This week on The Open Door (November 15th), panelists Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Valerie Niemeyer discuss the art of translation, Eastern Catholicism, and the relation between Thomism and Ressourcement theology. Our special guest is Professor Matthew Minerd. He is a Ruthenian Catholic, raised Roman Catholic in a mixed American-Slavic and Appalachian cultural context in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Minerd is a husband and father, a seminary professor, and a translator.
- You have become, in recent years, a distinguished translator. How did this come about?
- Some say that to translate is to betray: Traduttore, traditore! It’s a provocative charge, but could it be that where there is smoke there is fire?
- Is the art of translating a kind of interpretation? Does it involve compromises
- You are an Eastern Catholic and teach in an Eastern Catholic seminary, Ss. Cyril and Methodius. What do Western Catholics especially need to know about the Eastern Catholic heritage? How does it serve the Universal Church?
- Do you have any distinctive challenges in presenting Thomism to Eastern Catholics?
- How are you working to resolve the tension between Thomism and the Ressourcement of the Nouvelle Théologie?
- Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange has been dubbed “the sacred monster of Thomism.” Your recent translations of his books are Thomistic Common Sense: The Philosophy of Being and the Development of Doctrine, The Order of Things: The Realism of the Principle of Finality, Philosophizing in Faith, Essays on the Beginning and End of Wisdom, and The Sense of Mystery: Clarity and Obscurity in the Intellectual Life. What is your own assessment of Garrigou-Lagrange?
- Some speak of Jacques Maritain as the single most influential Thomist of the last century. You are active in the American Maritain Association. Where do you see the spirit of Maritain active today?
- Maritain was deeply engaged in the politics of his time. Does Thomism offer a foundation for constructive politics?
- What are some of your current projects?
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You're listening to w c a TRadio, your home for authentic Catholic programming.
Welcome to the Open Door, ashow based on the words in Revelation,
I have left an open door beforeyou which no one can close.
This is w c AT Radio's longestrunning show, which opened the door to
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the radio station in October twenty sixteen. It's currently offered by Jim Hanninck,
Mario Ramo's Reyes and Friends and remainsopen to the love of God in its
call to build a culture of lifeand a just social order. Through the
panel's discussion of the Catholic social teachingprinciples of solidarity, subsidiarity, and economic
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democracy. The Open Door also exploresnon violence, distributism and communitarianism. So
join us at the Open Door,where you two can be part of the
conversation. Welcome to the Open Door. Jim Hannick here with fellow panelists Mario
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Ramos, Reyes and Valerie Neimmeier.Today we discuss the art of translation,
Eastern Catholicism and the relation between tumismand resource theology. Are very special and
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very welcome. Guest is Professor MatthewMinord. He is a Ruthenian Catholic,
raised Roman Catholic in a mixed American, Slovac and Appalachian cultural context, and
all of this in southwestern Pennsylvania.Matthew is a husband, a father,
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a seminary professor, and a translator. Let's begin in prayer. Come,
Holy Spirit, fill the hearts ofyour faithful, and kindle in them the
fire of your love. Send forthyour spirit, and they shall be created,
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and you shall renew the face ofthe earth. Let us pray well,
God, who have taught the heartsof the faithful by the light of
the Holy Spirit, granted in thesame spirit we may be truly wise and
ever rejoice in His consolation through frightStar Lord, Matthew, you have become
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in recent years a distinguished translator.What's up? How did this come about?
Bye? By accident? Ah,I think I've I think I've publicly
said this before this first bit,So I don't think I'm going to get
in more trouble. But it startedbecause Tim Nuwe and my dissertation director didn't
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answer emails quickly. We'll just say, and so I had moved to Pennsylvania,
had sent him to two copies ortwo chapters of my dissertation, and
I heard nothing for a long while. So I was adjuncting teaching, and
I started reading Reginald Geragu Lugranche's Lucinsde Mistaire Sense of Mystery, and I
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was so struck both by the factthat, I mean, his style of
Tomism was somewhat not what I hadbeen presented with, and I think maybe
we'll talk about that a little bitlater today. And also too though I
saw all sorts of stuff that wasakin to our mutual departed friend John Deeley,
that was throughout different aspects of thechapters actually, and I just thought,
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I'm going to go this is aninsane thing to do. I'm going
to go ahead and translate this book. So you know, I had a
I had a background in French froma research perspective, but you know,
as I once said to a Dominicanwho has some political connections, I said,
I didn't have the benefit of areligious order to pay for me to
study abroad. I come from ablue collar background, and so you know,
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I never studied in a French contextto you know, be an active
speaker. So in a sense I'vetalked, I know a couple of other
translators for whom this is true,actually academic translators who've done a good bit
of work, where they say there'sa certain fraud aspect that you feel if
I, if I were to travelabroad, I would have to go find
a French professor and have a lotof coffee just to sort of get active
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on my tongue. But so itstarted with that, and it basically it's
snowballed by accident. I went backto the same press and asked about working
on a couple of other translations,and that we're sort of where we're at
today, probably going to be alittle bit more selective in translating. I
mean, I did probably too much. I'm a little bit burned out at
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this point. But also I tookonto a big, big projects, like
big books. So that's just alot whenever you have three hundred thousand words
for forever facing. But yeah,it was it was an accident of history.
Well it was fortuitous. Now currentlywe're not seen on our screen,
but he will emerge in the inthe development of things we're not seeing Mario
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Ramos. However, Mario, Ithink, uh, light of your going
back and forth between English and Spanish, you could ask another question about this
translation process. Yes, good morningeveryone, and good morning the door.
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Matthew. Well, what you mentionedGrigola granche I remember the days that I
went to school back in this lateseventies and he was one of the major
major our reading and his translation inspan it was very clear, very well
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organized and so and his style wasof the handbook type of style, very
clear. But yet because of thatin the late seventies he was criticized,
precisely because of that type of style, and people began choosing a different style,
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not even Thomism. Now with thatbackground, what do you think about
the claim that when you translate someone, you cannot translate as the in the
same spirit, in the same literallylittle meaning. Or what would be the
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difference between being a translator and aninterpreter or there is a connection between the
two. I think it's a reallygood question, especially that last bit helps
to I think make a good distinctionbetween being a translator and an interpreter,
because you know, an interpreter hasan immediate context the people that they're interpreting
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for, so you almost you almostimmediately put your thumb on the scales with
a kind of immediacy. When you'rean interpreter, sometimes translation is more interpretation
or less, but you're actually pointingout something. That probably is why I
had a fortuitous beginning to do thiskind of work was because his style is
is. I mean, I mightcontest that it's handbook style only in the
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sense that he's he's not quite amanualist. So I have a kind of
beef about that, that claim aboutGarrigo, but that's not aimed at you.
His style very simple, though,and it does have a kind of
clunky I'm teaching in Rome, Iwant to be very direct and a clear,
uh, a clear expositor of theTomis tradition without a lot of frills.
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I mean, he'll sometimes go offinto rhetorical flights, but there's something
very paratactic and direct about his stylethat makes translating in a sense not as
much. It's not just purely oneto one, but there's there's a kind
of way that it's hard to makegaragu lagrange, not when he's especially philosophical
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and particularly philosophical and not maybe doingspiritual theology, to avoid making him clunky,
because not that one would want torender, you know, how do
I put it sometimes I have aUkrainian priest. I know he says he
speaks Ukraineish because of the mixture oflanguages, So you could do it with
French here, right, some somemixture of French and English. But that
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that very paratactic style of his comesthrough as a little bit more directly.
I mean, it's hard to startto give him a tone without actually changing
his own, to significantly change himat times, I guess, is what
I'm trying to say. So Ithink that is what you're getting out with
the handbook style. Because something that'sinteresting is when I was translating his De
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Revolazione, which is the closest thingto maybe like the pure manual style that
he wrote, the style in Latinis exactly the same as his French style,
and I think it's a little bitacross pollenization in both directions, that
both that the style of his lecturingat Rome is affecting his French and I
also can tell though in his styleof Latin he's thinking in French. It's
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very clear at times that his hisdiction is in French. So you know,
doing geragu was at least how toput it, it felt more like
and it's still even years into doinghim. It felt like translating in the
sense of carrying just from one languageto another. Whereas if I were to
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contrast that to like someone like ambroseGardet his teacher. I did a book
by him, it was much morerhetorical. And that's where you start to
feel more and more the need tobe more akin to the interpreter. I'll
say that when I did that book, I probably still wasn't confident enough to
really interpret, you know. Butyeah, anyway, I mean that's sort
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of gone a couple of directions there, But I mean you really kind of
hit on. You hit on acouple of important things. They're both about
his style and the art of translating. And I'm sure you've experienced this whenever
you've had to interpret for people.I find it amazing to watch people live
interpret. Yes, let me touchan issue I think is very, at
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least to me, is very important. What I'm saying about manually style is
that when you read his works,they are very clear, they are very
didactic, they are very pedagogical.It seems that he's teaching in students.
It's very clear. Now, andthen you moved to a different style which
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came about in the seventies or latesixties, which let's say Monsignor Dondaine from
Loveine or Louispin, who were theauthor of Phenomenal, Existential of Phenomenology and
all that it's more rhetorical, moreconfusing, more poetics and so on,
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and so there was a struggle therebetween these two styles. And what happened
then, I think, was thatif you want to understand phenomenology in this
tradition, the new tradition, whichsomehow mixed novel theology and so on,
and you before read Garrigul, youwere very capable to understand the new trend.
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But if you just read and beginstudying with this new style is phenomenology
of phenomenologist approach, then you wentback to Godrigula other author like him,
you were you had tough time understandingthem. In other words, what is
my point god Regula. Many ofthese thinkers, scholastic thinkers, were very
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good in giving student the foundation tounderstand more sophisticated rhetorical style. And when
that was abandoned, then Thomason becomevery confusing. And that what happened in
the eighties and nineties in Latin America. I think, I don't know if
this is a question of a rant, but oh well, it is a
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rant that I would potentially go on. But I'm always very sensitive that as
the guy who did garagu I don'twant to come across as immediately going on
on that rant, because people havea kind of predisposition to think that it's
you know what, I mean,a bias coming through. I mean,
I do think that's correct. Anyof us have taught know this. I
mean, a didactic style is actuallysomething that's necessary, you know, even
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in the case of phenomenology. Youknow, I was very blessed to have
a didactic phenomenology professor who is MonsignorSokolowski at c UA. But it's not
you know that it's not an easyentree if you don't have that. And
I do think that having that kindof formation by a didactic style, even
if it's in a totally different tradition, right, that's basically in a rist
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developed Versatilian tradition, gives you thephilosophical chops to be able to jump in
to the others. I've had thisargument with someone I know who's Jean Luke
Marion scholar he reads. He readsMarion probably even reads into Marion some scholasticism,
but he reads him with a clarityeven in Marion's like, you know,
interpretations of descartes that the phenomenologists oftenI think lack because they never had
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just sort of the basic history ofphilosophy with kind of the clarity of you
know, of conceptualization. So Idon't know. I do not know what
Marion thinks though, of the dissertationthat my my friend wrote on him.
But so I'm just affirming in adifferent way. You're your observation here,
I think, thank you. Well, I just assume chew on a rock
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is read a phenomenologist. However,however, I'm going to turn the turn
the mic offert to somebody more dispassionateand sensitive, Colorie. What do you
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think about all of this? Andwhat question do you have foremost in mind?
