Summaries of papers by Fr. Bolesław Szewc on the writings of Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer, first published at frboleslav.eu and reproduced here with the author’s permission. Where a full text is available, a link is given.
The method and the language of Fr. Prof. Tadeusz Dajczer’s spiritual writings
Keywords: Dajczer, spiritual life, language, symbol, metaphor
Incomprehension has caused much unpleasantness in the history of the Church. Many times that incomprehension concerns spiritual life, when somebody does not distinguish a statement about spiritual life from a dogmatic one. The meaning of spiritual authors’ works therefore needs better understanding. This includes the spiritual works of Fr. Prof. Tadeusz Dajczer.
There are essential differences between the works of theologians and the writings of spiritual authors. The revelation of God is the formal subject matter of theology, whilst human spiritual experience is the focus of spiritual authors. It concerns our relationship with God in the realm of thinking and in the domain of our will.
Spiritual authors, including Fr. Prof. Dajczer, bring about certain non-cognitive aims, which is the opposite of the theologians’ activity. The most important of these are: expounding the path to God, bringing consolation and encouragement, and inspiring the reader to assume the spiritual attitudes of contrition, trust, perseverance, longanimity and so on. Attracting readers to God is an important goal of spiritual authors. When a text realizes these aims we speak of the didactic function of language. Sometimes expressing the spiritual experience alone is their aim.
Fr. Prof. Dajczer and other spiritual authors use metaphors and symbolic language because at times spiritual experience is not directly expressible. This kind of means is also necessary to bring about the didactic function of their language. Therefore in their writings one can find similarities, symbolic expressions, antithetic and hyperbolic terms, special terms (synthetic abbreviations), rhetorical exaggeration and the like.
If we realize that the writings of Fr. Prof. Dajczer are not meant to expound theology but speak about spiritual life, we can discover their brilliance — as, for example, Fr. István Katona, the Hungarian editor of Dajczer’s Meditations on the Eucharist, did.
Paper given at the symposium Mądry przewodnik w drodze do prawdy, UKSW, Warsaw 2015. Summary first published at frboleslav.eu. The Polish paper is included in the 2015 symposium programme.
The Gift of Faith as a harbinger of a new theological paradigm
The Gift of Faith has a logical structure and a critical apparatus unparalleled in the literature on spiritual life. At the same time, it is written in the language of experience using metaphors, symbolic expressions and rhetoric means typical of homiletics or pastoral texts. They create a unique synthesis of spiritual life written in the language of experience. Fr. Dajczer, who puts everything into structures with his outstanding scientific mind, created a work that proposes a new paradigm of practical theology and theology of spiritual life.
Abstract first published at frboleslav.eu (2019).
The Gift of Faith as the universal catholic book
The Gift of Faith (in some countries Inquiring Faith) convinces numerous people of various cultures. It is a very demonstrative book that appeals to the experience of homo religiosus – the religious man who is each one of us according to Mircea Eliade. To illustrate the issues of spiritual life, Fr. T. Dajczer was using examples of universal human experiences: our talents, freedom and enslavedness, distrust and trust, uneasiness and peace, temptation and the experience of a desert, rich and humble means, emptying and our inner transformation etc. It is unlikely to write a religious book for all religions, but Fr. Dajczer has achieved the supreme level of universality that is possible for an entirely catholic book.
Paper given at the symposium Badacz i znawca religii przeszłości i doby współczesnej, UKSW, Warsaw, 7 September 2019. Abstract first published at frboleslav.eu. The Polish paper is included in the 2019 symposium programme.
Problems of Criticism of the Communist Poland’s Security Service (SB) Files as Historical Sources
Full text in English: doi.org/10.34766/fetr.v48i4.965 (open access, PDF available there).
Abstract. Despite the passage of 20 years from the opening of the archives of the former SB, historians have not developed the principles of critical assessment of communist Security Service files (SB files) as historical sources, what favors the so-called gaming with files, and consequently the destruction of historical narratives and social life. Researchers and journalists developed an affirmative attitude towards the files of the communist Security Service, which resulted in neglecting the critical assessment of them. Historical methodologists indicate two main reasons of this situation: shaping the scientific department of the Institute of National Remembrance as an office, not a historiographic school, and the novelty of SB sources requiring the development of new heuristic rules for their interpretation.
According to the methodology of the history of Jerzy Topolski developed by Krzysztof Brzechczyn, the SB operational files constitute indirect sources addressed in a limited way. As addressed sources, they require the separation of the theoretical-ideological and rhetorical layers with the use of appropriate questionnaires. As indirect sources, they require examination of the credibility of their authors with the help of other questionnaires. As a rule, both of these requirements have been ignored by researchers.
Rafał Łatka gave the justification for the affirmative attitude towards the files of the communist Security Service. It has been shown that this justification contains logical error, and that the affirmative attitude to the SB files is contrary to the dynamic conception of the historical sources by J. Topolski and to the real examples of the unreliability of these files. According to the concept of J. Topolski, one source may have many degrees of credibility depending on the questions we pose to it. Using the example of the Operational Group for Disintegration Tasks in Department IV of the Ministry of Internal Matters (MSW), it was shown that the SB sometimes deliberately falsified reality by destroying its own files.
The next part proposes several ways of creating questionnaires to test the credibility of the authors of the SB files. Credibility questions posed to the sources must always concern specific authors and the chosen research field defined by the researcher. Here it is the first question: Was the work of the officers and their superiors in the researcher’s field of interest focused on efficiency or on statistics of results? Subsequent proposals suggest questions about the internal check-up of the examined matter, which should be confirmed with post-check-up reports. Their absence should be interpreted as a lack of check-up and as reduced credibility of the unwatched authors.
The next suggested questions concern the situation when files are asked about someone’s cooperation with the communist Security Service (SB). It was affirmed that it is not enough to state that a given person was registered by the SB as a collaborator, because specific cooperation must be demonstrated. It is also necessary to take into account additional non-source information and, for example, ask the question: Did the position of the examined person allow him to obtain the information assigned to him by the SB?
There was justified that the credibility of the rapport decreases exponentially as a function of the number of intermediaries between it and the facts.
The need to ask about the intentions of officers was indicated. They could be related to their professional career, expectations of superiors, the need to display results, etc. The need to examine the differences of the case from the ideal pattern (according to the regulations) was also indicated.
Examination of the credibility of files has its ethical aspect. Research that may threaten the good fame of the people it concerns should meet the highest methodological standards and be guided by the principle of in dubio pro reo. Moreover in the absence of sufficient confirmation of the hypotheses, research should end with the conclusion that there is no justification for incriminating these people.
Published in Fides et Ratio 48(4), 2021. Abstract first published at frboleslav.eu. On the application of this method to the case of Fr. Dajczer, see the Polish section W realiach PRL.
© Fr. Bolesław Szewc. Reproduced on dajczer.eu with the author’s permission.
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