Search results for ""The Catholic University of America Press""

Passionate about trying to create social justice in a time of crisis after the Black Plague, William Langland spent his entire life working on Piers Plowman, an epic study of the human quest for truth, justice, and community. The ""A Version,"" the first and shortest of the three versions he crafted, is wonderfully relatable and completely teachable to a modern student audience. Piers Plowman is becoming ever more relevant to students and scholars in English studies. Perhaps because the poem involves culture, religion, community, and work and engages explicitly with the histories of government and popular revolt, this allegorical tale of a wandering Christian named ""Will,"" searching for truth with the aid of a humble plowman named Piers, has found new critical and pedagogic life in the last 20 years. Currently there are no translations of the A-version of Piers Plowman in print, so readers, scholars and teachers have been longing for an affordable, student-centered translation. The apparatus includes a 30-page historical and critical introduction, footnotes, a bibliography, a note on translation theory and practice, and samplings of the original text in Middle English, with a guide to pronunciation of that language.Piers Plowman is an extraordinary important document about the issues dramatically relevant to this day. It confronts poverty and inequity in 14th-century England and explores the need for virtue and social justice, encouraging its readers to create equality with open access for people of all classes and abilities. Though a Christian poem, Piers addresses issues of inclusivity, social responsibility and communal duty, as the poem's protagonist wanders about the world, facing injustice and persecution as he looks for truth and salvation. Michael Calabrese, author of An Introduction to Piers Plowman and director of the Chaucer Studio's Middle English recording of the poem, brings Piers Plowman to life for 21st-century students and for all readers interested in the history of society, virtue, faith and salvation.

Read more less

In his monumental On Justice and Rights, the Jesuit Luis de Molina (1535-1600) discussed the legal and ethical aspects of the Portuguese trade in African and Asian enslaved persons. Molina surveys, develops, and problematizes the criteria necessary for the legitimate possession, sale, and purchase of human freedom. He insists that, even under legally valid slavery, persons who have sold or lost their freedom have inalienable rights as human beings, such as the freedom to make contracts, to marry, and even, under certain circumstances, to sue their owners in court. Molina also devotes attention to the ways in which slavery could be ended and whether and under what circumstances slaves had the right to escape from their owners. Well informed about the political structures and customs of many peoples in Africa, as well as Japan, China, and India, Molina paints a vivid and detailed picture of Portuguese trade. He gives specific accounts of the origins and development of the slave trade, region by region, and of the nature of the relationship between local rulers and the Portuguese kingdom. In doing so, he carefully describes the deception, coercion, and general indifference that pervades this trade regarding the rights to freedom of these people. It also attempts to identify the political, ecclesiastical, and market agents involved in this great injustice and their varying degrees of culpability. While Molina does not condemn slavery as a legal institution, the deeply flawed and even immoral behavior of sellers, buyers, regulators, and political rulers both in Portugal and in the slave-supplying regions that Molina denounces casts a heavy shadow on the morality of the trade.

Read more less

For Augustine, that the Word became flesh transformed a merely human understanding of the virtues and grounds all virtue in humility. The Way of Humility: Augustine's Theology of Preaching explores how this truth became a new paradigm for understanding the scriptures and thus, how Augustine embodied the virtue in the preaching of the scriptures. One of Augustine's most devoted students, Possidius, said that anyone can learn from reading Augustine, but ""those were able to profit still more who could hear him speak in church and see him with their own eyes. Truly, he was indeed one of those of whom it is written, 'speak this way and act the same way.'"" The Way of Humility searches for evidence of the virtue of humility in action through the preaching of the humble Word in the sermons of Augustine.Many know of Augustine through his more famous treatises but few have encountered the Doctor of Grace where he had his most immediate impact, preaching. The Way of Humility follows the sermons through several traditional theological loci, ecclesiology, Christology, soteriology to uncover what can be learned about Augustine's theology through the way he preached to a mixed audience of urbanites and rustics, many of whom did not have the benefit of a formal education. Throughout the book, we see the interplay between Augustine's action in speech and Augustine's more direct statements on his theology of Preaching. Through handing over Christ in his sermons, he became himself an example of humility for the congregation on their journey toward the final end for all people, the Beatific Vision.

