Herbert John Ignatius McCabe (2 August 192628 June 2001) was a Dominican priest,

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

theologian and philosopher based in Ireland.

Biography

Herbert McCabe was born in

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ), colloquially known as Boro, is a port town in the Borough of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. Lying to the south of the River Tees, Middlesbrough forms part of the Teesside Built up area, built-up area and the Tees Va ...

in the

North Riding of Yorkshire The North Riding of Yorkshire was a subdivision of Yorkshire, England, alongside York, the East Riding and West Riding. The riding's highest point was at Mickle Fell at . From the Restoration it was used as a lieutenancy area, having b ...

. He studied

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

Manchester University The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

, but influenced by Dorothy Emmet switched to

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. He contributed a number of pieces to ''

Humanitas (from the Latin , "human") is a Latin noun meaning human nature, civilization, and kindness. It has uses in the Enlightenment, which are discussed below. Classical origins of term The Latin word corresponded to the Greek concepts of (loving ...

'', and became friends with Eric John among others. McCabe joined the

Dominicans Dominicans () also known as Quisqueyans () are an ethnic group, ethno-nationality, national people, a people of shared ancestry and culture, who have ancestral roots in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican ethnic group was born out of a fusio ...

in 1949, where under Victor White he began his lifelong study of the works of

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

. Born John Ignatius McCabe, he had as his novice master, Columba Ryan, who gave McCabe the religious name Herbert, in honour of Herbert of Derwentwater, a seventh-century Lakeland hermit. Ordained in 1955, he was a pastor in Newcastle for three years before being assigned as chaplain to De La Salle College, where one of his pupils was Terry Eagleton. In 1965, he was sent to Cambridge as editor of the journal ''New Blackfriars'' but was removed in 1967 following a now-famous editorial in that journal in which he criticised the theologian Charles Davis for having left the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. Davis left publicly, denouncing the church as corrupt. McCabe countered that of course the Church was corrupt but that this was no reason to leave it. McCabe moved to Dublin, Ireland during the controversy. He was reinstated three years later, and began his editorial that month in characteristically combative style: "As I was saying, before I was so oddly interrupted..." He spent many years teaching at Blackfriars, Oxford University, writing four books, ''The New Creation'', a study of the Sacraments, in 1964; ''Law, Love and Language'', on the centrality of language in ethics, in 1968; ''The Teaching of the Catholic Church'', a short catechism, in 1986; ''God Matters'' in 1987; and ''God Still Matters'', a collection of his articles, in 2002. He was a member of the '' Slant'' group, and combined a commitment to the thought of

and

Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...

with a socialist political stance. In 1989 he was awarded the STM degree, the highest Dominican academic degree. McCabe's sermons were carefully prepared and delivered with great intelligence and wit. A major theme was a caution against making God a god, of reducing the Creator to an object within this world, and thus committing

idolatry Idolatry is the worship of an idol as though it were a deity. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic ...

. In 1974 McCabe became an Irish citizen. Terry Eagleton attributed to his friend McCabe the view that 'If you don't love, you're dead, and if you do, they'll kill you.' McCabe died at Oxford on 28 June 2001, and was buried at

Wolvercote Cemetery Wolvercote Cemetery is a cemetery in the parish of Wolvercote and district of Cutteslowe in Oxford, England. Its main entrance is on Banbury Road and it has a side entrance in Five Mile Drive. It has a funeral chapel, public toilets and a small a ...

on 5 July. His memorial service included a Spanish revolutionary song sung by his 80-year-old brother Bernard, a Joyce expert."Father Herbert McCabe", ''The Irish Times'', 3 September 2001
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Bibliography

* McCabe, Herbert, ''Law, Love and language'' (1968), London: Continuum, 2004. * McCabe, Herbert, ''God Matters'', (1987), London: Continuum, 2005. * McCabe, Herbert, ''God Still Matters'', London, New York: Continuum Books, 2002. . * McCabe, Herbert, ''Faith Within Reason'', London, New York: Continuum Books, 2007. . * McCabe, Herbert, ''The Good Life: Ethics and the Pursuit of Happiness'', London, New York: Bloomsbury Books, 2012. . * Manni, Franco, ''Herbert McCabe. Recollecting a Fragmented Legacy'', Eugene (Oregon): Wipf & Stock, 2020. .

References

External links

Obituary in the IndependentHigher-resolution photograph

Get to Know Herbert McCabe
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCabe, Herbert OP 1926 births 2001 deaths 20th-century British male writers 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century British philosophers 20th-century British Roman Catholic priests 20th-century British Roman Catholic theologians Alumni of Blackfriars, Oxford Alumni of the University of Manchester Analytic philosophers Analytical Thomists British Dominicans British ethicists British male non-fiction writers British people of Irish descent British philosophers of religion British Roman Catholic writers British sermon writers Catholic philosophers Catholicism and far-left politics Fellows of Blackfriars, Oxford Irish Dominicans Irish ethicists People from Middlesbrough Philosophers of language Systematic theologians Wittgensteinian philosophers

Biography

Bibliography

See also

References

External links