¹ Jean-François Lyotard brought the current use of the term ‘metanarrative’ into intellectual discourse in the late 1970s, in his ‘postmodern’ critique of ‘modem’ master narratives. Lyotard used ‘modern’ to designate any science that seeks legitimation through a grand narrative, applied universally. For Lyotard, ‘en simplifiant à l’extrême’, postmodern refers to ‘l’incrédulité à l’égard des métarécits’: Jean-François Lyotard, La condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir (Paris, 1979), 7. This incredulity is above all a rejection of metanarratives that assert the totalizing nature of any transcendent or universal truth – except of course the universal, totalizing truth of its own scepticism. ‘Metanarrative’ has become a virtual synonym for ‘metahistory’. ‘Metahistory’ gained currency through R. G. Collingwood’s use of it to describe the work of philosophers of history, and refers to overarching totalizing theories of history like those of Hegel, Marx or Spengler. Hayden White has sought to displace the pejorative taint with which early twentieth-century historians regarded ‘metahistory’: Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore, MD, 1973). It is now recognized by most historians that historical scholarship inevitably requires narrative ordering – an ordering informed by assumptions about the past that the scholar applies either consciously or unconsciously.

² This approach had become normative in the wake of Leo XIII’s revival of Thomism in the later nineteenth century through his encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879).

³ Kerr, Fergus, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Neoscholasticism to Nuptial Mysticism (Oxford, 2007), 37.Google Scholar

⁴ Dei Verbum, §12. All references and quotations from the documents of the Second Vatican Council are drawn from the official English translations online at: <http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/>, accessed 26 March 2012 and subsequently.

⁵ Prior, Joseph, The Historical Method in Catholic Exegesis (Rome, 1999), 146.Google Scholar

⁶ Kerr, , Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians, 223–5.Google Scholar

⁷ Dignitatis Humanae, §1.

⁸ Perfectae Caritatis, §2.

⁹ Gaudium et Spes, §29.

¹⁰ Lodge, David, The British Museum is Falling Down (New York, 1965), ch. 1.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid. 30.

¹² Oxford, Bodl., MS Eng. Lett.c.662, fol. 68r, Manning to unknown correspondent, 10 March 1846. To William Gladstone he wrote: ‘I am a long way off from Development.’ He expressed doubts about the viability of Newman’s theory of development, and asserted that whatever its influence, the impact would not be seen soon, ‘Certainly not for a long time’: Atlanta, GA, Emory University, Pitts Library, Manning Papers, Box 1, Folder 22, Manning to Gladstone, 6 March 1846.

¹³ Manning, Henry, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or, Reason and Revelation (New York, 1887; first publ. 1865), 83.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ibid. 205 (emphasis in the original). This argument is also found in the pre-papal publications of Gregory XVI (Mauro Cappellari); see Mauro Cappellari, Il Trionfo della Santa Sede e della Chiesa contro gli assalti de’ novatori respinti e combattuti colle stesse loro armi (Rome, 1799), 19.

¹⁵ See Kemp, Anthony, The Estrangement of the Past: A Study in the Origins of Modern Historical Consciousness (Oxford, 1991), 3–65 Google Scholar; Chadwick, Owen, From Bossuet to Newman: The Idea of Doctrinal Development (Cambridge, 1957), 1–48.Google Scholar

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¹⁷ Newman, John Henry, Letters and Diaries, ed. Dessain, C. Stephen et al., 32 vols (London, 1961– ), 25: 58 n. 2.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid. 18–19; see also 17.

¹⁹ Parker, Kenneth L., ‘Historical Consciousness and Papal Infallibility: Manning, Döllinger, Newman, and Acton’s Uses of History in Defense of Truth’, in idem and Moser, Erick, eds, The Rise of Historical Consciousness among the Christian Churches (Lanham, MD, 2012), 89–122.Google Scholar

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²¹ Newman, John Henry, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (London, 1845).Google Scholar

²² Ressourcement theologians reacted against early twentieth-century neo-scholasticism, with its exclusive emphasis on scholastic modes of reasoning, rejection of modern forms of intellectual discourse, and resistance to constructive engagement with other faith traditions. They sought to restore Catholic theology to its original purity of thought and expression, and argued that this required a ‘return to the sources’, or ‘ressourcement’.

²³ Étienne Gilson, Lettres de M. Étienne Gilson addressées au P. Henri de Lubac (Paris, 1986), 19–20. Jean Daniélou, in notes on criticism received for his article, ‘Les orientations présentes de la pensée religieuse’, Études 79, no. 249 (avril–mai 1946), 1–21, wrote, ‘le nèo-thomisme reprèsente une forme sclérosée et durcie de la pensée du Docteur Angélique’: Paris, Archives de la Province de France de la Compagnie de Jésus, Q Ly 521/1. I am grateful to Erick Moser for this reference.

²⁴ Congar, Yves, Vrai et fausse réforme dans l’Église (Paris, 1950).Google Scholar

²⁵ Groppe, Elizabeth Therese, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit (Oxford, 2004), 22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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²⁷ Apostolicam Actuositatem, Unitatis Redintegratio and Lumen Gentium are three examples. For further details, see n. 4 above.