Read more less

For several decades prior to his death in October 1992, Monsignor John Tracy Ellis was the most prominent historian of American Catholicism. His bibliography lists 395 published works, including seventeen books, most famously, American Catholics and the Intellectual Life, a scathing indictment of the mediocrity of Catholic higher education and a clarion call for American Catholics to make a greater contribution to American intellectual life. Ellis's ecumenically-minded scholarship led to his election in 1969 as the President of both the American Catholic Historical Association and the predominantly Protestant American Society of Church History.As a professor at the Catholic University of America, Ellis trained numerous graduate students, who made their own contributions to American Catholic history, and he also furthered the careers of several talented young church historians. Especially in his later years, during the polarized atmosphere that followed Vatican II, Ellis became an outspoken but balanced advocate of reform in the Church, urging greater transparency and honesty, collegiality on the diocesan level, a role for the laity in the selection of bishops, reassessment of church teaching on birth control, decentralization to provide an enhanced role for the local churches, and an eloquent defense of religious freedom and the American Catholic commitment to separation of church and state.His fellow church historian, Jay P. Dolan, remarked that Ellis "used history as an instrument to promote changes he believed necessary for American Catholicism...No other historian of American Catholicism matched Ellis in this regard.

Read more less

What is the Church? Some would answer this question by studying the Scriptures, the history of the Church, and contemporary theologians, thus addressing the theological nature of the Church. Others would answer based on statistics, interviews, and personal observation, thus focusing on the experience of the Church. These theological and experiential perspectives are in tension, or at times even opposed. Whereas the first might speak about the local church as the diocese gathered in the Liturgy presided over by its bishop, the latter would describe the local church as the parish community celebrating the Liturgy together with the parish priest, never experiencing a sole liturgy that gathers an entire diocese around its bishop. Whereas a theologian might abstractly describe the Church as a reflection of the Trinity, a regular church-member might concretely experience the Church as a community that manifests the Kingdom of God in its outreach ministries. Radu Bordeianu attempts to bring these two perspectives together, starting from the concrete experience of the Church, engaging this experience with the theological tradition of the Church, extracting ecclesiological principles from this combined approach, and then highlighting concrete situations that reflect those standards or proposing correctives, when necessary.Without pretending to be a complete Orthodox ecclesiology, Icon of the Kingdom of God addresses the most important topics related to the Church. It progresses according to one's experience of the Church from baptism, to the family, parish, Liturgy, and priesthood, followed by analyses of synodality and nationality. Arguing that the Church is an icon of the Kingdom of God, this volume brings together the past theological heritage and the present experience of the Church while having three methodological characteristics: experiential, Kingdom-centered, and ecumenical.

Read more less

Love and Friendship in the Western Tradition comprises a collection of essays written over a 25 year period by the late Rev. Professor James McEvoy on the theme of friendship. The book traces the genesis and development of philosophical treatments of friendship from Greek philosophy, through the Middle Ages, to modern and postmodern philosophy. The collection's three major concerns are: (1) the history of philosophical discussions of friendship; (2) the role of friendship in the cultivation of the philosophical life; (3) the marginalization of friendship as a theme for philosophical reflection and practice in the modern period.As the author was primarily a medievalist, a great deal of the focus of the essays is on the development of the theme of friendship in the Middle Ages (in the thought of Augustine, Aquinas, Aelred of Rievaulx, Henry of Ghent, Robert Grosseteste, etc.). However, this focus, while a value in itself, also serves to connect philosophical perspectives on friendship from before and after the middle ages. It connects to the time before inasmuch as much of the work done on friendship in the Middle Ages is anchored in interpretations of Aristotle and Plato, and it connects to the time after by providing a counterpoint to the modern paradigm of what constitutes the philosophical life.The collection combines historical with thematic approaches to scholarship on this issue and is one of the only books of its kind to do so. It is, perhaps, unique in its historical sweep and will prove to be a canonical source for further research on this topic.

