Religion: Not Quite a Heresy Trial

But Holland's leading Christologist is called in for questioning

They met in the same gray Renaissance palace where the Inquisition put Galileo on trial. But the Vatican called last week's meeting a mere "series of talks." Over coffee, a Dominican priest- theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx, 65, clad casually in a tweed sports jacket, sat answering respectful questions from three other theologians. In case of need, a theological counsel for the defense, Schillebeeckx's dean at Nijmegen University in The Netherlands, stood by in an adjacent room.

The nine items on the agenda were hardly trivial. Among...

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