2014 Johannes Quasten Awards Transcript of Remarks by Monsignor Paul McPartlan, Acting Dean of the School of Theology and Religious StudiesNov. 6, 2014
Your Eminences, Provost Morozowich, dear colleagues, students and friends:It is no exaggeration to say that Johannes Quasten became a legend during his 30 years as aprofessor here at the Catholic University of America, from 1938 until his retirement in 1970. For his70th birthday that year, he was presented with a festschrift edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and our deardeparted colleague, Fr Patrick Granfield, who died just this year.1 May he rest in peace. The festschrift contained no fewer than 81 contributions from distinguished scholars, such as YvesCongar, Jean Daniélou, Kurt Aland, Josef Jungmann, John Meyendorff, Joseph Ratzinger, and manyothers. Quasten's field was patrology, and he is credited with establishing here in the States a newintellectual school of patristic study, based on the fundamental principle that 'early Christianitycannot be intelligently understood without a thorough knowledge of classical culture'.One of his students, Walter Burghardt, said that prior to Quasten's arrival in the USA,patristics had only been taught 'on the side', as an adjunct to something like dogma or Churchhistory. Quasten gave it a whole new status, maintaining that contemporary Christian doctrine needsto be in vital contact with early Christian teaching, and that that in turn can only be understood inits cultural context. What he communicated, says Burghardt, 'was a sense of history, an awarenessof cultural contexts, a realisation that Christianity is inescapably involved in the ebb and flow oftime, that affirmations and doctrines and words and syllables cannot be interpreted in isolation fromtheir original milieu'. Well, Bernard Lonergan once said that 'the meaning of Vatican II was theacknowledgement of history'. The documents of the council are replete with patristic references, andthe council's final text was its great constitution, Gaudium et Spes , on the Church in the ModernWorld . Yes, Quasten must surely be counted among those who prepared the way for Vatican II.One of his core principles was: 'You will achieve as much as you are willing to sacrificefor', and he knew what that meant. He came to the USA, via Rome, having had his permission toteach withdrawn in 1937 by the Nazi government in Germany. He made his name here in the USA,but he was actually born in Germany, he gained his doctorate and his habilitation at the universityof Münster, where he then began to teach, and he spent a considerable portion of his early workinglife in Rome, which gives three significant points of contact with our distinguished recipient of theQuasten Award this year, Cardinal Walter Kasper, likewise born in Germany, likewise a teacher inMünster, though not a student there, and likewise someone for whom Rome has been a major placeof work, though rather later in his career than it was for the young Quasten.Cardinal Kasper was born in 1933 in Heidenheim, Germany. He studied Catholic theologyand philosophy at Tübingen and Munich, and was ordained priest in 1957. From 1957-58, he wasa parochial vicar in Stuttgart, and then he returned to Tübingen to study for his doctorate, which hegained in 1961, followed by his own post-doctoral teaching degree or habilitation in 1964. In thesame year, he took up a professorship in Dogmatics at the University of Münster, becoming dean of the theological faculty there in 1969, and in 1970 he transferred to the University of Tübingen.During the 1980s, he served two five-year terms as a member of the International TheologicalCommission, coinciding exactly with the two terms served by our own Professor Carl Peter. In theFall of 1983, he was a Visiting Professor here at CUA, and he returned to CUA in 1990 to deliverthe Cardinal Dearden Lecture. The same year, he received an honorary doctorate from CUA, the firstof a grand total of no less than 20 honorary doctorates at the last count.In 1989, he was elected as Bishop of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Germany's fourthlargest Catholic diocese, and he took as his motto " Veritatem in caritate ". In 1994, he was appointedas the co-chair of the international Lutheran-Catholic ecumenical dialogue. In 2001, he was createdCardinal Deacon of Ognissanti in Via Appia Nuova by Pope John Paul II, and very soon afterwardsPope John Paul nominated Cardinal Kasper as President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotionof Christian Unity. He served in that office until his retirement in 2010, also being a member ofvarious other Vatican dicasteries. In 2013, he was the oldest cardinal eligible to take part in theconclave that elected Pope Francis, having reached his 80 birthday th just a few days after PopeBenedict announced his resignation.Among Cardinal Kasper's best known writings in English are his monographs: Jesus theChrist (1976), The God of Jesus Christ (1982), Theology and Church (1989), and his recent work, Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life (2014), highly praised by PopeFrancis during his first Sunday Angelus address. Forthcoming in 2015 is his new book, The CatholicChurch: Nature, Reality and Mission. Clearly, Cardinal Kasper's field is dogmatic or systematic theology rather than patristics, butit seems to me that the same passion to understand the Church and the living of the Christian life amid the realities of history and culture, 'in the ebb and flow of time', both in the early centuries andstill today, drives Walter Kasper as it drove Johannes Quasten. It is precisely such an understanding,cultivated through long years of careful scholarship and matured through many years of episcopalministry, caring for the people of God with a heartfelt concern for their welfare, that has enabled thedynamic and highly successful leadership that Cardinal Kasper has given to the Catholic Church'secumenical effort, particularly to Catholic-Lutheran, Catholic-Anglican, and Catholic-Orthodoxrelations, not to mention the Catholic Church's relationship with the Jews. In 2004, he received anaward at the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary in Buenos Aires for his lifetime dedication to thecause of reconciliation and understanding between Catholics and Jews.There are so many rich strands to Cardinal Kasper's work and writings over the years, butI dare to suggest that perhaps the subject dearest to his heart is indeed ecumenism. Over the years,he has devoted so much energy, intelligence and imagination to that cause, with the charity andboundless patience that it requires. Patience, he likes to say, is the little sister of hope. Butecumenism demands a holy im patience with our divisions, too, and he has certainly shown that. 'Inmy opinion', he said in 2009 to a gathering of Catholics and Lutherans, 'the Churches are toowrapped up in their own concerns, their structures and their structural reforms. God knows thesethings are necessary. But they are not what makes the Church engaging or credible.' On the sameoccasion, he explained what he holds most dear in ecumenism, namely 'spiritual ecumenism'. It'sthe 'heart of ecumenism', he said. It's the ecumenism of 'prayer and conversion'. 'Without prayerand conversion there is no ecumenism. But with prayer and conversion, according to the word ofJesus, a great deal - indeed everything - is possible'. Cardinal Kasper once said that in the 20thcentury, horribly marked by war and innocent suffering, the ecumenical movement was 'a lightshining in the darkness, and a powerful peace movement'. Among many other things, we salute himthis afternoon for all that he has done to keep that light shining, for the good both of the Church andof the world at large.Your Eminence, Catholic University and especially our School of Theology and ReligiousStudies is delighted and honored to welcome you back today, not only as an outstanding bishop-theologian,but also as a friend, and it is my very great pleasure, as acting dean of the school, topresent you with this year's Quasten Award for excellence in scholarship and leadership in religiousstudies. Congratulations!