Read more less

In recent years, interest in John Henry Newman as a philosopher hasgained momentum. This work places his philosophical insights in conversation with philosophers from the pragmatic tradition, particularly with C. S. Peirce, the classical pragmatists, and those who have followed their line, and shows several lines of concurrence. It argues that Newman overcame the modern philosophy of his time by reconnecting to the Aristotelian tradition in a very similar way to how Peirce did it fifty years later and the new pragmatists a century after.Without claiming that Newman is a pragmatist philosopher, pragmatism is used as a foil, or point of access, to delve into Newman's philosophy and bring forth the richness of his thought while placing him in the canon of philosophy. This approach deepens the understanding of his philosophical contributions and widens their reach to circles that have previously not engaged with him. Further, this study provides a means to understand pragmatism's resources from a seldom-used vantage point and perhaps appreciate its fruitfulness in a new way.Much emphasis is placed in Newman's texts that refer to his search for and commitment to the truth. The particular nuances of his thought that are brought to light showcase the effective intellectual resources that his writings contain. Newman does not provide ready-made answers to today's questions, but the way he analyzes and engages with the quandaries of his time can point us to creative and fruitful ways of engaging with those of our times.

Read more less

Spiraling into God: Bonaventure on Grace, Hierarchy, and Holiness offers a systematic account of the Seraphic Doctor's doctrine of grace across his speculative-academic, mystical, hagiographical, and pastoral texts. It does so by arguing that an account of this kind can only be provided by also attending to his theology of hierarchy, a methodology derived from Bonaventure's claim in the Major Legend of St. Francis that Francis of Assisi was a "vir hierarchicus," or hierarchical man. As the book explores in great depth, this appellation relies upon Bonaventure's reading of a Victorine Dionysian interpreter by the name of Thomas Gallus, whose "angelic anthropology"—or notion of the hierarchical soul—becomes a crucial component within the Seraphic Doctor's teaching on grace as he interprets the sanctity of St. Francis. Throughout the course of his career, Bonaventure will define sanctifying grace as a created "inflowing" (influential) that "hierarchizes" human beings by purifying, illuminating, and perfecting them from within, thus causing them to become a similitude of the Trinity. This book explains what this means and why it matters.Most existing scholarship on this subject in Bonaventure's thought interprets it as a subtopic with respect to other themes—for example, with respect to his Christology or his Trinitarian theology—rather than taking the time to understand his doctrine of grace in its own right. Alternatively, scholarly treatments of his doctrine of grace will treat it at length, but will only examine the topic as it appears in his more speculative-academic texts—most especially his Commentary on the Sentences or his famous Itinerarium Mentis in Deum—without bringing these into conversation with his pastoral works, sermon literature, or hagiographical texts. Spiraling Into God provides the first unified treatment of Bonaventure's doctrine of grace across all these different genres of his known corpus, and in so doing, fills a massive lacuna in both Bonaventurean scholarship and in the field of medieval historical theology.

Read more less

Becoming What We Are is a collection of essays and reviews written in the last decade by the late Jude Dougherty, which covey a perspective on contemporary events and literature, written from a classical and Christian perspective. These essays convey a worldview much in need of restating when, according to Dougherty, Western society seems to have lost its bearings, in its legislative assemblies and in its judicial systems as well. Dougherty writes as a philosopher, specifically as one who has devoted most of his life to the study of metaphysics.In these pages Dougherty examines the Jacobians, the empirical world of Hume, Locke and Hobbes, and Kant, the metaphysics of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Aquinas that opens one to God and provides one with a moral compass, and critiques the work of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and John Dewey.Becoming What We Are spends some time inquiring into the character of a few great men viz. George Washington, Charles De Gaulle and Moses Maimonides. Dougherty draws upon and shows respect for numerous contemporary authors who are engaged in research and analysis similar to his. The intent is, with the aid of others to restate some ancient but neglected truths. But more than that to show that true science is possible, that nature and human nature yield to human enquiry, that science is not to be confused with description and prediction.

