish-Canadian philosopher Leslie Dewart of St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto. In the spring of 1967, Dewart came to the University of Dayton to answer the question, "What is Happening in the Church?" During those heady days of the late 1960s, Dewart's The Future of Belief (1966) joined The Secular City by Harvey Cox as major articulations of a widespread feeling of revolutionary religious transformation. Along with more conventional sources such as Dewart's address at Dayton, The Future of Belief and periodical literature of the period, the author also draws upon personal recollections of the late 1960s in the American Catholic church. Dewart is emblematic of the period in two ways. First is his embrace of "contemporary experience," a phrase that cries out for interrogation. Second is his approach to the relationship between philosophy and theology. The latter typifies a modern Catholic intellectualist assumption that takes an autonomous philosophy as theology's necessary foundation. |
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| ISSN: | 2161-8534 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American catholic studies
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