Josef Andreas Jungmann

Life and Context

From the early stages of adult life, Josef Andreas Jungmann's pastoral experience and scholarship merged to produce his explicit interest in catechetics, liturgy and their intersection for the good of the pastoral life of the church and the spiritual life of its members (Hofinger, 1976, p.350-352).

Jungmann was born in a village in the mountains of South Tyrolia, Austria in 1889. Following his early education locally, he entered the seminary and was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1913. After ordination to the priesthood, he worked in small village churches in the diocese of Brixen and began to cultivate an interest in catechesis. During his days in parish ministry, Jungmann kept notes about the fear-laden piety of the local people that, in his assessment, contradicted the joyful nature of the good news he sought to preach. His experiences and the recollections they generated were recorded in his first manuscript, written in longhand in a notebook, entitled Der Weg zur Christlichen Glaubensfreudigkeit ( The Way to Christian Joyousness ). This "working thesis" of 1915, never published as such, fueled his most famous catechetical treatise, Die Frohbotschaft und unserer Glaubensverkundigung ( The Good News and Our Proclamation of the Faith ) (Riepe, 1968, p.34).

In 1917, four years after ordination, Jungmann entered the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). Jungmann prepared to teach liturgy and catechetics at the University of Innsbruck. With the exception of the years during which Hitler closed down the theological faculty (1939-45), Jungmann's entire teaching career was spent at Innsbruck, where for a time he also served as Rector of the community of Jesuits.

Jungmann's most famous student of catechetics, Johannes Hofinger, claimed that Jungmann's academic career was colored by an abiding concern for the intersection of pastoral practice and scholarship, especially historical studies. These two important partners of practice and scholarship in the church's life frequently suffered, in Jungmann's view, from strained communication (Hofinger 1976). Jungmann's writings try to bring both partners into a conversation for the benefit of renewed practice. Hofinger characterized Jungmann's personality as a contribution to the project, a personality that contributed to " … his deep faith and pithy religiosity, his creative but disciplined thought, and his sense for history and living tradition, the gift of expressing his mind in plain language and good style"(1976, p. 350).

Although Jungmann spent most of his life at Innsbruck teaching catechetics, pastoral theology, and liturgy, he affected many practitioners in the field of catechesis. Jungmann never lost touch with prevailing pastoral practices because he demanded that his students - seminarians and others - familiarize him with the various pastoral situations in which they operated. His lectures, given in the 1950's in the United States, affected many practitioners in the field of catechetics in North America (Fischer, 1975). Chief among those who were influenced by Jungmann's ideas were the many women (principally Catholic religious Sisters) who taught in North American parish schools and religious education programs, and who studied in universities during summer months. While the lecture programs had a lasting effect on practitioners, Jungmann's many works on catechetics and liturgy also affected the academic community and the official Catholic hierarchy. Jungmann was invited to Vatican Council II as a peritus (expert), where he contributed greatly to the design and writing of Sacrosanctum Concilium , the Vatican II document on liturgy and worship, one of the sixteen produced by the Council.

Early Career: Concern to Promote a Vital Christian Life

From the earliest years of his career, Jungmann's writings on catechetics displayed a commitment to promoting a vitalized Christian faith. This interest was apparent in his doctoral dissertation on the catechetical formulations on grace in the first three centuries of Christianity. Although never published in full, the dissertation, which Jungmann defended in 1923, illustrated his fundamental effort to re-imagine catechesis and to situate the church's worship and catechetical activities within the context of the life of grace. His dissertation served as the background document for an essay that appeared in the 1926 Zeitschrift fur Katholische Theologie , the journal that Jungmann later edited. In his journal article, Jungmann made the case that a holistic view of catechesis, which was operative in the early Christian centuries, integrated the message of God's favor and mercy in a holistic manner, within the tripartite context of prayer, liturgy, and preaching. Using the phrases of the creed as the framework for the essay, Jungmann demonstrated that the creed brought a form for articulating the overarching patterns of grace that God communicates through Christ and the Spirit. The creed draws together the aspects of prayer, liturgy and preaching.