I was going to say, howdo you really feel about that?
Jim? I'm a bit of arookie in the room. I mean,
I am, you know, Ihave I don't know, two thirds of
a degree masters in theology, butno, no, no formal philosophy.
I speak Spanish was my second language, did live abroad done, you know,
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good amount of interpreting in like amedical setting, but a lot of
this is over my head. SoI'm kind of inclined to to kind of
lay some foundation, a little bitmore of a foundation for people who like
me are kind of like, whatis all this a I'm really curious what
your background is in French. Youmentioned you you used it in a more
research context. You know, wasit your or what was your what was
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your for right into the French language? And how did you get to the
point where you could do translation?Secondly, you know, defining terms a
little bit. I'm not sure I'mreally clear on the difference between translation and
interpretation, and if you could helpus with that, that would be great.
And uh, thirdly, you know, is there is there hope,
uh for a translator from one languageand culture to another to really be able
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to I mean, you know,some would say that, you know,
to translate is to betray, asJim put it in the in the sort
of questions as we were preparing fortoday, and he put a little Latin
phrase in here that I know nothingabout. Is are so tell us what
you think about I guess maybe there'sa lot of stuff that I'm throwing your
way to Yeah, I mean,you know I didn't mean to, you
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know, say, everyone who's livedabroad sort of has had the silver spoon
in their mouth. That wasn't myclaim. It was just very much it
was very much directed against a contextwhere it was you know, some Dominicans,
I knew who they were sending awayso they could stay, you know,
they could basically draw on their institutionalresources to be able to you know,
learn to speak the language. Imean, in the case of French,
both French and Latin, which I'vetranslated from. I mean, it
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goes back to like what I studiedeven in high school is where it kind
of all started. I really fellin love with Latin. Actually in high
school. I wanted to be alinguist, but my parents would have nothing
of that or music. So Iended up being a computer science undergraduate major
because I came from to two bluecollar of a background and they would have
murdered me. So, I mean, I had a second second major in
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theology, but I had something practical, and then I burned my career by
becoming a monk for a couple ofyears, so that ended. So you
know, then I did I didsome both in the course of my graduate
studies and sort of some external programsas well in the languages in French and
Latin. Just you know, it'skind of course, kind of standard of
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course going along the way for mylicension or my masters, and I'll admit
I just from there I was.I was a beneficiary probably the fact that
the digital tools were better. They'renot like they are now, but at
least having some significant digital tools forparallels on difficult things enabled me to fill
in some you know, the wholesof you know, I did a good
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bit of translating for my masters,because I did my masters on Maritan.
So I just recently went through somenotes of mine looking up some things,
and I forgot there were texts Ididn't known. As a graduate student,
I only had the French edition offrom Somewhere, and so you know that
I had all these translations from there. So you know, I just slowly
but surely with over the course ofmy studies honed it that way. But
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I did benefit from coming in it. It's sort of truth be told,
what might be the tail end ofnormal translation because of what it's like now,
because it's changed immensely since I evenstarted the AI tools now are such
just in the last half year thatone current project I'm working on. I
add it not because it's I meanyou know, I mean not because I
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necessarily quote unquote have to. Butin a sense it lets my brain get
into English more quickly because I cando scaffolding and then just have a parallel
so it becomes more like checking.I've done work where I've checked someone's someone
who's bilingual, and I've checked theirEnglish for them, so I'm checking it
against their their original So I'm kindof in that brain space nowadays. I
use a tool actually where I touchup a PDF, get it into a
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word document, and I have itprocessed the whole thing. For me.
This is very new. This isactually just I've just started this though,
so we'll see see if I getfrustrated and go back to the older.
Yeah. So, like I said, it's sort of it really is.
I say it's an accident. Ido feel like it is. I had
a propensity, I think, forthis, and I wanted to do something
along these lines. It was likea nerdy kid who liked Tolkien, right,
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so I wanted to be like him. But it really was that kind
of that kind of accident through justgraduate studies, and I just did a
ton of translating, Like I justtoday ran across fifty thousand words of Latin
that I forgot, forgot I translated. I don't even remember how time.
I had a lot going on,but it was back in like twenty eighteen,
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some stuff from a manual that Ipartially translated for someone else, and
then I was interested in the otherstuff and I just sort of translated it
at a letter teaching load at theseminary. I guess my wife's a very
indulgent woman. So yeah, now, you know, So that makes me
think I was thinking when I wastalking about the tools nowadays interpretation. I
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don't know. I'm not like atheorist, right in a sense I do.
I just have done the work.I'm not theorized about it. But
I think repretation is more akin asa skill to teaching in the in the
sense that you're hyper focused if you'reinterpreting and you're trying to figure out what's
going to work for your audience,and you imagine, you know, imagine,
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I remember sitting I was a monkbecause of Benedictine. We were traveling.
One of my conferences was interpreting thisvery active eighty year old, eighty
five year old bishop who was veryenergetic, speaking like an Italian half with
his hands, you know, andhe kept going, going, going.
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So it wasn't so much that FatherStephen. He was very able in Italian.
He spent a lot of time Ithink at cafes while he was studying.
I joke to him, but itwasn't a question of dumbing things down
for the students who were on thetrip and the others. But the situation
called for effectively trying to get theseideas out in the way that he was
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going to be able to do it, because you only have so much of
an et coup for dealing with theperson. Because in this situation, given
the circumstances, I'm interpreting this veryfast talking and active bishop for this group
in a way that guess what,I'm not going be able to stop and
slow him down. I mean,because he kind of I think even might
have tried a couple times. Thenthe guy just kept doing it. Now
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that's different than saying, oh,I'm interpreting this for maybe a group that
doesn't have the knowledge, But Ithink that's still the kind of task of
interpretation as well. There's just thissituatedness that reminds me of what teaching is,
like translating key, I mean translatingisn't they're not I don't think they
totally. They don't totally. They'renot totally desperate on the Venn diagrams,
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right, they do overlap. Youknow, to translate is to carry across.
And I mean ultimately you want tobasically, if you're doing academic work,
you want to elicit. Let's putit this way, Here's how I've
thought of it in Garagu. Willset aside the other people. I want
to elicit the same ideas and thesame tradition, generally speaking of vocabulary in
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the person who reads it. Andso that might require a kind of directness,
but it also you know, atcertain key moments it requires you not
to just fall into talking like ascholastic, because I need the person who's
reading in English to be able tobasically think with the tradition. And it's
really difficult because I know a translationof for instance, Cadjutant's commentary on the
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Summa Theologia is coming out and it'sin a more analytic vocabulary, and I
understand why the person did that,and it's going to have a use.
But the risk if you do somethinglike that is that you're not going to,
however, tie the person into thetradition of vocabulary that you're trying to
convey, which is very important inthis kind of academic tomism, which is
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mostly where I started at least nowliterature, I've done some spiritual rhetoric,
which is akin to that literature.Is that's a tougher beast, right,
I mean, that's why all ofa sudden idiom I'm a big for I'll
forgive everyone for falling into idiom innative language, except where the idiom misses
something that's in the metaphorical resonance ofthe original. Right, Because if you
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slip into an idiom in English forsome expression, and however the idiom in
French is tied up with some otherthings going on, I mean, you
get yourself into a rat's nest oftranslational issues. I feel like, I
mean, I guess is it translationor is it interpretation and translating the idea,
the sentiment, the et cetera.I'd have to think more about it.
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Like I said, for a kindof literary translation, and you know,
truth be told, I probably i'dnever myself put my shoulder to that
right, unless it's spiritual literature,just because I do know my background and
that's not my that's not gonna bemy forte. So I'm not sure i've
It's like, I don't think youcan pull those apart. I'm not sure
I've distinguished them clearly. I thinkthat you grasp something of the difference of
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interpretation when you think of the edgecase of someone like that Bishop story,
betrayal happens. Though betrayal does happen. I've had people get on my case
because I've I've occasionally had to keepLatin in my translation because at a certain
point I just said, it's soscholastic that if I say this in a
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in a philosophical language of tast's goingto be misunderstood. So I'd rather almost
catch the mind of the reader.Think about some Heideger translations can be like
this. I mean, it's it'shis own style. Kind of is hard,
but I think you have to almostpush the person to get into his
mind. But you know, thereare other times too, though, where
I've I've interpreted away from the scholasticterminology, and I've had people come come
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at me, you know, justhere. Here's one stupid little example that
very recently a student was arguing withme about online. Was the bonoman estum
I've just I've just fallen into.I say fitting good because there was a
translation of it by Austin Woodburray,who was a student of Geragu, and
so everyone in that line that's relatedto Geragu. I just say fitting good
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because I want the idea of agood in itself and the moral good,
the honest good, et cetera.I don't think quite catches that. But
you can never translate the word bonamanestam just never finds its way into English
in a way that's acceptable. Andso you can do one or two things.
You can either judge every translator whoputs their thumb on the scale,
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or if you've done enough work,you learn not to be a pedant.
I don't have a lot I have. I don't have a ton of patience
for the people who just jump downtranslator's throats if they do something that's somewhat
understandable. And I've not had thathappen to me in tons that's not based
on too many of my wounds.But sorry, I'm like an extravert whole
just who will bloviate. I'm sorry, So now, I Jim, just
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one thing you said, I thinkis what is your view on that?
If you have, let's say,in my case, Mark ten read writings
in French, and what happened tome has has been very curious because when
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I read the translation into English andthen I read the translation into Spanish of
Marithien in French, I read,I understand French. So I find easy
for me to understand Marithien in Spanishthan in English, and I think it's
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more faithful in Spanish than in English. I assume that it is because Spanish,
like French are Latin languages, andso it's easier for the translator to
translate that particular piece and in particularbooks. I mean, you can put
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aside the quality of the writing Marithime. Sometimes it's very convoluted. But again
it seems to me that in thatcase, Spanish is more faithful to the
texts than English, which it seemsto some translation or a different structure.
What do you think about this,this phenomenon review? Will? Is that
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possible? Yeah? I do.I think it's probably it's probably on two
levels. I mean, English issuch an odd language because this mixture of
German and Romance languages. So firstof all, one of the things that
I think tempts a lazy translator,and the lazy translator sleeps in all of
us. So that's you know,self accusation is that the use of cognates
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from French to English just can cancontempt you in a way that actually it
doesn't help. Right, So thereare cognate words that I think, probably
out of French into Spanish are closerto true cognates. They're true in semant
there's true in their semantic cognate thatit's just first of all, translateing the
idea better, and so it's justgoing to structure. Everything's gonna work better
if you've got the right ideas municated. Whereas there's been drift in English because
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you've had kind of cross pollenization ofI mean, there's all sorts of stuff
that's gone on, like all theLatinate stuff that we have is basically high
culture language in English, or atleast it's tended toward to be more the
mark of a high cultured language thanthe Anglo saxon stuff, which maybe is
what actually would more natively communicate,and then also to you have structurally in
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English the effect of and I'd haveto sit and think of this. I've
thought it would be really neat todo this linguistic to see where latinate words
have been affected by Germanic constructions.I'm sure that because this, I'm sure
this happens in the case of someverbs. Just to choose one example,
where you have verbs that across intoEuropean languages that have a prefix of some
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preposition on the front and right,it's a normal thing in a Germanic language
to sort of move that prefix tothe end of the sentence. That's why
you get this is why you'll endup with prepositions to the end of the
sentence. Right, that's that getsapplied to verbs that never were Germanic.
