The Missing Person in Catholic Spirituality

• Main Author: Thomas A. Michaud
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Étienne Gilson Society 2016-03-01
• Series: Studia Gilsoniana
• Subjects: Peter Redpath; Gabriel Marcel; West; crisis; Christianity; metaphysics; person; society; humanism; individualism; collectivism; spirituality; culture; socioeconomics; environmentalism
• Online Access: http://gilsonsociety.com/files/163-177-Michaud.pdf

Peter Redpath and Gabriel Marcel warn that the West is engulfed in a crisis. From their various philosophical perspectives, they identify the source of the crisis as a distortion of traditional Christian metaphysics of the human person as a free individual capable of pursuing truth and entering into relations of community with others. The distortion is caused by an abstract humanism that rightly denounces individualism, but as an alternative promotes a socialistic collectivism. This essay argues that this distortion is further causing the emergence of a collectivist spirituality which loses the individual, free human person. This spirituality is shown to be particularly manifest in various Catholic approaches to socioeconomics and environmentalism.