Jungmann concluded his essay by noting that in the early centuries catechists addressed the topic of grace as an aspect of life in the Holy Spirit, rather than as a separate category divorced from the internal life of the Trinity. A depiction of the Holy Spirit as the giver of life, Jungmann argued, was essential to understanding the early Christian sacramental and liturgical life. After examining the structure of the creed, Jungmann lamented that the western Christian church suffered from a kind of theological amnesia about the role of the Spirit in the grace life of the believers. In an effort to account for this loss, Jungmann proffered that the "uncreated grace" life of the baptized community was regrettably overshadowed by the later scholastic emphasis on "created grace" (the effect of grace in the life of the individual believer) (1926, p. 215). According to Jungmann, recognition of this regrettable loss might lead to reintegration of a pneumatology and a theology of uncreated grace in the liturgical life and catechesis of the church. Jungmann's article, based in his dissertation, revealed a trajectory for his career: An effort to report the current practices, wonder about alternatives, and find rich resources for alternative practice by a return to the classic sources of early catechesis and liturgy. In the article, Jungmann quoted liberally from the Didache , as well as from Ignatius, Polycarp, and Augustine. These sources fortified his argument and signaled the formal beginnings of a lifelong effort to find sources and insights from the tradition, especially the patristic era, which might renew the current practice of catechesis, especially liturgical catechesis. These features of Jungmann's background, education, and scholarly pursuits helped to shape the contours of his formal proposals for "kerygmatic" catechesis.

Jungmann's Proposal for Kerygmatic Catechesis

The year 1936 is counted by many as the initial stage of Catholic interest in the kerygmatic renewal in catechetics, due to the publication of Jungmann's Die Frohbotschaft und Unsere Glaubensverkundigung ( The Good News and Our Proclamation of Faith ). In that text, the defining one for his contribution to catechetics, Jungmann acknowledged that the prevailing practice of Catholic religious education/catechesis relied too closely on the practice of Catholic theology. Described as "manual theology," the prevalent theology taught in seminaries was based largely on compendia or manuals that treated questions as distinct from each other, sought intelligibility by virtue of those distinctions, and pursued a precision of expression based on a specific neoscholastic vocabulary and worldview. Corresponding to this kind of theology, the practice of catechesis was based largely on the use of a catechism text. The structure and content of catechisms appeared much like the theology manuals, only written in simpler language. Many catechists used a "text-explanatory method" to elaborate the meaning of the printed words and to exhort the students to memorize the questions and answers. These questions and answers pointed first to doctrine and secondly (and separately) to worship and morality. Often the writers of catechisms employed simplified vocabulary derived from the language found in scholastic theology manuals. Just as often, the worldview and structure of scholastic theology was.

Against this backdrop, Jungmann called for a kerygmatic approach; literally, a "proclamation of the Good News" that would employ a more biblical and mystagogical language, with the hope of generating a more unified, harmonious (and less fragmented) approach to catechesis. The kerygma, the proclamation of the good news, was before all else a joyful experience, an experience that must be lived as well as explained. Hoping to move the practice toward this view, Jungmann proposed two moves for the renewal of a joyful and unitary catechesis: First, the reconsideration of early Christian catechetical practices as sources for renewed practice, and second, the expansion of the imagined content of catechesis to embrace scripture and liturgy as well as doctrine. But Jungmann knew that these proposed moves could be made only with the cooperation of the clergy. He recognized that renewing catechesis first meant attending to the theological education of the clergy.

