4.
Historical Judgement and Theological Judgement
The determination of the wrongs of the past,
for which amends are to be made, implies, first of all, a correct historical
judgement, which is also the foundation of the theological evaluation. One must
ask: What precisely occurred? What exactly was said and done? Only when these
questions are adequately answered through rigorous historical analysis can one
then ask whether what happened, what was said or done, can been understood as
consistent with the Gospel, and, if it cannot, whether the Church’s sons and
daughters who acted in such a way could have recognised this, given the context
in which they acted. Only when there is moral certainty that what was done in
contradiction to the Gospel in the name of the Church by certain of her sons
and daughters could have been understood by them as such and avoided, can it
have significance for the Church of today to make amends for faults of the
past.
The relationship between “historical
judgement” and “theological judgement” is therefore as complex as it is
necessary and determinative. For this reason, it is necessary to undertake it
without falsehoods on one side or the other. Both an apologetics that seeks to
justify everything and an unwarranted laying of blame, based on historically
untenable attributions of responsibility, must be avoided. John Paul II,
referring to the historical-theological evaluation of the work of the
Inquisition, stated: “The Church’s Magisterium certainly may not intend to
perform an act of natural ethics, which the request for pardon is, without
first being exactly informed concerning the situation of that time. But, at the
same time, neither may it rely on images of the past steered by public opinion,
since these are frequently highly charged with passionate emotion which impedes
serene and objective diagnosis… This is the reason why the first step consists
in asking the historians, not to furnish a judgement of natural ethics, which
would exceed the area of their competence, but to offer help toward a
reconstruction, as precise as possible, of the events, of the customs, of the
mentality of the time, in the light of historical context of the
epoch.”64
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