Read more less

Justice After War is aimed especially to both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the general audience who want to understand the significance of a recent development within the just war tradition, namely, the increasing attention given to the category of jus post bellum (postwar justice and peace). While examining the interrelated challenges of moral and social norms in both political and legal domains, as well as church practices, this work proposes an innovative methodology for linking theology, ethics, and social science so that the ideal and the real can inform each other in the ethics of war and peacebuilding. The main task of this project, then, is to identify what the author views as three key themes of jus post bellum, and three practices that are essential to implementing jus post bellum immediately after a war: just policing, just punishment, and just political participation.David Kwon endeavors to challenge the view of those who suggest that reconciliation, mainly political reconciliation, is the foremost ambition of jus post bellum. Instead, he attempts to justify the proposition that achieving just policing, just punishment, and just political participation are essential to building a just peace, a peace in which the fundamental characteristic must be human security. It thus demonstrates that human security is an oft-neglected theme in the recent discourse of moral theologians and that a more balanced understanding of jus post bellum will direct attention to the elements composing human security in a postwar context.

Read more less

Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the United States provides a comprehensive history of Jesuit higher education in the United States, weaving together the stories of the fifty-four colleges and universities that the Jesuits have operated (successfully and unsuccessfully) since 1789. It emphasizes the connections among the institutions, exploring how certain Jesuit schools like Georgetown University gave birth to others like Boston College by sharing faculty, financial resources, accreditation, and even presidents throughout their history. The book also explores how the colleges responded to common challenges—including anti-Catholic prejudice in the United States, the push from government authorities to modernize their shared curriculum, and the pull from Roman authorities to remain loyal to Catholic tradition.The story is comprehensive, covering the colonial era to the present, and takes a fresh look at themes like the rise of the research university in the 1880s and the administrative reforms of the 1960s. It also provides a modern and timely perspective on the role of Jesuit colleges in racial justice, women's education, and other civil rights issues, drawing attention to underappreciated Jesuit contributions in these areas. Michael Rizzi draws from both published and archival sources on the history of each institution to construct a single narrative, identifying common themes, challenges, and trends. Through the eyes of Jesuit colleges, it traces the evolution of American higher education and the role of Catholics in the United States over more than two centuries.

Read more less

In September of 2014 thirty new members were appointed for a five-year term to the Vatican's International Theological Commission. These theologians, clerical and lay, were chosen from twenty-six different countries and from five continents. The commission was charged with composing three documents of contemporary theological importance, one of which was that of the relationship between faith and the sacraments. This finished document was published, with the approval of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and by Pope Francis in Spanish in early 2020 under the title: La Reciprocidad entre Fe y Sacramentos en la Economía Sacramental. A subsequent English translation was published thereafter under the title The Reciprocity Between Faith and Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy.This present volume contains the text of the English translation. There follows an introduction by a member of the ITC, Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., and subsequently followed by six explanatory and interpretive commentaries on various chapters of the document. Dr. John Yocum considers the contemporary relevance of the topic. Dr. Christopher Ruddy examines the dialogical nature of the sacramental economy of salvation. Dr. Jennifer Holmes Martin discusses the relationship between faith and the sacraments of initiation. There are two commentaries for section four concerning faith and the sacrament of marriage. Professor John Grabowski treats the strictly theological issues relating to faith and marriage. Canonist Timothy Cavanaugh takes up the canonical issues regarding faith and its relationship to enacting a valid sacramental marriage. Dr. Daniel Keating rounds off the commentaries by surveying the conclusion of the document, that is, the present need for evangelization so as to enliven the faith of the faithful, and the present relevance of the new ecclesial movements within the Church today.These commentaries are aimed at aiding priests and seminarians as they address or prepare to address the pastoral and theological concerns they encounter or will encounter on a daily basis. This volume could also be used in parish adult education groups as well, wherein the laity could better understand the relationship between faith and the sacraments.