Jungmann determined that the priest's role as catechist, which was a major role in the life of the Catholic Church in Austria and Germany, was crucial to the success of catechesis. He pointed out that printed catechisms for the catechesis of children and unlearned adults resembled the format, language, and theological assumptions of the theological manuals that were used to train seminarians. Jungmann regarded the prevailing seminary training in theology as primarily focused on truth as an object to be known. By contrast, the focus of the proclamation of the faith is not on the knowable alone, but on the will and affections as well as the intellect. Genuine proclamation eventuates not only in insight, but moves that insight forward to promote the ultimate good of the disciple. According to Jungmann's view, theological investigation in seminaries was narrowly defined by an interest in doctrinal precision without an equal concern for the significance of truth for living the Christian life (Jungmann, 1962a). Since priests played such a decisive role in catechesis in Austria and Germany, Jungmann challenged theorists to acknowledge that the pastoral experience eventually to be encountered by the young priest must be anticipated in seminary education.

Jungmann grounded his alternative, kerygmatic, catechesis in a hope in some stylistic change for priests' training. He reasoned that a less analytical, more poetic, kerygmatic presentation of the Christian message to the priest might generate greater appreciation of the dynamism and unity of the message. In turn, the priest's future hearers would benefit. Once people encountered the Christian message as dynamic and unified, then the "whole truth" rather than a series of truths might move the hearers to feel as well as understand. What might result, in Jungmann's hopeful view, would be an abiding sense of gratitude about the Christian faith life, rather than merely a clear analysis of each individual facet of belief considered in isolation.

While Jungmann's 1936 text is often counted as the earliest expression of dissatisfaction with the prevailing theological and catechetical assumptions of the time, his work is by no means the only expression of the need for a more kerygmatic orientation for catechesis. It is clear from a review of the works of the theological faculty at Innsbruck alone that Jungmann both affected and was affected by his colleagues at that time (Horan, 1989, p.21). Throughout Europe, Catholic thinkers came together in renewed interest in "returning to the sources" of Christian scripture and the writings of the patristic era as foundations for theology. While Jungmann by no means stood alone, he did make accessible these ideas for their implementation in catechesis in a way that was compelling to many practitioners.

In order to appreciate the subtleties of Jungmann's contribution to religious education, we need to consider two aspects of Jungmann's thought: First, the pastoral challenges as Jungmann perceived them (especially among already baptized Christians); second, Jungmann's proposals for catechetical solutions to meet these challenges, solutions that might foster and support a faith life.

The Pastoral Situation As Jungmann Perceived It

In the opening lines of the text, The Good News Yesterday and Today , Jungmann imagined and described a vision of the early Christians as people who were "exultantly happy and serenely confident in their whole-souled faith" in the gospel (1962a, p.3). By way of contrast, Jungmann described the dominant religious attitude of many twentieth century Christians, especially Catholics in Europe, to be a "traditional confession" based on social pressure to conform to external customs found in a Christian "culture." He was interested in creating religious education opportunities that might challenge those members "who are indeed within the Church into which they were born, but who have never given the slightest thought to what that means ."(Jungmann, 1967, p.9, emphasis added).

In a later text entitled Pastoral Liturgy , Jungmann clarified and explained the term "traditional confession" by distinguishing between "conscious" and "unconscious" Christianity. Conscious Christianity is an active faith, based on conviction, which enlivens the person to participate in that faith and to advance the kingdom of God. Unconscious Christianity is passive and habitual. Its adherents accept as axiomatic the social existence of Christianity. Unconscious Christians regard the content of Christian beliefs as many disparate facts and rules, perceiving these to be the essence of "the faith". Unconscious Christians remain on the fringe of the Christian community, participating without real awareness of a personally engaging and fulfilling reality (Jungmann, 1962b, p.325-27). In such instances both prayer and moral life become separated from the essence of faith, a relationship with the living Christ.

Owing to its "lack of inner dynamism" in a rapidly changing world, a conventionally expressed unconscious Christianity does not survive dialogue with contemporary culture (Jungmann, 1962a, p.4). Jungmann's writings emphasize the inadequacies of unconscious Christianity as Christianity faces three aspects of post-Enlightenment culture: cultural pluralism, advancements in technology, and modern communications. Each of these has contributed to an overall shift in thinking, one in which the presumptions of an earlier era no longer hold sway.