²⁸ D’Ambrosio, Marcellino, ‘Ressourcement Theology, Aggiornamento, and the Hermeneutics of Tradition’, Communio 18 (1991), 530–55, at 531.Google Scholar

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³⁰ In 1863 Ignaz von Döllinger invited a number of German theologians to explore how the Roman Catholic Church should engage modern ideas. His address has been described as an apology for liberal Catholicism, and an assault on the ultramontane theory and the reasoning that supported it. For an English translation of Döllinger’s speech, see John Acton, ‘Munich Congress’, Home and Foreign Review 4 (January 1864), 228–35, quotation at 234. For the German text, see Ignaz von Döllinger, ‘Die Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der katholischen Theologie’, in idem, Kleinere Schriften (Stuttgart, 1890), 161–97, at 193.

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³³ Bischof, Ignaz von Döllinger, 275–94.

³⁴ ‘To a very great degree, in all sectors touched by the Council … aggiornamento was made possible by the patristic renewal of the last fifty years’: Henri de Lubac, Mémoire sur l’occasion de mes écrits (Namur, 1989), 319–20.

³⁵ Gaudium et Spes, §4.

³⁶ Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, §41, cf. §43; see n. 4 above for more details.

³⁷ Gaudium et Spes, §9.

³⁸ Ibid., §29.

³⁹ Conscious apperception was defined by Carl Jung as ‘a process by which the subject of himself, from his own motives, consciously and attentively apprehends a new content and assimilates it to another content standing in readiness’. Passive apperception Jung defined as ‘a process in which a new content from without (through the senses) or from within (through the unconscious) presses through into the consciousness and, to a certain extent, compels attention and apprehension upon itself’. Both elements of Jung’s definition are at work in my use of the term. However, the latter emphasis on ‘new content’ that compels a reconsideration of an older ‘content’ is what I am most concerned to emphasize here: Carl Jung, Psychological Types, or The Psychology of Individuation, transl. H. G. Baynes (London, 1946), 524. I am grateful to Jonathan King for his helpful comments and observations.

⁴⁰ Butterfield, Herbert, The Whig Interpretation of History (London, 1931), 110.Google Scholar The original context for that aphorism is a letter written by Acton to Bishop Mandell Creighton, concerning his history of the papacy: CUL, Add. MS 6871, fol. 59V, Acton to Creighton, 5 April 1887.

⁴¹ Acton, John, ‘Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History’, in Figgis, John Neville and Laurence, Reginald Vere, eds, Lectures on Modem History (London, 1906), 26.Google Scholar

⁴² Acton, John and Simpson, Richard, The Correspondence of Lord Acton and Richard Simpson, ed. Altholz, Josef and McElrath, Damian, 3 vols (Cambridge, 1971), 1: 116 Google Scholar. This comment was made with specific reference to Henry Manning, William Ward and John Dalgairns, all of whom were Oxford Movement converts and advocates of the neo-ultramontane cause. Newman’s reaction was visceral, for Acton reported that he ‘moaned for a long time rocking himself backwards and forwards over the fire, like an old woman with the tooth ache’: ibid.

⁴³ Hill, Roland, Lord Acton (New Haven, CT, 2000), 192–225.Google Scholar

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⁴⁶ From the late medieval period through to the nineteenth century, ‘renovation’ was used in theological discourse to describe renewal wrought by the Holy Spirit.

⁴⁷ CUL, Add. MS 5647, fol. 60r. The notebook from which this is drawn contains notes Acton made in preparation for a biography of Ignaz von Döllinger. It was one of his many unfinished book projects.

⁴⁸ CUL, Add. MS 5542, fol. 27v. This comment is drawn from a notebook that contains his reflections on the First Vatican Council.

⁴⁹ CUL, Add. MS 5647, fol. 59v.

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⁵⁴ Ibid. 129–37; Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Catholics and Contraception: An American History (Ithaca, NY, 2004), 227–8.

⁵⁵ Robert G. Hoyt, ed., The Birth Control Debate (Kansas City, MO, 1968), 30.

⁵⁶ Ibid. 37.

⁵⁷ Ibid. 40–3.

⁵⁸ Ibid. 50–5.

⁵⁹ Ibid. 61.

⁶⁰ Humanae Vitae, §6, online at: <http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html>, accessed 5 April 2012.

⁶¹ Ibid., §28.

⁶² For the best studies of this issue, see Kaise, Robert Blair., The Politics of Sex and Religion: A Case History in the Development, 1962–1984 (Kansas City, MO, 1985)Google Scholar; McClory, , Turning Point; and, for an assessment after twenty years, Noonan, John T. Jr, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by Catholic Theologians and Canonists (enlarged edn, Cambridge, MA, 1986), appendices.Google Scholar

⁶³ Noonan’s recent study treats this clash of successionism and developmentalism in more detail: Noonan, John T. Jr, A Church that Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching (Notre Dame, IN, 2005).Google Scholar

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⁶⁸ Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, §4, online at: <http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/h_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html>, accessed 5 April 2012.

⁶⁹ ‘Responsum ad Dubium, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith October 28, 1995’, online at: <http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_df950s.htm>, accessed 5 April 2012.,+accessed+5+April+2012.>Google Scholar

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⁸⁰ Schaff, Philip, What is Church History? A Vindication of the Idea of Historical Development (Philadelphia, PA, 1846), 47n.Google Scholar