Charles Coulombe’s interesting remark in a recent article that Pius XII, for all his intransigence against dogmatic modernism, allowed Father Karl Rahner, S.J., to be the editor of the prestigious Denzinger prompted me to take up the question of Rahner’s theology and the immense influence it has had on modern Catholic discourse. His influence is such that it is no longer even felt or perceived as such, but has successfully created an atmosphere, a set of implicit assumptions, a mental miasma within which many theologians and students work without even realizing that it is Rahnerian rather than Catholic. Just as for many centuries nearly every work of theology and spirituality bore the unmistakable imprint of St. Thomas—whether he was expressly cited or not—so too, the unmistakable imprint of the Jesuit of Innsbruck is to be found nearly everywhere, including in authors who are styled “conservative.”[1]
Inevitably, a figure of Rahner’s magnitude, who published dozens of volumes of dense material, is not someone it is easy to summarize, and I offer the following “big picture” fully recognizing that it will lack nuance. However, I am convinced there is a big picture at work; that we can accurately identify what it is; and that it is sufficient for assessing his impact and raising critical questions about it. Every thinker has certain guiding ideas that coalesce around a few major themes, and if one can find out what those are, one has a sort of “key” to the rest.