That just that does happen in English. I bet there are other things like
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that too, where it's like Germanicstyles of grammar, are you know somewhere
operative that make it that occlude itas well, probably though, like if
you're if you're living in a worldwhere your cognates are close that enables you
to immediately start thinking in your nativelanguage as well, and so you I
think just you're just at a bettereditorial place when you'd go from French to
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Spanish. I think, you know, thank you for that sort of factoid
from someone who's reading it in thelanguages, because I do find some of
the English translations they're torturous, butmaritime style can be tortuous sometimes, so
you know, you know, it'sthat's another issue. But probably the punctuation
scheme even is closer. I thinksometimes people don't know what to do with
Francophone punctuation because I can say thatmyself is having to deal with it in
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in people like Maritan or Jean hereVinicola. Sometimes it's like a drunken sailor
in their style right long biograph.Yes, yeah, exactly. Like I've
gone to my wife sometimes I said, God bless you know, gerald feeling
something in like of knowledge. It'sa paragraph, that's a sentence, you
know, Yeah, Valerie, whatwould you add to this before we come
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to cognate closure? You know,I'm just sitting here going, oh,
I wish I would have been alinguist, because it is fascinating to me.
But it is much of what you'resaying is kind of beyond the rim
of my my personal experience. Butyou know, I kind of hear you
saying that you think of interpretation isprimarily an immediate, mostly oral sort of
(30:45):
situation. Yeah, And the thingthat comes out in that is audience,
so you need Yeah, so youhave certain people's imaginations. Right when my
son started classical education at the ageof five, that one of the first
questions memory questions he had was,you know what is an idea? And
idea is and it you know,anything we have seen, smell, taste
(31:06):
that touched herd or thought of,you know, and and you know this
idea that communication of words are symbolsthat translate, you know, this image
and one person's mind to the imagein another person's mind. And I would
I remember drawing out little thought bubbles, you know, between stick figures to
show him how well we're trying tobuild the same image over here in this
person's mind through words, right,And yeah, just listening to all of
(31:27):
you that it just makes it justmakes me feel fascinated and wish I had
a whole other lifetimes to be alinguist. But I don't have any other
specific thoughts behind the sides that geneso free to move on. Well,
if you went to MIT, youcould enroll in the department of Philosophy and
(31:48):
Linguistics. M comes together there.Well that's there. Well, well,
now many ask you, doesn't takeus entirely away from translation, much less
interpretation, and there's a possibility hereof even some treason. But you're teaching
(32:13):
in an Eastern Catholic seminary, andcould you tell us what Western Catholics need
to understand first and foremost about EasternCatholicism, And well, how do they
both contribute in their distinctive ways tothe universal Church. It's when you grow
(32:43):
up in western western Pennsylvania that thatbeautiful land from Passaic, New Jersey to
Toledo, Ohio, right in thatarea. You take for granted that people
have been exposed to least various shadesof Eastern Catholicism. But I I've learned
that it's necessary. So I'm justcurious here, like Valerie, have you
(33:06):
been exposed to Eastern Catholicism, becauseI know Jim has pretty minimally. I
mean, I'm not sure that Idon't think I've ever been to a liturgy
around you. Yes, there aresome Where are you at I'm in Omaha,
Nebraska, Okay, Okay, soyou're you're in mission territory for the
(33:30):
East though. So yeah, thenbeing a listener of you know, I've
I listen and learn a lot aboutour faith and listen to Catholic media and
things like that. So I've learned, you know that right and left lung
analogy of the church. So yeah, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna
I mean, I'm gonna critique thelungs, but it's not your faults.
(33:50):
I used to exactly speak like this. That's be That'll be a lesson I'll
use. See, I'm doing abit of interpretation. I'm trying to hear
my audience. I'm curious as well, though, in Mario's case, because
you'll find out, like the Ukrainianshave will have a presence somewhere. Did
you have in your maybe say atleast your youth before you became you know,
a scholar about I mean, whatkind of exposure did you have to
Eastern Catholicism, Aria eachtern Catholicism.Not much? Actually not much. Yeah,
(34:19):
that's it is. It is tobe expected. I mean, there
are sections of Latin America where you'llfind you'll you'll find exposure, but not
necessarily so in some ways it's likethe elements of the Midwest. But okay,
Eastern Catholicism, first of all isin a sense a kind of misnome
or it's I mean, it's usedright, and there's a dicastro for the
Eastern Church. But to talk aboutyou know, West and East as as
(34:43):
a sort of set of blocks alreadyinccludes the fact that you actually have kind
of multiple differentiation within Eastern churches.So you know, most Catholics are at
my number, you know, RomanRoman Catholics, descending from the liturgical patrimony
of various Western rites in the LatinChurch. But you know, of course
(35:04):
in the ancient Church there were youknow, the multiple patriarchates Alexandria, Jerusalem,
Antioch, later on added Constantinople.And so there are some churches.
And so let's start with kind ofthe context out of which I even icon
some churches which are derived from reunionswith various Orthodox churches. So for instance,
(35:25):
in the Slavic world, basically fromyou know, Russian Orthodoxy, the
Ruthenian and Ukrainian Catholic churches. Overthe course of the late sixteenth century and
early seventeenth century, some subdivisions oftheir clergy came into to union with Rome,
constituting what came to be known asthe Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the
(35:50):
Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church. There weresome divisions eventually within the Ruthenian Church because
they were made up of the Ruthenianpeople of the Rusian people, who are
you know, pre the lines ofthe map were drawn differently, so there's
a mixture of people who are Transcarpathianor Western Ukrainian of descent, but also
to Polish. Slovak wrote a littlebit of Romanian and also Hungarian, and
(36:16):
so there's a Slovak Greek Catholic Churchand Hungarian Greek Catholic Church, which are
derivatives from the Carpatha, Russian orthe Ruthenian Church. But they as well
as for instance, the Melkite GreekCatholics, and then also some other Slavic
groups, Romanians, Russians, etc. Are churches that are derived ritually.
(36:40):
So as I'm making a distinction betweenchurches and rites, because each of these
churches are self ruling or sui Urishchurches with the same ritual tradition which derives
from Constantinople's liturgy codified you know,third fourth fifth century associated with you know,
the Anaphora, which would be theCanon of John Chris system or Basil
(37:04):
of Caesarea. And then you knowthe various liturgical shroudings that start to grow
around at the various semnography, theliturgy of the hours, et cetera,
and then the spiritual practices, andthen a particular theology that's going to be
more focused on the Cappadocian fathers andso forth. And so that's all sort
of what we could call Byzantine EasternCatholicism derived from Byzantium or from the Constantinopolitan
(37:30):
tradition, and there's some variation inthere. The Melchites who are this means
the King's men. It's because ofthe politics of the time. They're basically
Antiochian Orthodox who came back into unionwith Rome. They've got variations because of
more Greek influence that they had differentiatethem from the Slavs, which have either
(37:52):
influences from later Russian Orthodoxy, butalso two certain things from actually old believer
or Orthodoxy. In the case ofthe Rusinians, there are elements of older
Russian Orthodoxy that we have because ofwhen we came back into union with Rome.
So just sometimes these things where yousee our practices differ from contemporary Russian
Orthodoxy. But those groups had inAmerica a bigger footprint on the whole because
(38:17):
of the time of immigration around thecoal mining and steel industries. So I
grew up, I grew up hearingtales in my family, I mean sort
of the hatred of old man Frick, Henry Clay Frick, partner of Andrew
Carnegie, and even my stepfather whenhe was dying, I made some negative
(38:38):
remark about Frick's wealth, you know, and he said to me, you
can't hold a grudge against old manFrick, which just sounds like a weird
Western Pennsylvania conversation to have in twentytwenty two. Just a second, just
a second, Matthew, does thathave anything to do with the current anti
fracking movement? Oh no, there'sno, no freaking no. Sorry,
(39:01):
I verify that point, except forthe fact that the economy in this area
where I live, which is ispoor as a very extractive economy, and
so there's two there's two things overoverlap with each other. So you have
though from from basically, you know, because of both both of the bituminous
and anthracite coal as well as theyou know, steel industries from New Jersey
(39:22):
to Ohio and the rust belt.You have a number of various Eastern Byzantine
Catholic churches that are existent, andthen they spread out throughout the country.
But our eparchy's kind of you cantell when you look at the map that
it's it's spreading out as it getsinto the Midwest and then the West coast.
(39:44):
Now I'm not going to go intoa much detail, partly because I
only myself know such so much more, but there are other Eastern churches.
The main lines are that there arethose like the Cops who derive from Alexandria.
The Armenians sort of stand on theirown because of their their particular history
and their relationship Zoroastrianism. The uhSyriacs have there there are two different branches
(40:07):
of Syriac Christianity, Eastern which youfind in Kaldaean Christianity. So the third
number Kadians and actually Kudian Catholics inMichigan from what I understand, as well
as the Serra Malabars in India andthen Western Syriac. Eastern Catholicism is most
well known for the Maronites. Meroditesare an interesting example because they basically never
(40:29):
went out of union with Rome.They they there was sort of an indifference.
They basically weren't aware of the factthat some people thought they might have
been out of union with Rome,is how I understand it. But they
never formally are what what kind ofderisively is called uniate. That's nowadays usually
a negative term that's just used byOrthodox as a kind of slur against the
(40:52):
Eastern Catholic churches that came into unionwith Rome to be called uniates. The
Maroonite never had a kind of existencein either Calcedonian or non Calcedonian Orthodoxy.
They've always always been in union.So that's sort of a broad who are
the who are the who are theByzantines? And so that that left lung,
(41:15):
that Eastern lung has has a lotof different sacks in it. The
West has that too. Some ofthat got simplified after Trent. But now
why yeah, why is it important? Well, first and foremost you know,
and people talk about global Catholicism,Catholicism is not a single block.
And I did grow up Roman Catholic. My family is very because my mother
(41:36):
spent a lot of time with mygreat grandmother. She was influenced by kind
of Slavic Roman Catholicism. And Igrew up with parishes that we used to
refer to the Italian parish, thePolish parish, et cetera as a regular
marker. But most people attempted tothink, like, for instance, that
(41:58):
like the whole world ought to beRoman Catholic, like the Maronite's joke,
the patriarch of so the Meyroonite ornot Maroonite, but the Melkite patriarch,
the Melkite Byzantine Catholic patriarch of Antiochis named the Patriarch of all the East.
