Search Results

This chapter explores the discrepancy between sound eucharistic theology and the eucharistic theology of several official documents of the Roman Catholic magisterium. Historical research suggests that Robert Bellarmine is one of the “messengers”, if indeed not one of the “villains”, of this story. It is argued that the embarrassing dichotomy between the teaching of the contemporary official Roman magisterium and that of most contemporary liturgical theologians is due to the magisterium's continued acceptance of some of the shortcomings of post-Tridentine Catholic eucharistic theology. If there is to be progress towards a more broadly shared Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, the Roman magisterium must become less attached to explanations of the Mystery of Faith that are less than satisfactory.

This chapter considers the nature and genesis of the ressourcement movement and argues that its leading exponents inspired a renaissance in twentieth‐century Catholic theology that culminated in the reforms of Vatican II. It attempts to shed light on the complex question of terminology, the interpretation of which still engenders controversy in analyses of ressourcement and nouvelle théologie. It offers insights into the role of ressourcement theologians in the struggle against Nazism and asserts that the movement possesses an enduring relevance for the Christian churches and for modern society.

Through a synthesis of personal ethnography, sociological and theological reflection, author Michelle González takes aim at the Christocentric, church-focused, and hyperphilosophical discourse of recent Latina/o theology. By focusing on three forms of popular religiosity, González aims to show that if Latina/o theologians are to address the religious needs of Latinas/os they must take seriously practices that church hierarchy and orthodox Catholic theology deride and frown on. Evil Eye, Santería, and Espiritismo are syncretic forms of Christianity that decenter religious practice, relocating it in ritual and communal memory. The chapter argues that if Latina/o theologians are to give credence to the epistemic productivity of Latina/o communities, they must challenge their orthodox Catholic assumptions, namely a focus on textual exegeses that presupposes a hierarchical system of knowledge certification that always devalues the experiences of subjects.

This book contains a collection of chapters on the theological vision of three of the greatest Jesuit thinkers of the twentieth century: Bernard Lonergan, John Courtney Murray, and Karl Rahner. These thinkers were influential in bringing to fruition—or deliberatively extending—the rhetorical and methodological style of the Second Vatican Council. It might be said that to understand the past forty years of Catholic theology one must understand the contribution of these men. Interestingly, they were each born in 1904 during the height of the Catholic Church's most militant, agonistic rhetoric against all things modern. Lonergan, Murray, and Rahner were also loyal sons of St. Ignatius of Loyola. They shared a certain Jesuit style encapsulated in the motto “finding God in all things”. Whether in the form of Lonergan's theological method, in Murray's reasoned defense of religious liberty, or in Rahner's countless theological investigations into Catholic doctrine and practice, each contributed to the Catholic renaissance encapsulated in the Second Vatican Council's aggiornamento, the “bringing up to date” of the ancient truths of Christian faith.

In the Introduction, the basic argument, rationale, and distinctive contributions of this book are identified. The reader is introduced to the central claim of the book: that it breaks fresh ground by uncovering how the Catholic reception of Kierkegaard’s writings played a crucial role in contributing to the reform and renewal of Catholic theology before the Second Vatican Council. An outline of the book is also provided that details the relevance of this study for academic literature about ecumenism, the ressourcement movement, and nouvelle théologie.

This chapter focuses on the work of legal scholar and Catholic moral theologian John T. Noonan Jr. It knits together Alasdair MacIntyre’s narrative-based tradition theory, which is an important methodological strand in contemporary Christian ethics, with common law reasoning, which is the characteristic methodological commitment of the Anglo-American legal system. Drawing upon Noonan’s work, it shows how a richly detailed historical account can reveal both continuities and discontinuities in doctrinal development in both law and Christian ethics. The chapter also show how legal cases illuminate the tension between promoting individual flourishing and protecting the common good. It examines several specific cases, including Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad.

This chapter looks back on the history of twentieth-century Catholic theology by situating the work of Bernard Lonergan, John Courtney Murray, and Karl Rahner in the philosophical questions that arise from the father of Transcendental Thomism, Joseph Maréchal. Lonergan, Murray, and Rahner were deeply affected by Maréchal's attempt to place Immanuel Kant and Thomas Aquinas into a fruitful dialogue. The chapter then turns to each of our centenarians, offering an individual sense of the reception of their work by the theological community in the United States in the past century. It ends by noting that the Dominican priest Yves Congar was another important theologian of the year 1904, connecting the theological dots of the twentieth century to make it a very good year.

This chapter examines American Catholic debates regarding AIDS education in the 1980s. It focuses on Cardinal John O’Connor of New York City, who served on the President’s AIDS Commission. O’Connor spoke out against the use of condoms in HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, which sparked intense debate both in New York and nationally about the role of the Catholic Church in public health matters. The chapter places O’Connor within the larger context of battles over gay rights in New York City and the history of Catholic sexual ethics. By showing how Catholic leaders consistently discussed AIDS in relation to homosexuality, it demonstrates the powerful role of the church in shaping moral and medical discussions of the disease.