Read more less

What is "A Law of Nature"? It's a question that's vexed philosophers and scientists ever since Descartes first coined the term. Fr. Andrew Younan explores it in this insightful book. After carefully reviewing the positions of Humeans and Anti-Humeans, he employs the philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas to argue for an essentialist understanding. His study leads him back to the beginnings of modern science and then forward to quantum mechanics. The philosophical account of how the laws of nature arise from observed regularities in the world is followed by a theological discussion of the nature and action of the Lawgiver."—from the foreword by Michael J. Dodds, OPTo borrow a phrase from Galileo: What does it mean that the story of the creation is "written in the language of mathematics?" This book is an attempt to understand the natural world, its consistency, and the ontology of what we call laws of nature, with a special focus on their mathematical expression. It does this by arguing in favor of the Essentialist interpretation over that of the Humean and Anti-Humean accounts. It re-examines and critiques Descartes' notion of laws of nature following from God's activity in the world as mover of extended bodies, as well as Hume's arguments against causality and induction. It then presents an Aristotelian-Thomistic account of laws of nature based on mathematical abstraction, necessity, and teleology, finally offering a definition for laws of nature within this framework.

Read more less

Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) was one of the most important philosophers and theologians of early modern Aristotelian scholasticism. Although Suárez spent most of his academic career as a professor of theology, he is better known today for his Metaphysical Disputations (Salamanca, 1597). The present volume contains a facing-page English translation of Metaphysical Disputation II, which is devoted to the nature of real being, the subject of metaphysics. In it, Suárez is especially concerned, first, to argue there is a single nature of being common to all real beings, and second, to show what this nature consists in. The Latin text contained in this volume introduces a significant number of corrections to the text of the Vivès edition, the one standardly used by scholars of Suárez, and thus more faithfully reproduces the text of the first edition. The volume also contains a lengthy introduction that provides a detailed survey of the disputation's principal claims and arguments.

Read more less

No other encyclical has generated as much conversation—both Catholic and non-Catholic—as Laudato si'. Often forgotten in these conversations is the theological heart and eucharistic vision of the encyclical and its integral ecology. Even the title of Laudato si'—"Praised be!"— signals the centrality of right praise in caring for our common home. Using Bernard Lonergan's theology of history, this book unearths the doxological, eucharistic vision that shapes the encyclical's integral presentation of social and ecological conversion. It offers the first book-length study that recovers the eucharistic nature of Laudato si'.In drawing out the eucharistic vision of Laudato si', the book accomplishes several feats for the reader. It roots the eucharistic dimensions of the encyclical in the writings of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, showing how Pope Francis develops their thought in notable ways. It introduces Bernard Lonergan's theology of history, showing how his framework can capture the eucharistic contours of caring for our common home; so too, in light of Laudato si', does the book expand his theology of history to incorporate both ecological concern and the doxological, eucharistic essence of the church. The book assembles a liturgically shaped, systematic account of the church's social mission. It joins poles otherwise sundered in a polarized church and world: between worship and justice, between concerns for human life and concerns for the natural world. Realizing the eucharistic vision of Laudato si' promises much for our contemporary moment. Pope Francis recently observed that the integral ecology of Laudato si' holds the key for the world's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Catholic Bishops recently launched a Eucharistic Revival that aims to rekindle eucharistic devotion and praxis. The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si': Praise, Conversion, and Integral Ecology supplies a timely study that helps fulfill these intertwined calls.

Read more less

Putting on Christ aims to situate Augustine's early soteriology and sacramental theology within the context of his personal history and intellectual development. Beginning with an extended analysis of the theology of salvation and sacramental efficacy contained within Augustine's Confessions (ca. 400), the study then traces the maturation of his views on these matters, beginning with his earliest extant works, the Cassicacum dialogues (ca. 386). The journey entails treating Augustine's earliest discussions of Christ's person and his saving work, as well as the believer's subjective experience of conversion and salvation. As Augustine's corpus shifts from philosophical dialogues to explicitly apologetic and scriptural-exegetical works, so too does his soteriological lexicon expand to include concepts and terms that will later become his stock-in-trade, such as the virtue of humilitas. And as his roles in the North African Church come to include participation in the presbyterate and the episcopacy, so too does his engagement expand to a wider set of polemical contexts, both anti-Manichaean and anti-Donatist.Putting on Christ tracks these and many other aspects of Augustine's maturing thought, showing where lines of both continuity and development lie and aiming to uncover their reasons. In doing so, it reveals Augustine to be a thinker and a teacher who continued to hone his understanding of salvation, the very heartbeat of Christian life and thought, as well as its relation to various other aspects of the Christian theological worldview, from Christology and anthropology to sacramental theology and ecclesiology.