Referring to religion and its response to the prevailing worldview after the Enlightenment, Jungmann asserted that cultural advances in these three areas ­ pluralism, technology, and communications - generated questions for which Christianity supplied answers based on the same scientific assumptions. "Formulas" for belief overshadowed the original faith experience. Theologians became convinced that theological "proofs" actually proved the mysterious reality of God to which they pointed. And in catechetical practice, "whole-souled" faith lost its central place in the Christian life, and was replaced by entirely too much enthusiasm over a series of formulas about beliefs, often stated in philosophical language. (Jungmann, 1967, p.50). Jungmann's historical analysis of the practice of catechesis can be found in the opening section of his later text, entitled Handing on the Faith . In that text he showed that catechetical practices respond in each age to the needs of the learners as the catechists perceive them, bolstering the argument he first made in The Good News Yesterday and Today . Historical studies left Jungmann to conclude that the various accommodations of catechesis (mass baptisms, for example), need to be acknowledged for the weaknesses they spawned:

In our religious inheritance we should gratefully recognize the treasures which the centuries have brought forth from the storerooms of God's Kingdom. But we must also reckon with structures and patterns which were more emergency measures than ideal forms (Jungmann, 1959, p. 13).

A Solution: Beyond Method To Content

Jungmann departed from many of the contemporary concerns for catechetical method taken up by his peers in the first decades of the twentieth century. The "Munich Method," as it came to be called, was one example of the attempts by catechetical leaders in the early twentieth century to make catechism-based education more palatable for young learners. The method was named for the city where a guild of catechists met to promote better catechetical practices while using texts. The method focused on the use of explanation and elaboration of the catechism question and answer in order to imprint on learners' memories a clearer picture, and thus promote clearer understanding and more effective memorization. (Jungmann, 1959, p.32).

Issues of method, in Jungmann's view, obfuscated the real problem: the need for a change in catechetical content. In his assessment, catechisms contained a diluted version of manual theology in the form of memorized answers to questions that the learners may not even have had. Jungmann called upon catechetical leaders to renew the effort to construct an integrated catechetical content, and, not surprisingly, the era to which he appealed was that of the early Christian church in the first two centuries. Jungmann desired a unitary content to be consistent with the needs of learners, because it would introduce them to the history of salvation through various aspects of the church's life. He thought that promoting a unitary content would provide the "big picture" and thereby lead to insight in the learner. He called this unitary content by different names: history of salvation, mystery of Christ, the plan of God, and seemed to use the terms interchangeably to refer to the content. He maintained the same thesis, no matter what term he used to appeal to this unitary content: "What is lacking among the faithful is a sense of unity, seeing it all as a whole, an understanding of the wonderful message of divine grace" (Jungmann, 1950, p.258). Through effective catechesis, the learner should apprehend the unity and appreciate the beauty of the core Christian message in its many aspects: As celebrated in liturgy, heard in the Word (both scripture and preaching about it), expressed in service and charity, enlivened in community.

Our first aim remains a very suggestive survey of the whole which will demonstrate God's plan for men, the mysterium Christi , a survey which may be less precise owing to its concrete and pictorial nature, but will not be erroneous and will impress itself on the mind and warm the heart (Jungmann, 1952, p. 537).

Jungmann held that the insight from a "survey of the whole" would lead to action, grounded in the gratitude that accompanies insight. Moreover, learners who heard the story of salvation and celebrated that story in liturgy and action would, in one unitary process, engage the imagination as well as the intellect and will. In proposing that the content of catechesis be reconceived and presented in a more unitary fashion, Jungmann believed that catechesis would be more free to be itself, a form of communication differing from theology, not only in degree but in kind.

