Worth Digesting

Roman Catholics in the U.S., laymen as well as priests, have lately worked up considerable scholarly interest in studying and discussing the theology of their church. The latest symptom of this interest is a magazine called Theology Digest, to be published three times a year, which appeared for the first time last week (first print order: 2,500 copies). Edited by Jesuit Father Gerald Van Ackeren, 36, who got his doctorate in theology at Rome's Gregorian University, the Digest hopes to introduce more readers to the stimulating but sometimes forbiddingly highbrow discussions of religion and philosophy which are buried in the pages of the world's theological journals.

To make up their first issue, Father Van Ackeren and his fellow editors at St. Mary's College in Kansas--all of them Jesuits--read articles in more than 100 Catholic and Protestant reviews, written in five languages. A sampler of their selections: Louvain's Professor Joseph Coppens discussing the knife-edge Roman Catholic distinction between literal and allegorical interpretations of the Bible; Father Clifford Howell, an English Jesuit, giving his suggestions on how laymen can better participate in the Mass; Historian Ernst W. Zeeden of the University of Freiburg reviewing current theological developments in Protestantism.

Intelligently condensed and edited, Theology Digest should serve as a good primer for U.S. laymen (and as a refresher course for busy parish priests) in a field where a tradition of heavy-handed writing almost makes digests a happy necessity. It should also be a challenge to U.S. Catholics to start writing about theology more intelligently than they have been. Of the 22 authors whom the editors found worth quoting, only one is American, the rest are Europeans.

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