Read more less

This book proposes a rather novel legal-philosophical approach to understanding the intersection between law and morality. It does so by analyzing the conditions for the existence of a juridical domain of natural law from the perspective of the tradition of Thomistic juridical realism. In order to highlight the need to reconnect with this tradition in the context of contemporary legal philosophy, the book presents various other recent jurisprudential positions regarding the overlap between law and morality. While most authors either exclude a conceptual necessity for the inclusion of moral principles in the nature of law or refer to the purely moral status of natural law at the foundations of the legal phenomenon, the book seeks to elucidate the essential properties of the juridical status of natural law. In order to establish the juridicity of natural law, the book explores the relevant arguments of Thomas Aquinas and some of his main commentators on this issue, above all Michel Villey and Javier Hervada. It establishes that Thomistic juridical realism observes the juridical phenomenon not only from the perspective of legal norms or subjective individual rights, but also from the perspective of the primary meaning of the concept of right (ius), namely, the just thing itself as the object of justice. In this perspective, natural rights already possess a fully juridical status and can be described as natural juridical goods. In addition, from the viewpoint of Thomistic juridical realism, we can identify certain natural norms or principles of justice as the juridical title of these rights or goods. The book includes an assessment of the prospective points of dialogue with the other trends in Thomistic legal philosophy as well as with various accounts of the nature of law in contemporary legal theory.

Read more less

Guilds and conferences have grown up around historical theology, yet no volume has ever been dedicated to the definition and illustration of the method undergirding historical theology. This volume both defines and illustrates the methodology of historical theology, especially as it relates to the study of early Christianity, and situates historical theology among other methodological approaches to early Christianity, including confessional apologetics, constructive theology, and socio-cultural history.Historical theology as a discipline stands in contrast to these other approaches to the study of early Christianity. In contrast to systematic or constructive approaches, it remains essentially historical, with a desire to elucidate the past rather than speak to the present. In contrast to socio-historical approaches, it remains essentially theological, with a concern to value and understand the full complexity of the abstract thought world that stands behind the textual tradition of early Christian theology. Moreover, historical theology is characterized by the methodological presupposition that, unless good reason exists to think otherwise, the theological accounts of the ancient church articulate the genuine beliefs of their authors.The significance of this volume lies in the methodological definition it offers. The strength of this volume lies in the fact that its definition of the historical method of studying theology is not the work of a single mind but that of over twenty respected scholars, many of whom are leaders in the field. The volume begins with an introductory essay that orients readers to various approaches to early Christian literature, it moves to two technical essays that define the historical method of studying early Christian theology, and then it illustrates the practice of this method with more than twenty essays that cover a period stretching from the first century to the dawn of the seventh.

Read more less

Heresy in the Heartland is a narrative case study of the 'Heresy' Affair at the University of Dayton, a series of events predominantly in the philosophy department that occurred when tensions between the Thomists and proponents of new philosophies reached crisis stage in fall 1966. The controversy culminated in a letter written by a lay assistant professor to the Cincinnati archbishop, Karl J. Alter. In the letter, the professor cited a number of instances where "erroneous teachings" were "endorsed" or "openly advocated" by four lay faculty members. Concerned about the pastoral impact on the University of Dayton community, the professor asked the archbishop to conduct an investigation. How the University weathered this controversy, the second of three major controversies to hit Catholic higher education within three years (St. John's University, University of Dayton and the Curran affair at Catholic University of America), is of interest to faculty and administrators in Catholic higher education who continue to struggle with defining what it means to be a "Catholic" university, with the relationship of Catholic universities to the Church at large and the hierarchy in particular, and with Church teachings that conflict with the culture we live in such as immigration, the environment and sexual ethics.The story is told in chronological order by the participants in the controversy - faculty, administrators, students and clergy - using the words of those involved. Heresy in the Heartland concludes with a synopsis of what happened at the University of Dayton and draws some lessons for the future of Catholic higher education.