Although a more coherent message would benefit the receiver, Jungmann insisted that the real point beneath the message was much more than a precise presentation of content. The plan of God ­ the history and the mystery of salvation in Christ - is important as a catalyst to move beyond the reality of the plan itself. In fact, for Jungmann the plan is effective to the extent that it motivates the whole person to awareness, new insight, and response (1952, p. 537).

If this insight and action occur in catechesis, "then the faithful will have found grace"(Jungmann, 1952, p. 538). Jungmann asserted that a year of catechesis should produce much the same effect as a retreat does; the gracious plans of God are made conscious, but not as the end in themselves; rather they furnish the hearer with the invitation to go beyond the self to action in the world because the hearer now understands and is grateful.

While good catechesis fosters good members for a community, the purpose of catechesis is not to be found in the production of adherents to a tradition exclusively for the adherents' own sanctification. Describing effective catechesis for young people, Jungmann claimed that should the learners understand the essence of Christianity, they would be motivated to look beyond themselves, their culture, and even the church:

Then the youth will understand more easily that we have not only the duty of saving out souls, but that we are called to glorify God in world. We have to work at the building up of the kingdom of God (Jungmann, 1955a, p.267).

The church itself needs to be placed in perspective in relation (and as a sign and an aid) to the kingdom of God. The church functions as an institution in order to serve the kingdom. The theological and pastoral aim of catechesis includes the conversion of the individual to a new view of the church in light of the centrality of the kingdom. Jungmann's article from the year 1955 anticipates an ecclesiological perspective from Vatican II in summarizing what is now a familiar insight in Catholic theology and religious education, namely, that "of making the Church appear not so much as an institution for salvation administered by the Pope, the bishops, and the priests, as the people of God assembled by Christ"(Jungmann, 1955b, p.579).

A survey of Jungmann's works reveals his sensitivity to the interplay between religion and culture as a challenge to the task of catechesis in any era. He was keenly aware that the circumstances of his own time and culture were quite different from those of the early Christian centuries. Jungmann's respect for history allowed him to recognize catechesis and theology to be human creations, the results of attempts to celebrate, share, and analyze faith in a particular style, time and culture. He recognized that catechesis of lay people differed not only in degree but also in kind from the theological preparation and ministerial training of the clergy, who frequently exercised leadership for catechesis. Jungmann directed the aims of catechesis toward the laity, even while directing his remarks about the nature of catechesis to the catechetical leaders, many of whom were priests.

Jungmann criticized two presumptions that supported ineffective catechetical practices in his own day. The first set of presumptions, held by the general Catholic population, generated what Jungmann termed "unconscious Christianity" or "traditional confession." The faith of the laity found its roots in a set of cultural presumptions sustained by social pressures. Jungmann sought a catechesis that would encourage a conscious and mature faith based on internal conversion rather than external forces. Theological presumptions generally held by the clergy concerned the nature of catechesis itself and its confusion with seminary theology. Their seminary education led most priests to teach as they had been taught in their seminary culture. When a "manual approach" to theology was presumed as the paradigm for catechesis, a dry and rather technical brand of instruction prevailed, sounding solid, nearly scientific, but uninteresting and often irrelevant to the lives of the hearers.

In the face of these catechetical and theological presumptions, Jungmann's writings propose the aim of catechesis to be a conscious, self-motivated and effective faith of the laity. His writings posit that the unitary vision of the Christian life must be retrieved, sharpened and shared with the catechized. In Jungmann's analysis of catechetical aims, he argued that an educated laity ultimately generates a mission for the church beyond the bounds of personal sanctification or institutional self-perpetuation, toward the kingdom of God.

Jungmann presumed that the content of catechesis, if understood in its unity, could impel people beyond long held cultural presumptions toward clearer apprehension and deeper appreciation of the very nature of the kerygma. The kerygma , the proclamation of the good news of salvation, expands the borders of the content of catechesis beyond doctrinal education found in a catechism; the good news is heard in the Word, celebrated in the Christian liturgy, expressed in community and shared in charitable works on behalf of God's kingdom. So the aim of conscious mature faith is accomplished, according to Jungmann's view, by presenting the content of the faith as a unity and as a gift.