So you know, there's an argumentto be made all Chinese ought to
(42:20):
be Melchites, right, that thepresumption shouldn't be the Latin Christianity just because
it lucked into being in the Mediterraneanand being rich shouldn't be the defining mark
of what Christianity is. And itnever was. I mean, Christianity was
never born of a single context thatwas medieval Latin liturgical practice, thought,
(42:40):
et cetera. So there's a richnessto the development of ancient Christianity that that
continued to live on in a verydifferent context from the urbanized Catholicism that that
did grow out of the in TimNune's world my dissertation director of the economic
boom that began in the twelfth centuryonward. So you have in these different
(43:06):
ritual churches, you know, differentapproaches to both the liturgical year, to
devotions in prayer, and to theology. And there are there's some simplification that
people make. It's not as simpleas saying that there's just you know,
Byzantine theology that's opposed to Western theology. But there still are significant differences in
how one thinks within the context one'sprayer life in each of these each of
(43:30):
these churches. I mean, that'ssomething I've kind of had an opportunity to
grow in myself as someone who wastrained as a still as a Western Roman
Catholic, even when I was Animatomist. So for instance, there are many
Byzantine Catholics who don't care a whitabout Thomas Aquinas, where when I have
Western Catholics in school, right,like, so it's so funny. I
(43:50):
go over to I teach a littlebit for Holy Apostles online. And there
are some people for whom Thomas Aquinasis the ermeneutic context of everything. And
when I first started at the ByzantineSeminary, my seminarian would accuse me of
being too Western. And now I'vehad some corsi valves where people said,
why is he wasting his time onany of this Byzantine stuff? He should
(44:10):
keep that at the Byzantine Seminary.Not a lot say that, but but
you know, there are some peoplefor whom thinking in stimistic terms never enters
into their thought stream. Some peoplefor whom, you know, the Rosary
is just never a single thought intheir spiritual life. Some people who would
be scandalized truth be told at theidea of a Western Catholic who privileges the
(44:35):
Rosary over the Liturgy of the Hours, for instance, because it's there's no
you don't have a similar devotion thatway. There are devotions, like people
know of the Jesus prayer, butthat's very different than the Rosary. It's
kind of a practice of continually prayingthe same prayer over and over again to
focus yourself pray, basically changing changingthe whole of your life into an act
of prayer, offering to Christ andimploring his mercy. But that's kind of
(44:59):
different in the Rosary. So anyway, that was a long ramble all right
out here I have to say,and I have to say this almost almost
every every program. We've only gotten minutes left. Now, Mario,
you could pursue such matters as we'vebeen pursuing, or you could shift to
(45:22):
the triumvirent of p Thomism, maritimeand politics. Your call and me your
call. Well, I think thatMatthew touched and something which is very close
to my art and always has beenstruggling with, which is these two traditions.
(45:44):
I'm not talking about Eastern long ofthe chair, rather the tradition that
comes from New Tellurgy, in thetradition that comes from Thomism or Scholasticism.
And the reason why I ran intothis struggle was because basically I was formed
(46:08):
in this what we may call strictThomism at the beginning, and then I
joined a movement in the church,in the Western Church, which proposed mainly
a spirituality coming from the from theEast. So for me it was a
(46:31):
conflict because on one hand the authorwere Gary Goo and there are no and
many father Ramiro Spain and very classicalpromised and on the other were quite different.
And so and I always struggle howto reconcile both because that was in
(47:00):
taking in the struggling within the churchbetween because of the council and all these
ups and down. And so myquestion is do you think that what you
are doing by translating incorporating the traditionof these scholastics into English bring I don't
(47:31):
know if I can say a breachor reconciliation between these two traditions. I
personally hope. And my approach isdifferent than people like my friend Matthew Evering,
who's involved in kind of resourcement Thomism, trying to apply some of the
(47:52):
same methods of you know, thosewould be descendants of Dulubakra answers about a
Danielou or others with a sensitivity tothe sources of Thomas and things of that
source. It's just a different it'sa different approach. Which there are many
flowers in the garden, we needthem all. I personally, my experience
basically came from the fact that whenI started to really encounter Garagou Lagarange,
(48:16):
myself, being primordially in first aMaritan guy. That's how I got it.
I walked into Tomism. I sawin Geragu with the sense of mystery
what it was that Maritan saw inhim, even despite his deficiencies in many
ways. I I would hope tobe able to build a kind of like
(48:39):
bridge that ultimately probably has the inspirationof Maritan, the desire for kind of
living Tomism, which takes very seriouslythe past of the Tomistic school right.
He's indebted not only did Johnath SaintThomas, but others, but is able
to see that that kind of engagementtoday in problems not just the politics,
but you know, the question spirituality, if you think about the things he
(49:00):
did and so forth, can actuallymeet the older Tomism and find in even
older Tomists a kind of open mindedness. Geragu himself, there's there are two
sides of Gegu. Everyone knows thefootstomping. He's worried about Modernism. In
Boyard's book at during the novel theologyCrisis, right book is kind of devoted
(49:22):
to that, and most people say, oh, but he's like, you
know, he's kind of open mindedin his spiritual theology. It's very true.
I'm gonna come. I'm going toclose on that. But a lot
of his other like early philosophical writings, even early through like the thirties,
to be honest, they do breathea kind of living Tomism. It's just
muted because he's teaching in Rome.So in a sense, you know,
being there's a certain trapping of themind that happens with that. But if
(49:45):
you think of like his spiritual theology, trick be told, you can make
all sorts of connections between other schoolsof spirituality and thought within the broad orthodoxy
of traditional Christianity, which is myway of basic saying Catholics has been orthodoxy
that I think people don't appreciate.I very often have to select them carefully,
(50:09):
but I very often use selections fromhim and his teacher Guardet for my
Byzantine students to try to show themhow the theology of divinization and like someone
like Columbus Army, and even lifein Christ, how all of this has
a at least a deep resonance witha different Patristic tradition that develops in a
(50:31):
different context of spirituality. And youknow, I think that that's a way
of reading these older figures in aslightly less closed fashion that I think some
people are tempted to and some ofthe reactionary elements of the church today people
want to, you know, sortof toss back before the council to a
(50:52):
I don't know, idealized hinterland.I don't know, but I think it's
the maritime part of my soul thatactually wants to take these older figures and
show how they too are open,right, kind of there's a sort of
open way of appreciating them, evenwhile recognizing that they never There's no way
you would ever get Garigi Lagrante towrite something in the style of someone who
rejects Scholasticism in the end of histime. Right, for whatever Hauntersbaltazar does
(51:17):
with Tomism or Thomas, he's notdoing the kind of Tomism that is dear
to Maritan and Gerygu, even Sheilsant, is not yet. Gegu's more open
than his detractors would make him outto be. And I think that,
you know, that's kind of inthe end, my hope is a kind
of monstration to just say here lookat the work, you know, and
appreciate the fact that it's actually communicatingsomething open, open ended. That's I
(51:42):
think quite valuable. So I don'tknow, does that answer somewhat yes?
I think so. My sense,My sense is that the debate in the
forties and fifties in Latin America againstMarithan back and forth put him in a
play is which I, according tomy view, is in the middle,
(52:04):
if you will. In other words, he was bringing the two traditions together,
and so he was attacked on bothsides from the scholastics and accusing him
of heresy and all that, uh, and then the modern needs. But
he was in the middle. Myonly ignorance, if you will, is
(52:27):
that I don't know exactly what wasthe influence or the contact or what married
then thought about the new theology.That is completely out of my I did
some research, but he didn't findmuch about that. So he basically was
(52:47):
the OK. You gotta be sure. There are two major camps involved in
that. From the From the Dominicanside, you basically have Garago writing in
Angelica, which most of that isbasically aimed at a theory of doctrinal development
in all reyboue Art is most ofwhat he's he's kind of very vexed about
that, and Maritan actually even privatelywent to him when he was the ambassador.
(53:09):
He you know, they had sortof had their split already. He
actually visited Geragu and he has aletter that Iti and Foryuh cites in a
long write up about this. Ihave to remember to try and send you
send you that article actually where hereports Garrigu's vexed mostly about this. He
wants a condemnation of this doctrinal developmentquestion the other things that are kind of
(53:31):
broader issues, right trends. Hesays, you know, you probably can't
get a condemnation of that, buthe was very concerned and I think somewhat
rightly about this is a kind ofmodernism. Then there's the review tomast which
is actually what Meritan he was.He was allied with very clearly, with
Michelle Laberdette and others. There he'svery much The review to mist of the
(53:52):
forties is basically for you refers toit as their maritin there they're Meritonists of
the strict observers, basically openly ofa kind of maritimeian bent and so you
have some private correspondence between him andlike Charles Renee where he clearly is concerned
(54:12):
about elements in the writings that stirredthat whole conflagration up. He's he is
actually on the Tomis side. Clearlyhe wished for just a positive statement from
the pope and that's it, right, So it's sort of not a condemnation,
just a positive statement at the end. But he you know, he
has some pretty choice words about deLubac where he we cite John Kerwin and
(54:36):
I cite this. I mean,I had a double check over and over
again, talk about being afraid oftranslating something wrong to be honest. I
mean, he basically talks about acertain intellectual houteur that he thinks to Lubac
has that he says, which isthe mark unfortunately for all their good of
the of the Jesuits. That's aprivate letter, right, so you know
we should always remember we have senttext messages and emails that we don't want
(54:58):
people to see. U uh right. But yeah, but if you're thinking
his position is is very close toMichelle Laberdatt in that period, Ah friends
tempus Fuji, And because of that, I want to ask Valerie, uh,
(55:19):
one last question and then we weneed aspel for the day. We
need another another hour. That'll bea private nail and it won't mention Jesuits.
Now, Valerie, I don't meanto put you on the spot,
(55:44):
except I love to take take awaywhen your son, your loved son,
Henry asks you, what was thatall about? What might you say about
this podcast? Yes? Oh man, I'm still trying to process it.
(56:06):
To be perfectly honest, I haveto have to do some more digesting before
I could spin anything out. Butwould you say there are currents, cross
currents and dangerous currents. Yeah,I mean I found myself wanting to like,
am I give me a link,Give me a link that just gives
me a big bird's eye picture ofthese currents that we've been talking about.
These. Yeah. No, I'mworthless for my son. None of this,
(56:32):
none of us is going to bein the parish bulletin. Never all
right, Well, what isn't theparish bulletin And what is in our parishes
is always in everywhere the words ofour Lord Jesus Christ. So we have
(56:53):
the gospel from today from Luke.As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem.
He traveled through Samaria and Galilee.As he was entering a village, ten
lepers met him. They stood ata distance from him and raised their voice,
(57:13):
saying, Jesus Master, have pityon us. And when he saw
them, he said, go showyourselves to the priests. As they were
going, they were cleansed, andone of them, realizing that he had
been healed, return glorifying God ina loud voice. And he fell at
the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan, Jesus said,
(57:38):
and replied, ten were cleansed,were they not? Where are the
other? Nine? Has none?But this foreigner returned to give thanks to
God. Then he said to him, stand up and go. Your faith
has saved you. Come, Lord, Jesus, Come, thank you,
(58:01):
Thank you. In all, wehave to close Snadly's Rea Demante, I
think I just want to say thatif you have, if I had to
say some words about the theme andwhat we're talking about. It's about the
challenges of forging unity and communion withinthe beauty and gift of diversity, so
(58:23):
you know, and you're using languageand the translation of texts that help to
foster understanding and gifting with it amongminds, among peoples and cultures and time
periods, and there's huge challenges inthat, but it's such a valuable endeavor.
And so I'm thankful for what you'redoing, and I'm thankful for you
(58:43):
giving us your time. Thank it'sa good way to put it. Thank
you. So we need another hourabout the relationship between New Telogy and Thomism.