Read more less

This short volume, finished just before Denis Farkasfalvy's death in 2020, serves effectively as his last theological testament. In A Biblical Path to the Triune God, the Cistercian abbot identifies the earliest biblical witnesses to the Church's teaching about God, formulated at the Council of Nicaea, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.Jesus' famous praise of the Father, found almost word-for-word in Matthew 11:25-27 and Luke 10:21-22, is Farkasfalvy's point of departure for his bold assertion that in the earliest sources, we find abundant evidence that "it was not Jesus who revealed his own divine sonship; rather, the Father revealed it to those whom Jesus had chosen and were open to respond in faith." Farkasfalvy demonstrates that Jesus reveals his relationship to the Father in terms of intimate and experiential knowledge, transforming the procreative metaphor of filiation from the physical (as in the Psalms and 2 Samuel 7) to the epistemological realm of knowledge, what he calls "love within cognitive dimensions." Just decades after Jesus' ministry, numerous independent apostolic witnesses, from the Synoptic Gospels and John to Paul (especially Romans 1:1-4 and Galatians 1:15-16), indicate a robust and widespread understanding of the Father's self-disclosure in Jesus the Son.Farkasfalvy concludes his brief but intense reflection by outlining how a single organic process of revelation binds together the Father and the Son, and then extends that loving communion to believers in the Spirit, a communion made possible only by the incarnate Son's crucifixion and subsequent glorification. This book accomplishes the admirable feat of showing that far from being the invention of later centuries, the Trinitarian doctrine of the Church is firmly rooted in the very first reflections on Jesus' ministry and mystery by the biblical authors.

Read more less

There are many ways of understanding the reality of the world we live in and experience. Science, philosophy, art all offer us ample descriptions, explanations and intuitions. But Christian believers go beyond all that, for they attempt to understand the origins of the universe in terms of the creation of the world by God. Revelation tells us what God had in mind when he made the world ex nihilo, without presuppositions of any kind. God's Gift of the Universe attempts to present the principal elements and stages of creation theology. The doctrine is to be found fundamentally, of course, in Scripture, both Old and New Testament, which describes the world in the light of God's word. Yet since God actually gave existence to the world, down to the last detail, our reflection on God's word not only explains the reality of creation, how it works, its nature, as science does. It also explains how creation came into being in the mind and heart of the Triune God, and, ultimately, why God created the world.In God's Gift of the Universe, a considerable effort has been spent throughout the book on the Christological and Trinitarian aspects of creation, particularly in the theology of Church Fathers. Creation is presented besides in a deeply eschatological key, for God created the world for purpose of making his glory eternally manifest. The book also considers the way God 'intervenes' in the life of the created world, through conservation in being and providence. The meaning of time, matter and spirit are considered. The need for ecological awareness is central. One aspect of the mystery of creation that receives special attention is the presence of evil in the world. This is of particular importance once we accept that God made the world, whole and entire, thus assuming responsibility for the world as it is. The origin of evil through the sin of spiritual creatures provides the ultimate though not the only explanation of the mystery of evil. Particular consideration is given to the reality of 'original sin'.

Read more less

Jesus Becoming Jesus, Volume 2: A Theological Interpretation of the Gospel of John: Prologue and the Book of Signs follows upon the first volume of this series entitled Jesus Becoming Jesus. The first volume was a theological interpretation of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Unlike many conventional biblical commentaries, Weinandy concentrates on the theological content contained within John’s Gospel. He does this in the light of the Church’s doctrinal and theological tradition, particularly in keeping with the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution, Dei Verbum. This is accomplished through a close reading of John’s Gospel, theologically interpreting each chapter of the Gospel sequentially. In so doing he also takes into account the Johannine corpus as a whole. He also relates John’s Gospel to relevant material found within the Synoptic Gospels, the Pauline Corpus and other New Testament writings.This original theological interpretation focuses primarily on the intertwining theological themes contained within John’s Gospel, specifically within the Prologue and the Book of Signs – light and darkness, the seven miracle-signs, the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, the seven “I Am” sayings, the contentious dialogues with the Jews, Jesus’ relationship to his Father as the Father’s incarnate Word and Son, etc. Within all of these interlocking themes one finds the importance of Jesus’ saving actions – the salvific works of his Father. The overarching theme of this book, as the title suggests, is that Jesus, being named Jesus, throughout his public ministry is enacting his name and so becoming who he is – YHWH-Saves.Weinandy offers a singular, vibrant, and luminous reading of John’s Gospel; one that reveals the Evangelist’s theological depth and doctrinal sophistication. In so doing, Weinandy makes manifest the particular beauty of the Gospel According to John.