This chapter discusses the theological beliefs of Jewish Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. It suggests that reading Heschel's writings is like coming back to the common Jewish and Christian heritage, and that to read Heschel is to allow his thought to penetrate the deepest recesses of one's heart. This chapter clarifies some misconceptions and misinterpretations that consider Heschel's as a challenge for Catholic theology. Even today, Heschel's legacy in Poland is still very vivid, particularly among Polish Jews.

Contemporary hermeneutics has rediscovered a text’s plurality of meanings. Historical-critical studies seeks the literal sense. Ricoeur’s focus on the meaning of the text as an autonomous world-making reality is a kind of moral interpretation where understanding is reached through history and language and is accompanied by application. Levinas’ interpretation is similarly moral, centered this time on the text as a body and the other. Falque proposes to move beyond the primacy of textuality whether understood as world-making or the figure of an other with their tropological interpretations. He returns to a medieval notion of the book of nature or of the world, which would precede the book of scripture (drawing on Bonaventure). A hermeneutics of facticity entails the epoche of textual medium in addition to the author, referent, reader. Bodily life and intercorporeality appear as the ground and aim of interpretation. Thus Falque opens a way to new allegorical and anagogical interpretations via a “Catholic” contemporary hermeneutics of corporeality and voice is introduced with the help of Jean-Louis Chrétien, Merleau-Ponty, Marcel Jousse, Pope Benedict XVI, and Hugh of St. Victor/

The first chapter opens an argument about Cassian’s pneumatological project by addressing three aspects of his ascetic pneumatology. Cassian’s theology of the Holy Spirit is orthodox according to the Nicene Catholic position in the 5th century. He applies this belief in the full divinity of the Holy Spirit to the ascetic traditions he knew well to argue that the Holy Spirit is the guide for reading scripture and that the Holy Spirit is the former of virtues in monks.

This chapter examines Roman Catholic theological receptions of the Grammar of Assent from its initial British audience through much of the twentieth century. After being criticized by British Catholics for its non-neo-scholastic methods, the Grammar was embraced by Catholic Modernists for much the same reason. In their enthusiasm, however, Modernist theologians overstated Newman’s discontentment with formal reason in order to advance a fideistic interpretation of the text. This Modernist reception elicited strong criticism from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, but these critics exaggerated Newman’s position in the opposite direction by insisting that he endorses the prevailing neo-scholastic rationalism. As a result of this neo-scholastic domestication of the Grammar, the originality of the text was largely obscured from scholarly view. There were, however, exceptions: figures associated with ‘Transcendental Thomism’ (Rousselot, Rahner, and Lonergan) used the Grammar to advance a highly influential, creative third option between neo-scholastic rationalism and Modernist fideism.

The following chapters converge on one central point: the crucial need to return to the actual teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas with respect to the distinction within unity of nature and grace. Never has the phrase of Jacques Maritain, “distinguish in order to unite”, been more necessary, yet seemingly more desolate and forgotten. Many contemporary Roman Catholic theologians — to the degree that they engage this question — incline to accept an account of the relation of nature and grace that dissolves the entire structure of human nature and its proportionate end into a pure posit or limit concept. Because concrete nature exists in the context of the call to grace — inserted in the narrative of creation in grace, the fall, and the redemption — it is therefore thought that the proportionate natural end either does not exist or does exist but in a fashion so permeated by grace and sin as to be unintelligible in its own right.

This chapter first surveys the general significance of saints and martyrs in Roman Catholic theology. It then focuses on the theological argument about San Vitores' death as one of true martyrdom and considers how it requires and effectuates a negative figuration of Chamorro social and cultural agency in the way that it interprets Matå'pang's motives. In the Positio, the certification or authentication of San Vitores's martyrdom features the antics of Matå'pang as a kind of negative witness, although other Chamorros are trotted in either as accomplices or as important supporting characters, witnesses to the murder. How is this symbolic operation accomplished in the narrative Positio, and what are the costs of lionizing San Vitores and demonizing Matå'pang? Using the logic and fundamentals of providentialist thinking, and via its scripting of good over evil in imitation of Christ's passion, San Vitores' death at the hands of Matå'pang is also understood as a testimony to everlasting life with God. But what futures, other than hell or purgatory, are preempted by these symbolic maneuvers—especially for those still alive?

This concluding chapter reviews Tiso's life and presents some final thoughts. It argues that Tiso is best understood as a “Christian-National Socialist,” or a cross between a Christian Social and a generic national socialist. As the former, Tiso was committed to a profound social transformation that based its moral legitimacy not only on the primacy of God but also on notions of progress. But, after the breakup of Austria-Hungary, the actor for bringing about this transformation changed for him from the Christian community to the Slovak nation. In addition, we can profitably understand Tiso's life and histories as expressions of three “theologies.” The first is a Catholic theology in which vices and virtues are clearly delineated, in which priests function as moral experts, and in which God is the final object of man's “exile on earth.” The second is a modern vision of morality in which notions of progress supplant religion. The third is a contemporary moral system in which the Holocaust serves as an icon of evil, a negative goal for man's activities.