Lonergan Conference at the Greg

It was an enriching experience to attend the Lonergan Conference entitled "Revisiting Lonergan's Anthropology" at the Gregorian University, 27-30 November 2013. I was happy to listen to some wonderful talks during this conference by Fred Lawrence, Matthew Lamb, Ivo Coelho, Neil Ormerod, Massimo Pampaloni, Michael Paul Gallagher. I was also touched by the friendly atmosphere that prevailed during the conference. This gathering was helpful to sharpen some of my notions too, especially those connected with my doctoral thesis. At the encouragement of Ivo, I put a few questions to Fred Lawrence during a personal conversation with him in order to find out the "why" behind a certain thought of Lonergan.

Numerical consistency

Yesterday (1 December 2013), Banzelao, Previnth, Christopher and I had a discussion of numerical consistency in the context of Salesian Rector Major and Provincials insisting on the need of three or more members in a religious community... But rural ministry needs a good look at least in the context of the Salesian India. And can we say that numbers big or small shouldn't matter, but the intervention for the poor should be foremost in mind? Can we also tend to think that the ministry is just a factor of the community, that ministry is entrusted to the community and not to individuals?

This is an old discussion but I'd like to think that we need to keep clarifying ideas with regard to this. The necessity of clear and workable ideas is of paramount importance. Very many times we see how wrong ideas lead to unjust social systems. There is an "intimate relationship between false ideas and an unjust social order." [Gerard K. Whelan, “The Development of Lonergan’s Notion of the Dialectic of History: A Study of Lonergan’s Writings 1938-53,” doctoral dissertation (Toronto: Regis College, 1996) 317.]

A 2004 movie entitled Vera Drake, among other things, brings out the importance of having correct ideas in order to help others. The story is about a 1950 working-class Vera Drake, an honest, loving and hardworking woman, who goes around her locality "helping out young girls" in the sense of helping them to terminate their pregnancies by way of conducting illegal abortions herself. As a backroom abortionist she does not charge for her services and thinks that her service is important until one of her patients nearly dies because of the "local" procedures. Vera is arrested by the police and ultimately sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment "as a deterrent to others." [See Wikipedia.]