I think that's that's necessary. Manypeople are. I'm eager to hear
about that. Two weeks from today, Matthew will clear his schedule God before
(59:10):
before Christmas, at least before Christmasexactly. Yeah, all right, thank
you, Thank you very much,everybody. Thank you for listening to a
production of w c AT Radio.Please join us in our mission of evangelization,
and don't forget love lifts up whenknowledge takes flight.
You're listening to w c a TRadio, your home for authentic Catholic programming.
Welcome to the Open Door, ashow based on the words in Revelation,
I have left an open door beforeyou which no one can close.
This is w c AT Radio's longestrunning show, which opened the door to
(00:22):
the radio station in October twenty sixteen. It's currently offered by Jim Hanninck,
Mario Ramo's Reyes and Friends and remainsopen to the love of God in its
call to build a culture of lifeand a just social order. Through the
panel's discussion of the Catholic social teachingprinciples of solidarity, subsidiarity, and economic
(00:47):
democracy. The Open Door also exploresnon violence, distributism and communitarianism. So
join us at the Open Door,where you two can be part of the
conversation. Welcome to the Open Door. Jim Hannick here with fellow panelists Mario
(01:10):
Ramos, Reyes and Valerie Neimmeier.Today we discuss the art of translation,
Eastern Catholicism and the relation between tumismand resource theology. Are very special and
(01:30):
very welcome. Guest is Professor MatthewMinord. He is a Ruthenian Catholic,
raised Roman Catholic in a mixed American, Slovac and Appalachian cultural context, and
all of this in southwestern Pennsylvania.Matthew is a husband, a father,
(01:56):
a seminary professor, and a translator. Let's begin in prayer. Come,
Holy Spirit, fill the hearts ofyour faithful, and kindle in them the
fire of your love. Send forthyour spirit, and they shall be created,
(02:17):
and you shall renew the face ofthe earth. Let us pray well,
God, who have taught the heartsof the faithful by the light of
the Holy Spirit, granted in thesame spirit we may be truly wise and
ever rejoice in His consolation through frightStar Lord, Matthew, you have become
(02:46):
in recent years a distinguished translator.What's up? How did this come about?
Bye? By accident? Ah,I think I've I think I've publicly
said this before this first bit,So I don't think I'm going to get
in more trouble. But it startedbecause Tim Nuwe and my dissertation director didn't
(03:09):
answer emails quickly. We'll just say, and so I had moved to Pennsylvania,
had sent him to two copies ortwo chapters of my dissertation, and
I heard nothing for a long while. So I was adjuncting teaching, and
I started reading Reginald Geragu Lugranche's Lucinsde Mistaire Sense of Mystery, and I
(03:30):
was so struck both by the factthat, I mean, his style of
Tomism was somewhat not what I hadbeen presented with, and I think maybe
we'll talk about that a little bitlater today. And also too though I
saw all sorts of stuff that wasakin to our mutual departed friend John Deeley,
that was throughout different aspects of thechapters actually, and I just thought,
(03:52):
I'm going to go this is aninsane thing to do. I'm going
to go ahead and translate this book. So you know, I had a
I had a background in French froma research perspective, but you know,
as I once said to a Dominicanwho has some political connections, I said,
I didn't have the benefit of areligious order to pay for me to
study abroad. I come from ablue collar background, and so you know,
(04:14):
I never studied in a French contextto you know, be an active
speaker. So in a sense I'vetalked, I know a couple of other
translators for whom this is true,actually academic translators who've done a good bit
of work, where they say there'sa certain fraud aspect that you feel if
I, if I were to travelabroad, I would have to go find
a French professor and have a lotof coffee just to sort of get active
(04:34):
on my tongue. But so itstarted with that, and it basically it's
snowballed by accident. I went backto the same press and asked about working
on a couple of other translations,and that we're sort of where we're at
today, probably going to be alittle bit more selective in translating. I
mean, I did probably too much. I'm a little bit burned out at
(04:56):
this point. But also I tookonto a big, big projects, like
big books. So that's just alot whenever you have three hundred thousand words
for forever facing. But yeah,it was it was an accident of history.
Well it was fortuitous. Now currentlywe're not seen on our screen,
but he will emerge in the inthe development of things we're not seeing Mario
(05:21):
Ramos. However, Mario, Ithink, uh, light of your going
back and forth between English and Spanish, you could ask another question about this
translation process. Yes, good morningeveryone, and good morning the door.
(05:47):
Matthew. Well, what you mentionedGrigola granche I remember the days that I
went to school back in this lateseventies and he was one of the major
major our reading and his translation inspan it was very clear, very well
(06:16):
organized and so and his style wasof the handbook type of style, very
clear. But yet because of thatin the late seventies he was criticized,
precisely because of that type of style, and people began choosing a different style,
(06:40):
not even Thomism. Now with thatbackground, what do you think about
the claim that when you translate someone, you cannot translate as the in the
same spirit, in the same literallylittle meaning. Or what would be the
(07:04):
difference between being a translator and aninterpreter or there is a connection between the
two. I think it's a reallygood question, especially that last bit helps
to I think make a good distinctionbetween being a translator and an interpreter,
because you know, an interpreter hasan immediate context the people that they're interpreting
(07:26):
for, so you almost you almostimmediately put your thumb on the scales with
a kind of immediacy. When you'rean interpreter, sometimes translation is more interpretation
or less, but you're actually pointingout something. That probably is why I
had a fortuitous beginning to do thiskind of work was because his style is
is. I mean, I mightcontest that it's handbook style only in the
(07:49):
sense that he's he's not quite amanualist. So I have a kind of
beef about that, that claim aboutGarrigo, but that's not aimed at you.
His style very simple, though,and it does have a kind of
clunky I'm teaching in Rome, Iwant to be very direct and a clear,
uh, a clear expositor of theTomis tradition without a lot of frills.
(08:11):
I mean, he'll sometimes go offinto rhetorical flights, but there's something
very paratactic and direct about his stylethat makes translating in a sense not as
much. It's not just purely oneto one, but there's there's a kind
of way that it's hard to makegaragu lagrange, not when he's especially philosophical
(08:33):
and particularly philosophical and not maybe doingspiritual theology, to avoid making him clunky,
because not that one would want torender, you know, how do
I put it sometimes I have aUkrainian priest. I know he says he
speaks Ukraineish because of the mixture oflanguages, So you could do it with
French here, right, some somemixture of French and English. But that
(08:54):
that very paratactic style of his comesthrough as a little bit more directly.
I mean, it's hard to startto give him a tone without actually changing
his own, to significantly change himat times, I guess, is what
I'm trying to say. So Ithink that is what you're getting out with
the handbook style. Because something that'sinteresting is when I was translating his De
(09:16):
Revolazione, which is the closest thingto maybe like the pure manual style that
he wrote, the style in Latinis exactly the same as his French style,
and I think it's a little bitacross pollenization in both directions, that
both that the style of his lecturingat Rome is affecting his French and I
also can tell though in his styleof Latin he's thinking in French. It's
(09:39):
very clear at times that his hisdiction is in French. So you know,
doing geragu was at least how toput it, it felt more like
and it's still even years into doinghim. It felt like translating in the
sense of carrying just from one languageto another. Whereas if I were to
(10:00):
contrast that to like someone like ambroseGardet his teacher. I did a book
by him, it was much morerhetorical. And that's where you start to
feel more and more the need tobe more akin to the interpreter. I'll
say that when I did that book, I probably still wasn't confident enough to
really interpret, you know. Butyeah, anyway, I mean that's sort
(10:22):
of gone a couple of directions there, But I mean you really kind of
hit on. You hit on acouple of important things. They're both about
his style and the art of translating. And I'm sure you've experienced this whenever
you've had to interpret for people.I find it amazing to watch people live
interpret. Yes, let me touchan issue I think is very, at
(10:43):
least to me, is very important. What I'm saying about manually style is
that when you read his works,they are very clear, they are very
didactic, they are very pedagogical.It seems that he's teaching in students.
It's very clear. Now, andthen you moved to a different style which
(11:07):
came about in the seventies or latesixties, which let's say Monsignor Dondaine from
Loveine or Louispin, who were theauthor of Phenomenal, Existential of Phenomenology and
all that it's more rhetorical, moreconfusing, more poetics and so on,
(11:28):
and so there was a struggle therebetween these two styles. And what happened
then, I think, was thatif you want to understand phenomenology in this
tradition, the new tradition, whichsomehow mixed novel theology and so on,
and you before read Garrigul, youwere very capable to understand the new trend.
(11:54):
But if you just read and beginstudying with this new style is phenomenology
of phenomenologist approach, then you wentback to Godrigula other author like him,
you were you had tough time understandingthem. In other words, what is
my point god Regula. Many ofthese thinkers, scholastic thinkers, were very
(12:20):
good in giving student the foundation tounderstand more sophisticated rhetorical style. And when
that was abandoned, then Thomason becomevery confusing. And that what happened in
the eighties and nineties in Latin America. I think, I don't know if
this is a question of a rant, but oh well, it is a
(12:43):
rant that I would potentially go on. But I'm always very sensitive that as
the guy who did garagu I don'twant to come across as immediately going on
on that rant, because people havea kind of predisposition to think that it's
you know what, I mean,a bias coming through. I mean,
I do think that's correct. Anyof us have taught know this. I
mean, a didactic style is actuallysomething that's necessary, you know, even
(13:03):
in the case of phenomenology. Youknow, I was very blessed to have
a didactic phenomenology professor who is MonsignorSokolowski at c UA. But it's not
you know that it's not an easyentree if you don't have that. And
I do think that having that kindof formation by a didactic style, even
if it's in a totally different tradition, right, that's basically in a rist
(13:24):
developed Versatilian tradition, gives you thephilosophical chops to be able to jump in
to the others. I've had thisargument with someone I know who's Jean Luke
Marion scholar he reads. He readsMarion probably even reads into Marion some scholasticism,
but he reads him with a clarityeven in Marion's like, you know,
interpretations of descartes that the phenomenologists oftenI think lack because they never had
(13:50):
just sort of the basic history ofphilosophy with kind of the clarity of you
know, of conceptualization. So Idon't know. I do not know what
Marion thinks though, of the dissertationthat my my friend wrote on him.
But so I'm just affirming in adifferent way. You're your observation here,
I think, thank you. Well, I just assume chew on a rock
(14:16):
is read a phenomenologist. However,however, I'm going to turn the turn
the mic offert to somebody more dispassionateand sensitive, Colorie. What do you
(14:37):
think about all of this? Andwhat question do you have foremost in mind?
I was going to say, howdo you really feel about that?
Jim? I'm a bit of arookie in the room. I mean,
I am, you know, Ihave I don't know, two thirds of
a degree masters in theology, butno, no, no formal philosophy.
I speak Spanish was my second language, did live abroad done, you know,
(15:00):
good amount of interpreting in like amedical setting, but a lot of
this is over my head. SoI'm kind of inclined to to kind of
lay some foundation, a little bitmore of a foundation for people who like
me are kind of like, whatis all this a I'm really curious what
your background is in French. Youmentioned you you used it in a more
research context. You know, wasit your or what was your what was
(15:24):
your for right into the French language? And how did you get to the
point where you could do translation?Secondly, you know, defining terms a
little bit. I'm not sure I'mreally clear on the difference between translation and
interpretation, and if you could helpus with that, that would be great.