There were serious limits to Jungmann's view of catechesis. He presumed catechesis to be an activity aimed at children and youth, a point of view that was not merely a product of his time. His point of view ignored the data found in the historical sources to which he appealed for catechetical renewal; for example, the focus on adult conversion, catechesis and baptism that characterized catechesis in the first two centuries of Christianity. His understanding of the learning process also was a product of his own era. Jungmann gave pride of place to apprehension; from the vantage point of contemporary learning theory, we might note that he simplistically equated learning with hearing, though he imagined that liturgy and action were also forms of the content of catechesis. He displayed a certain naivetÉ in imagining that human affective conversion would lead to human action. He assumed that if the learners heard a unified presentation of the mystery of Christian salvation, they would naturally be moved in their affections to a sense of gratitude for God's gift in Christ. In turn, the sense of gratitude would be enough to spur them to actions of charity and service, based in a sense of joy rather than obligation.

Despite these limitations, Jungmann contributed greatly to historical consciousness about catechesis. His work served to expand the notion of what constitutes the proper content in catechesis. He exposed some of the shortcomings of catechism instruction, especially the language used in catechisms to summarize doctrinal positions. He anticipated some of the ways in which later theorists would imagine catechetical aims: the fostering of mature, conscious faith. He imagined a catechetical content that implied various kinds of learning, even if he did not develop an explicit theory of learning that might correspond to that content. Jungmann's work helped to renew interest in the intersection of catechesis and liturgy decades before the adoption of Catholic practices grounded in the ancient catechumenate. His attention to the condition of baptized but un-evangelized Catholic Christians anticipated some serious concerns held by Catholic pastoral leaders and catechetical practitioners even today.

Works Cited

• Fischer, B. (1975). J.A. Jungmann als Lehrer. In Fischer, B. & Meyer, B. (Eds.) J.A. Jungmann: Ein Leben fÜr Liturgie und Kerygma . Innsbruck: Tyrolia.
• Hofinger, J. (1976). J.A. Jungmann: In memoriam. Living Light , 13, 350-359.
• Horan, M. (1989). Kerygmatic Catechesis: An analysis of the writings of Jungmann and Hofinger as reflected in post-conciliar catechetical documents. UMI Dissertation Information Service (8912976).
• Jungmann, J.A. (1926). Die Gnadenlehre im Apostolischen Bekenntnis und im Katechismus. Zeitschrift fÜr katholische Theologie . 196-219.
• Jungmann, J.A. (1936). Die Frohbotschaft und unsere Glaubensverkundigung . Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet.
• Jungmann, J.A. (1950). Theology and kerygmatic teaching. Lumen Vitae , 5, 258-263.
• Jungmann, J.A. (1952). Christ's place in catechesis and preaching. Lumen Vitae , 7, 533-542.
• Jungmann, J.A. (1955a). Liturgy and the history of salvation. Lumen Vitae , 5, 261-268.
• Jungmann, J.A. (1955b). The new German catechism: A model presentation of the message of salvation. Lumen Vitae , 10, 573-586.
• Jungmann, J.A. (1959). Handing on the faith: A manual of catechesis . (A.N. Fuerst, Trans.). New York: Herder and Herder. (Original work published as Katechetik in 1955).
• Jungmann, J.A. (1962a). The good news yesterday and today . (W.A. Huesman, Trans.). New York: Sadlier. (Original work published in 1962).
• Jungmann, J.A. (1962b). Pastoral liturgy . New York: Herder and Herder.
• Jungmann, J.A. (1967). Announcing the word of God . London: Burns and Oats.
• Riepe, C. K. (1968). Josef A Jungmann. The new day: Catholic theologians of the renewal . Richmond: John Know Press, 1968.