And uh, thirdly, you know, is there is there hope,
uh for a translator from one languageand culture to another to really be able
(15:48):
to I mean, you know,some would say that, you know,
to translate is to betray, asJim put it in the in the sort
of questions as we were preparing fortoday, and he put a little Latin
phrase in here that I know nothingabout. Is are so tell us what
you think about I guess maybe there'sa lot of stuff that I'm throwing your
way to Yeah, I mean,you know I didn't mean to, you
(16:12):
know, say, everyone who's livedabroad sort of has had the silver spoon
in their mouth. That wasn't myclaim. It was just very much it
was very much directed against a contextwhere it was you know, some Dominicans,
I knew who they were sending awayso they could stay, you know,
they could basically draw on their institutionalresources to be able to you know,
learn to speak the language. Imean, in the case of French,
both French and Latin, which I'vetranslated from. I mean, it
(16:34):
goes back to like what I studiedeven in high school is where it kind
of all started. I really fellin love with Latin. Actually in high
school. I wanted to be alinguist, but my parents would have nothing
of that or music. So Iended up being a computer science undergraduate major
because I came from to two bluecollar of a background and they would have
murdered me. So, I mean, I had a second second major in
(16:55):
theology, but I had something practical, and then I burned my career by
becoming a monk for a couple ofyears, so that ended. So you
know, then I did I didsome both in the course of my graduate
studies and sort of some external programsas well in the languages in French and
Latin. Just you know, it'skind of course, kind of standard of
(17:18):
course going along the way for mylicension or my masters, and I'll admit
I just from there I was.I was a beneficiary probably the fact that
the digital tools were better. They'renot like they are now, but at
least having some significant digital tools forparallels on difficult things enabled me to fill
in some you know, the wholesof you know, I did a good
(17:42):
bit of translating for my masters,because I did my masters on Maritan.
So I just recently went through somenotes of mine looking up some things,
and I forgot there were texts Ididn't known. As a graduate student,
I only had the French edition offrom Somewhere, and so you know that
I had all these translations from there. So you know, I just slowly
but surely with over the course ofmy studies honed it that way. But
(18:02):
I did benefit from coming in it. It's sort of truth be told,
what might be the tail end ofnormal translation because of what it's like now,
because it's changed immensely since I evenstarted the AI tools now are such
just in the last half year thatone current project I'm working on. I
add it not because it's I meanyou know, I mean not because I
(18:25):
necessarily quote unquote have to. Butin a sense it lets my brain get
into English more quickly because I cando scaffolding and then just have a parallel
so it becomes more like checking.I've done work where I've checked someone's someone
who's bilingual, and I've checked theirEnglish for them, so I'm checking it
against their their original So I'm kindof in that brain space nowadays. I
use a tool actually where I touchup a PDF, get it into a
(18:45):
word document, and I have itprocessed the whole thing. For me.
This is very new. This isactually just I've just started this though,
so we'll see see if I getfrustrated and go back to the older.
Yeah. So, like I said, it's sort of it really is.
I say it's an accident. Ido feel like it is. I had
a propensity, I think, forthis, and I wanted to do something
along these lines. It was likea nerdy kid who liked Tolkien, right,
(19:08):
so I wanted to be like him. But it really was that kind
of that kind of accident through justgraduate studies, and I just did a
ton of translating, Like I justtoday ran across fifty thousand words of Latin
that I forgot, forgot I translated. I don't even remember how time.
I had a lot going on,but it was back in like twenty eighteen,
(19:30):
some stuff from a manual that Ipartially translated for someone else, and
then I was interested in the otherstuff and I just sort of translated it
at a letter teaching load at theseminary. I guess my wife's a very
indulgent woman. So yeah, now, you know, So that makes me
think I was thinking when I wastalking about the tools nowadays interpretation. I
(19:52):
don't know. I'm not like atheorist, right in a sense I do.
I just have done the work.I'm not theorized about it. But
I think repretation is more akin asa skill to teaching in the in the
sense that you're hyper focused if you'reinterpreting and you're trying to figure out what's
going to work for your audience,and you imagine, you know, imagine,
(20:15):
I remember sitting I was a monkbecause of Benedictine. We were traveling.
One of my conferences was interpreting thisvery active eighty year old, eighty
five year old bishop who was veryenergetic, speaking like an Italian half with
his hands, you know, andhe kept going, going, going.
(20:36):
So it wasn't so much that FatherStephen. He was very able in Italian.
He spent a lot of time Ithink at cafes while he was studying.
I joke to him, but itwasn't a question of dumbing things down
for the students who were on thetrip and the others. But the situation
called for effectively trying to get theseideas out in the way that he was
(20:56):
going to be able to do it, because you only have so much of
an et coup for dealing with theperson. Because in this situation, given
the circumstances, I'm interpreting this veryfast talking and active bishop for this group
in a way that guess what,I'm not going be able to stop and
slow him down. I mean,because he kind of I think even might
have tried a couple times. Thenthe guy just kept doing it. Now
(21:18):
that's different than saying, oh,I'm interpreting this for maybe a group that
doesn't have the knowledge, But Ithink that's still the kind of task of
interpretation as well. There's just thissituatedness that reminds me of what teaching is,
like translating key, I mean translatingisn't they're not I don't think they
totally. They don't totally. They'renot totally desperate on the Venn diagrams,
(21:38):
right, they do overlap. Youknow, to translate is to carry across.
And I mean ultimately you want tobasically, if you're doing academic work,
you want to elicit. Let's putit this way, Here's how I've
thought of it in Garagu. Willset aside the other people. I want
to elicit the same ideas and thesame tradition, generally speaking of vocabulary in
(22:00):
the person who reads it. Andso that might require a kind of directness,
but it also you know, atcertain key moments it requires you not
to just fall into talking like ascholastic, because I need the person who's
reading in English to be able tobasically think with the tradition. And it's
really difficult because I know a translationof for instance, Cadjutant's commentary on the
(22:22):
Summa Theologia is coming out and it'sin a more analytic vocabulary, and I
understand why the person did that,and it's going to have a use.
But the risk if you do somethinglike that is that you're not going to,
however, tie the person into thetradition of vocabulary that you're trying to
convey, which is very important inthis kind of academic tomism, which is
(22:44):
mostly where I started at least nowliterature, I've done some spiritual rhetoric,
which is akin to that literature.Is that's a tougher beast, right,
I mean, that's why all ofa sudden idiom I'm a big for I'll
forgive everyone for falling into idiom innative language, except where the idiom misses
something that's in the metaphorical resonance ofthe original. Right, Because if you
(23:07):
slip into an idiom in English forsome expression, and however the idiom in
French is tied up with some otherthings going on, I mean, you
get yourself into a rat's nest oftranslational issues. I feel like, I
mean, I guess is it translationor is it interpretation and translating the idea,
the sentiment, the et cetera.I'd have to think more about it.
(23:32):
Like I said, for a kindof literary translation, and you know,
truth be told, I probably i'dnever myself put my shoulder to that
right, unless it's spiritual literature,just because I do know my background and
that's not my that's not gonna bemy forte. So I'm not sure i've
It's like, I don't think youcan pull those apart. I'm not sure
I've distinguished them clearly. I thinkthat you grasp something of the difference of
(23:53):
interpretation when you think of the edgecase of someone like that Bishop story,
betrayal happens. Though betrayal does happen. I've had people get on my case
because I've I've occasionally had to keepLatin in my translation because at a certain
point I just said, it's soscholastic that if I say this in a
(24:15):
in a philosophical language of tast's goingto be misunderstood. So I'd rather almost
catch the mind of the reader.Think about some Heideger translations can be like
this. I mean, it's it'shis own style. Kind of is hard,
but I think you have to almostpush the person to get into his
mind. But you know, thereare other times too, though, where
I've I've interpreted away from the scholasticterminology, and I've had people come come
(24:37):
at me, you know, justhere. Here's one stupid little example that
very recently a student was arguing withme about online. Was the bonoman estum
I've just I've just fallen into.I say fitting good because there was a
translation of it by Austin Woodburray,who was a student of Geragu, and
so everyone in that line that's relatedto Geragu. I just say fitting good
(25:00):
because I want the idea of agood in itself and the moral good,
the honest good, et cetera.I don't think quite catches that. But
you can never translate the word bonamanestam just never finds its way into English
in a way that's acceptable. Andso you can do one or two things.
You can either judge every translator whoputs their thumb on the scale,
(25:22):
or if you've done enough work,you learn not to be a pedant.
I don't have a lot I have. I don't have a ton of patience
for the people who just jump downtranslator's throats if they do something that's somewhat
understandable. And I've not had thathappen to me in tons that's not based
on too many of my wounds.But sorry, I'm like an extravert whole
just who will bloviate. I'm sorry, So now, I Jim, just
(25:47):
one thing you said, I thinkis what is your view on that?
If you have, let's say,in my case, Mark ten read writings
in French, and what happened tome has has been very curious because when
(26:08):
I read the translation into English andthen I read the translation into Spanish of
Marithien in French, I read,I understand French. So I find easy
for me to understand Marithien in Spanishthan in English, and I think it's
(26:30):
more faithful in Spanish than in English. I assume that it is because Spanish,
like French are Latin languages, andso it's easier for the translator to
translate that particular piece and in particularbooks. I mean, you can put
(26:52):
aside the quality of the writing Marithime. Sometimes it's very convoluted. But again
it seems to me that in thatcase, Spanish is more faithful to the
texts than English, which it seemsto some translation or a different structure.
What do you think about this,this phenomenon review? Will? Is that
(27:15):
possible? Yeah? I do.I think it's probably it's probably on two
levels. I mean, English issuch an odd language because this mixture of
German and Romance languages. So firstof all, one of the things that
I think tempts a lazy translator,and the lazy translator sleeps in all of
us. So that's you know,self accusation is that the use of cognates
(27:40):
from French to English just can cancontempt you in a way that actually it
doesn't help. Right, So thereare cognate words that I think, probably
out of French into Spanish are closerto true cognates. They're true in semant
there's true in their semantic cognate thatit's just first of all, translateing the
idea better, and so it's justgoing to structure. Everything's gonna work better
if you've got the right ideas municated. Whereas there's been drift in English because
(28:03):
you've had kind of cross pollenization ofI mean, there's all sorts of stuff
that's gone on, like all theLatinate stuff that we have is basically high
culture language in English, or atleast it's tended toward to be more the
mark of a high cultured language thanthe Anglo saxon stuff, which maybe is
what actually would more natively communicate,and then also to you have structurally in
(28:25):
English the effect of and I'd haveto sit and think of this. I've
thought it would be really neat todo this linguistic to see where latinate words
have been affected by Germanic constructions.I'm sure that because this, I'm sure
this happens in the case of someverbs. Just to choose one example,
where you have verbs that across intoEuropean languages that have a prefix of some
(28:47):
preposition on the front and right,it's a normal thing in a Germanic language
to sort of move that prefix tothe end of the sentence. That's why
you get this is why you'll endup with prepositions to the end of the
sentence. Right, that's that getsapplied to verbs that never were Germanic.
That just that does happen in English. I bet there are other things like
(29:07):
that too, where it's like Germanicstyles of grammar, are you know somewhere
operative that make it that occlude itas well, probably though, like if
you're if you're living in a worldwhere your cognates are close that enables you
to immediately start thinking in your nativelanguage as well, and so you I
think just you're just at a bettereditorial place when you'd go from French to
(29:29):
Spanish. I think, you know, thank you for that sort of factoid
from someone who's reading it in thelanguages, because I do find some of
the English translations they're torturous, butmaritime style can be tortuous sometimes, so
you know, you know, it'sthat's another issue. But probably the punctuation
scheme even is closer. I thinksometimes people don't know what to do with
Francophone punctuation because I can say thatmyself is having to deal with it in
(29:55):
in people like Maritan or Jean hereVinicola. Sometimes it's like a drunken sailor
in their style right long biograph.Yes, yeah, exactly. Like I've
gone to my wife sometimes I said, God bless you know, gerald feeling
something in like of knowledge. It'sa paragraph, that's a sentence, you
know, Yeah, Valerie, whatwould you add to this before we come
(30:21):
to cognate closure? You know,I'm just sitting here going, oh,
I wish I would have been alinguist, because it is fascinating to me.
But it is much of what you'resaying is kind of beyond the rim
of my my personal experience. Butyou know, I kind of hear you
saying that you think of interpretation isprimarily an immediate, mostly oral sort of
(30:45):
situation. Yeah, And the thingthat comes out in that is audience,
so you need Yeah, so youhave certain people's imaginations. Right when my
son started classical education at the ageof five, that one of the first
questions memory questions he had was,you know what is an idea? And
idea is and it you know,anything we have seen, smell, taste
(31:06):
that touched herd or thought of,you know, and and you know this
idea that communication of words are symbolsthat translate, you know, this image
and one person's mind to the imagein another person's mind. And I would
I remember drawing out little thought bubbles, you know, between stick figures to
show him how well we're trying tobuild the same image over here in this
person's mind through words, right,And yeah, just listening to all of
(31:27):
you that it just makes it justmakes me feel fascinated and wish I had
a whole other lifetimes to be alinguist. But I don't have any other
specific thoughts behind the sides that geneso free to move on. Well,
if you went to MIT, youcould enroll in the department of Philosophy and
(31:48):
Linguistics. M comes together there.Well that's there. Well, well,
now many ask you, doesn't takeus entirely away from translation, much less
interpretation, and there's a possibility hereof even some treason. But you're teaching
(32:13):
in an Eastern Catholic seminary, andcould you tell us what Western Catholics need
to understand first and foremost about EasternCatholicism, And well, how do they
both contribute in their distinctive ways tothe universal Church. It's when you grow
(32:43):
up in western western Pennsylvania that thatbeautiful land from Passaic, New Jersey to
Toledo, Ohio, right in thatarea. You take for granted that people
have been exposed to least various shadesof Eastern Catholicism. But I I've learned
that it's necessary. So I'm justcurious here, like Valerie, have you
(33:06):
been exposed to Eastern Catholicism, becauseI know Jim has pretty minimally. I
mean, I'm not sure that Idon't think I've ever been to a liturgy
around you. Yes, there aresome Where are you at I'm in Omaha,
Nebraska, Okay, Okay, soyou're you're in mission territory for the
(33:30):
East though. So yeah, thenbeing a listener of you know, I've
I listen and learn a lot aboutour faith and listen to Catholic media and
things like that. So I've learned, you know that right and left lung
analogy of the church. So yeah, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna
I mean, I'm gonna critique thelungs, but it's not your faults.
(33:50):
I used to exactly speak like this. That's be That'll be a lesson I'll
use. See, I'm doing abit of interpretation. I'm trying to hear
my audience. I'm curious as well, though, in Mario's case, because
you'll find out, like the Ukrainianshave will have a presence somewhere. Did
you have in your maybe say atleast your youth before you became you know,
a scholar about I mean, whatkind of exposure did you have to
Eastern Catholicism, Aria eachtern Catholicism.Not much? Actually not much. Yeah,
(34:19):
that's it is. It is tobe expected. I mean, there
are sections of Latin America where you'llfind you'll you'll find exposure, but not
necessarily so in some ways it's likethe elements of the Midwest. But okay,
Eastern Catholicism, first of all isin a sense a kind of misnome
or it's I mean, it's usedright, and there's a dicastro for the
Eastern Church. But to talk aboutyou know, West and East as as
(34:43):
a sort of set of blocks alreadyinccludes the fact that you actually have kind
of multiple differentiation within Eastern churches.So you know, most Catholics are at
my number, you know, RomanRoman Catholics, descending from the liturgical patrimony
of various Western rites in the LatinChurch. But you know, of course
(35:04):
in the ancient Church there were youknow, the multiple patriarchates Alexandria, Jerusalem,
Antioch, later on added Constantinople.And so there are some churches.
And so let's start with kind ofthe context out of which I even icon
some churches which are derived from reunionswith various Orthodox churches. So for instance,
(35:25):
in the Slavic world, basically fromyou know, Russian Orthodoxy, the
Ruthenian and Ukrainian Catholic churches. Overthe course of the late sixteenth century and
early seventeenth century, some subdivisions oftheir clergy came into to union with Rome,
constituting what came to be known asthe Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the
(35:50):
Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church. There weresome divisions eventually within the Ruthenian Church because
they were made up of the Ruthenianpeople of the Rusian people, who are
you know, pre the lines ofthe map were drawn differently, so there's
a mixture of people who are Transcarpathianor Western Ukrainian of descent, but also
to Polish. Slovak wrote a littlebit of Romanian and also Hungarian, and
(36:16):
so there's a Slovak Greek Catholic Churchand Hungarian Greek Catholic Church, which are
derivatives from the Carpatha, Russian orthe Ruthenian Church. But they as well
as for instance, the Melkite GreekCatholics, and then also some other Slavic
groups, Romanians, Russians, etc. Are churches that are derived ritually.
(36:40):
So as I'm making a distinction betweenchurches and rites, because each of these
churches are self ruling or sui Urishchurches with the same ritual tradition which derives
from Constantinople's liturgy codified you know,third fourth fifth century associated with you know,
the Anaphora, which would be theCanon of John Chris system or Basil
(37:04):
of Caesarea. And then you knowthe various liturgical shroudings that start to grow
around at the various semnography, theliturgy of the hours, et cetera,
and then the spiritual practices, andthen a particular theology that's going to be
more focused on the Cappadocian fathers andso forth. And so that's all sort
of what we could call Byzantine EasternCatholicism derived from Byzantium or from the Constantinopolitan
(37:30):
tradition, and there's some variation inthere. The Melchites who are this means
the King's men. It's because ofthe politics of the time. They're basically
Antiochian Orthodox who came back into unionwith Rome. They've got variations because of
more Greek influence that they had differentiatethem from the Slavs, which have either
(37:52):
influences from later Russian Orthodoxy, butalso two certain things from actually old believer
or Orthodoxy. In the case ofthe Rusinians, there are elements of older
Russian Orthodoxy that we have because ofwhen we came back into union with Rome.
So just sometimes these things where yousee our practices differ from contemporary Russian
Orthodoxy. But those groups had inAmerica a bigger footprint on the whole because
(38:17):
of the time of immigration around thecoal mining and steel industries. So I
grew up, I grew up hearingtales in my family, I mean sort
of the hatred of old man Frick, Henry Clay Frick, partner of Andrew
Carnegie, and even my stepfather whenhe was dying, I made some negative
(38:38):
remark about Frick's wealth, you know, and he said to me, you
can't hold a grudge against old manFrick, which just sounds like a weird
Western Pennsylvania conversation to have in twentytwenty two. Just a second, just
a second, Matthew, does thathave anything to do with the current anti
fracking movement? Oh no, there'sno, no freaking no. Sorry,
(39:01):
I verify that point, except forthe fact that the economy in this area
where I live, which is ispoor as a very extractive economy, and
so there's two there's two things overoverlap with each other. So you have
though from from basically, you know, because of both both of the bituminous
and anthracite coal as well as theyou know, steel industries from New Jersey
(39:22):
to Ohio and the rust belt.You have a number of various Eastern Byzantine
Catholic churches that are existent, andthen they spread out throughout the country.
But our eparchy's kind of you cantell when you look at the map that
it's it's spreading out as it getsinto the Midwest and then the West coast.
(39:44):
Now I'm not going to go intoa much detail, partly because I
only myself know such so much more, but there are other Eastern churches.
The main lines are that there arethose like the Cops who derive from Alexandria.
The Armenians sort of stand on theirown because of their their particular history
and their relationship Zoroastrianism. The uhSyriacs have there there are two different branches
(40:07):
of Syriac Christianity, Eastern which youfind in Kaldaean Christianity. So the third
number Kadians and actually Kudian Catholics inMichigan from what I understand, as well
as the Serra Malabars in India andthen Western Syriac. Eastern Catholicism is most
well known for the Maronites. Meroditesare an interesting example because they basically never
(40:29):
went out of union with Rome.They they there was sort of an indifference.
They basically weren't aware of the factthat some people thought they might have
been out of union with Rome,is how I understand it. But they
never formally are what what kind ofderisively is called uniate. That's nowadays usually
a negative term that's just used byOrthodox as a kind of slur against the
(40:52):
Eastern Catholic churches that came into unionwith Rome to be called uniates. The
Maroonite never had a kind of existencein either Calcedonian or non Calcedonian Orthodoxy.
They've always always been in union.So that's sort of a broad who are
the who are the who are theByzantines? And so that that left lung,
(41:15):
that Eastern lung has has a lotof different sacks in it. The
West has that too. Some ofthat got simplified after Trent. But now
why yeah, why is it important? Well, first and foremost you know,
and people talk about global Catholicism,Catholicism is not a single block.
And I did grow up Roman Catholic. My family is very because my mother
(41:36):
spent a lot of time with mygreat grandmother. She was influenced by kind
of Slavic Roman Catholicism. And Igrew up with parishes that we used to
refer to the Italian parish, thePolish parish, et cetera as a regular
marker. But most people attempted tothink, like, for instance, that
(41:58):
like the whole world ought to beRoman Catholic, like the Maronite's joke,
the patriarch of so the Meyroonite ornot Maroonite, but the Melkite patriarch,
the Melkite Byzantine Catholic patriarch of Antiochis named the Patriarch of all the East.
So you know, there's an argumentto be made all Chinese ought to
(42:20):
be Melchites, right, that thepresumption shouldn't be the Latin Christianity just because
it lucked into being in the Mediterraneanand being rich shouldn't be the defining mark
of what Christianity is. And itnever was. I mean, Christianity was
never born of a single context thatwas medieval Latin liturgical practice, thought,
(42:40):
et cetera. So there's a richnessto the development of ancient Christianity that that
continued to live on in a verydifferent context from the urbanized Catholicism that that
did grow out of the in TimNune's world my dissertation director of the economic
boom that began in the twelfth centuryonward. So you have in these different
(43:06):
ritual churches, you know, differentapproaches to both the liturgical year, to
devotions in prayer, and to theology. And there are there's some simplification that
people make. It's not as simpleas saying that there's just you know,
Byzantine theology that's opposed to Western theology. But there still are significant differences in
how one thinks within the context one'sprayer life in each of these each of
(43:30):
these churches. I mean, that'ssomething I've kind of had an opportunity to
grow in myself as someone who wastrained as a still as a Western Roman
Catholic, even when I was Animatomist. So for instance, there are many
Byzantine Catholics who don't care a whitabout Thomas Aquinas, where when I have
Western Catholics in school, right,like, so it's so funny. I
(43:50):
go over to I teach a littlebit for Holy Apostles online. And there
are some people for whom Thomas Aquinasis the ermeneutic context of everything. And
when I first started at the ByzantineSeminary, my seminarian would accuse me of
being too Western. And now I'vehad some corsi valves where people said,
why is he wasting his time onany of this Byzantine stuff? He should
(44:10):
keep that at the Byzantine Seminary.Not a lot say that, but but
you know, there are some peoplefor whom thinking in stimistic terms never enters
into their thought stream. Some peoplefor whom, you know, the Rosary
is just never a single thought intheir spiritual life. Some people who would
be scandalized truth be told at theidea of a Western Catholic who privileges the
(44:35):
Rosary over the Liturgy of the Hours, for instance, because it's there's no
you don't have a similar devotion thatway. There are devotions, like people
know of the Jesus prayer, butthat's very different than the Rosary. It's
kind of a practice of continually prayingthe same prayer over and over again to
focus yourself pray, basically changing changingthe whole of your life into an act
of prayer, offering to Christ andimploring his mercy. But that's kind of
(44:59):
different in the Rosary. So anyway, that was a long ramble all right
out here I have to say,and I have to say this almost almost
every every program. We've only gotten minutes left. Now, Mario,
you could pursue such matters as we'vebeen pursuing, or you could shift to
(45:22):
the triumvirent of p Thomism, maritimeand politics. Your call and me your
call. Well, I think thatMatthew touched and something which is very close
to my art and always has beenstruggling with, which is these two traditions.
(45:44):
I'm not talking about Eastern long ofthe chair, rather the tradition that
comes from New Tellurgy, in thetradition that comes from Thomism or Scholasticism.
And the reason why I ran intothis struggle was because basically I was formed
(46:08):
in this what we may call strictThomism at the beginning, and then I
joined a movement in the church,in the Western Church, which proposed mainly
a spirituality coming from the from theEast. So for me it was a
(46:31):
conflict because on one hand the authorwere Gary Goo and there are no and
many father Ramiro Spain and very classicalpromised and on the other were quite different.
And so and I always struggle howto reconcile both because that was in
(47:00):
taking in the struggling within the churchbetween because of the council and all these
ups and down. And so myquestion is do you think that what you
are doing by translating incorporating the traditionof these scholastics into English bring I don't
(47:31):
know if I can say a breachor reconciliation between these two traditions. I
personally hope. And my approach isdifferent than people like my friend Matthew Evering,
who's involved in kind of resourcement Thomism, trying to apply some of the
(47:52):
same methods of you know, thosewould be descendants of Dulubakra answers about a
Danielou or others with a sensitivity tothe sources of Thomas and things of that
source. It's just a different it'sa different approach. Which there are many
flowers in the garden, we needthem all. I personally, my experience
basically came from the fact that whenI started to really encounter Garagou Lagarange,
(48:16):
myself, being primordially in first aMaritan guy. That's how I got it.
I walked into Tomism. I sawin Geragu with the sense of mystery
what it was that Maritan saw inhim, even despite his deficiencies in many
ways. I I would hope tobe able to build a kind of like
(48:39):
bridge that ultimately probably has the inspirationof Maritan, the desire for kind of
living Tomism, which takes very seriouslythe past of the Tomistic school right.
He's indebted not only did Johnath SaintThomas, but others, but is able
to see that that kind of engagementtoday in problems not just the politics,
but you know, the question spirituality, if you think about the things he
(49:00):
did and so forth, can actuallymeet the older Tomism and find in even
older Tomists a kind of open mindedness. Geragu himself, there's there are two
sides of Gegu. Everyone knows thefootstomping. He's worried about Modernism. In
Boyard's book at during the novel theologyCrisis, right book is kind of devoted
(49:22):
to that, and most people say, oh, but he's like, you
know, he's kind of open mindedin his spiritual theology. It's very true.
I'm gonna come. I'm going toclose on that. But a lot
of his other like early philosophical writings, even early through like the thirties,
to be honest, they do breathea kind of living Tomism. It's just
muted because he's teaching in Rome.So in a sense, you know,
being there's a certain trapping of themind that happens with that. But if
(49:45):
you think of like his spiritual theology, trick be told, you can make
all sorts of connections between other schoolsof spirituality and thought within the broad orthodoxy
of traditional Christianity, which is myway of basic saying Catholics has been orthodoxy
that I think people don't appreciate.I very often have to select them carefully,
(50:09):
but I very often use selections fromhim and his teacher Guardet for my
Byzantine students to try to show themhow the theology of divinization and like someone
like Columbus Army, and even lifein Christ, how all of this has
a at least a deep resonance witha different Patristic tradition that develops in a
(50:31):
different context of spirituality. And youknow, I think that that's a way
of reading these older figures in aslightly less closed fashion that I think some
people are tempted to and some ofthe reactionary elements of the church today people
want to, you know, sortof toss back before the council to a
(50:52):
I don't know, idealized hinterland.I don't know, but I think it's
the maritime part of my soul thatactually wants to take these older figures and
show how they too are open,right, kind of there's a sort of
open way of appreciating them, evenwhile recognizing that they never There's no way
you would ever get Garigi Lagrante towrite something in the style of someone who
rejects Scholasticism in the end of histime. Right, for whatever Hauntersbaltazar does
(51:17):
with Tomism or Thomas, he's notdoing the kind of Tomism that is dear
to Maritan and Gerygu, even Sheilsant, is not yet. Gegu's more open
than his detractors would make him outto be. And I think that,
you know, that's kind of inthe end, my hope is a kind
of monstration to just say here lookat the work, you know, and
appreciate the fact that it's actually communicatingsomething open, open ended. That's I
(51:42):
think quite valuable. So I don'tknow, does that answer somewhat yes?
I think so. My sense,My sense is that the debate in the
forties and fifties in Latin America againstMarithan back and forth put him in a
play is which I, according tomy view, is in the middle,
(52:04):
if you will. In other words, he was bringing the two traditions together,
and so he was attacked on bothsides from the scholastics and accusing him
of heresy and all that, uh, and then the modern needs. But
he was in the middle. Myonly ignorance, if you will, is
(52:27):
that I don't know exactly what wasthe influence or the contact or what married
then thought about the new theology.That is completely out of my I did
some research, but he didn't findmuch about that. So he basically was
(52:47):
the OK. You gotta be sure. There are two major camps involved in
that. From the From the Dominicanside, you basically have Garago writing in
Angelica, which most of that isbasically aimed at a theory of doctrinal development
in all reyboue Art is most ofwhat he's he's kind of very vexed about
that, and Maritan actually even privatelywent to him when he was the ambassador.
(53:09):
He you know, they had sortof had their split already. He
actually visited Geragu and he has aletter that Iti and Foryuh cites in a
long write up about this. Ihave to remember to try and send you
send you that article actually where hereports Garrigu's vexed mostly about this. He
wants a condemnation of this doctrinal developmentquestion the other things that are kind of
(53:31):
broader issues, right trends. Hesays, you know, you probably can't
get a condemnation of that, buthe was very concerned and I think somewhat
rightly about this is a kind ofmodernism. Then there's the review tomast which
is actually what Meritan he was.He was allied with very clearly, with
Michelle Laberdette and others. There he'svery much The review to mist of the
(53:52):
forties is basically for you refers toit as their maritin there they're Meritonists of
the strict observers, basically openly ofa kind of maritimeian bent and so you
have some private correspondence between him andlike Charles Renee where he clearly is concerned
(54:12):
about elements in the writings that stirredthat whole conflagration up. He's he is
actually on the Tomis side. Clearlyhe wished for just a positive statement from
the pope and that's it, right, So it's sort of not a condemnation,
just a positive statement at the end. But he you know, he
has some pretty choice words about deLubac where he we cite John Kerwin and
(54:36):
I cite this. I mean,I had a double check over and over
again, talk about being afraid oftranslating something wrong to be honest. I
mean, he basically talks about acertain intellectual houteur that he thinks to Lubac
has that he says, which isthe mark unfortunately for all their good of
the of the Jesuits. That's aprivate letter, right, so you know
we should always remember we have senttext messages and emails that we don't want
(54:58):
people to see. U uh right. But yeah, but if you're thinking
his position is is very close toMichelle Laberdatt in that period, Ah friends
tempus Fuji, And because of that, I want to ask Valerie, uh,
(55:19):
one last question and then we weneed aspel for the day. We
need another another hour. That'll bea private nail and it won't mention Jesuits.
Now, Valerie, I don't meanto put you on the spot,
(55:44):
except I love to take take awaywhen your son, your loved son,
Henry asks you, what was thatall about? What might you say about
this podcast? Yes? Oh man, I'm still trying to process it.
(56:06):
To be perfectly honest, I haveto have to do some more digesting before
I could spin anything out. Butwould you say there are currents, cross
currents and dangerous currents. Yeah,I mean I found myself wanting to like,
am I give me a link,Give me a link that just gives
me a big bird's eye picture ofthese currents that we've been talking about.
These. Yeah. No, I'mworthless for my son. None of this,
(56:32):
none of us is going to bein the parish bulletin. Never all
right, Well, what isn't theparish bulletin And what is in our parishes
is always in everywhere the words ofour Lord Jesus Christ. So we have
(56:53):
the gospel from today from Luke.As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem.
He traveled through Samaria and Galilee.As he was entering a village, ten
lepers met him. They stood ata distance from him and raised their voice,
(57:13):
saying, Jesus Master, have pityon us. And when he saw
them, he said, go showyourselves to the priests. As they were
going, they were cleansed, andone of them, realizing that he had
been healed, return glorifying God ina loud voice. And he fell at
the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan, Jesus said,
(57:38):
and replied, ten were cleansed,were they not? Where are the
other? Nine? Has none?But this foreigner returned to give thanks to
God. Then he said to him, stand up and go. Your faith
has saved you. Come, Lord, Jesus, Come, thank you,
(58:01):
Thank you. In all, wehave to close Snadly's Rea Demante, I
think I just want to say thatif you have, if I had to
say some words about the theme andwhat we're talking about. It's about the
challenges of forging unity and communion withinthe beauty and gift of diversity, so
(58:23):
you know, and you're using languageand the translation of texts that help to
foster understanding and gifting with it amongminds, among peoples and cultures and time
periods, and there's huge challenges inthat, but it's such a valuable endeavor.
And so I'm thankful for what you'redoing, and I'm thankful for you
(58:43):
giving us your time. Thank it'sa good way to put it. Thank
you. So we need another hourabout the relationship between New Telogy and Thomism.
I think that's that's necessary. Manypeople are. I'm eager to hear
about that. Two weeks from today, Matthew will clear his schedule God before
(59:10):
before Christmas, at least before Christmasexactly. Yeah, all right, thank
you, Thank you very much,everybody. Thank you for listening to a
production of w c AT Radio.Please join us in our mission of evangelization,
and don't forget love lifts up whenknowledge takes flight.
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