Read more less

The polarization in the Church today can be traced back to a more fundamental crisis in theology, one which has failed to connect our mundane experiences and the mysteries of the Christian faith with the person of Jesus Christ. Ecclesial discourse on the so-called ‘hot- button issues’ of the day too often take place without considering the foundation and goal of the Church. And this is unfortunately due to a similar tendency in the academic theology that informs that ecclesial discourse. In short, much of post-conciliar Catholic theology is adrift, floating aimlessly away from the center of the Christian faith, who is Christ.The Center is Jesus Christ Himself is a collection of essays which anchor theological reflection in Jesus Christ. These diverse essays share a unified focal point, but engage with a variety of theological subdisciplines (e.g., dogmatic, moral, Biblical, etc.), areas (e.g., Christology, Pneumatology, missiology, etc.), and periods (e.g., patristic, medieval, and modern). Given the different combinations of sub-disciplines, areas, and periods, theology is susceptible to fragmentation when it is not held together by some principle of unity. A theology in which the person of Jesus Christ serves as that principle of unity is a Christocentric theology. Together, the essays illustrate not only what Christocentric theology looks like, but also what the consequences are when Christ is dislodged from the center, whether by a conspicuous silence on, or by a relativization of, his unique salvific mission.The volume is published in honor of Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology at Boston College, Rev. Dr. Robert P. Imbelli, who dedicated his teaching and writing to bringing Christ back to the center of Catholic theological discourse.

Read more less

”Theology of Religions” is among the most burning issues within Christian theology today. The challenge to study and discuss different ways of handling conflicting truth claims and religious narratives between religions is taken up by a growing number of theologians across denominational boundaries. This is a common and ecumenical effort undertaken by Christian theologians all over the world. And yet, the impact of specific ecclesiastical or theological traditions on different concepts of theology of religions should not be underestimated. As well known, the Second Vatican council with its pivotal decree Nostra Aetate (On the relation to other religions) not only set the agenda for Catholic theology, but even influenced the wider discussion on the topic. The papers of this volume were all given at a conference in Uppsala, Sweden in October 2017. The structure of Faithful Interpretations follows closely the way the conference was conducted.A general introduction to the development and present status of ”Theology of Religions” by Marianne Moyaert opens the book. Archbishop J Augustine Di Noia of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith then treats the recent developments in the teaching of the Magisterium regarding theology of religions. Anna Bonta Moreland adresses the issue of Muhammad and Christian Prophecy. Diego R Sarrió Cucarella focuses on early Christian theological views of Islam and concludes that Islam has been from the begining a ”disturbing” factor in the Christian view of salvation history. Wilhelmus G B M Valkenberg discusses the impact of Nostra Aetate on the Church’s relation to Muslims, using especially the precedent of Nicolaus of Cues as regards a constructive approach to Islam. Klaus von Stosch adresses a sensitive issue in Muslim-Christian relations and illustrates the advantages of the comparative theology approach for the theology of religions.Complementing this perspective, Peter Jonkers offers a hermeneutical perspective on truth claims, and reflects on ”the religious Other” with references to Jacques Derrida among others. Reinhold Bernhardt argues in favour of a biblically grounded “relational-existential” theory of truth, which would be most helpful with regard to other religions. To conclude, the prominent Catholic specialist on Theology of Religions, Gavin D’Costa, widened the perspective by addressing the relation to Judaism from the point of view of the covenant and the promises of the land. Altogether, the papers of this volume give a clear impression of the status of Roman Catholic Theology of Religions.

Read more less

Bread from Heaven offers a contemporary theological synthesis on the Eucharist that brings together classical and critical biblical exegesis, debates on the early history of the Christian liturgy, patristic doctrine, the teachings offered by the Councils of Florence, Trent and Vatican II, and the Church’s lex orandi, all within a framework provided by the Eucharistic theology of Thomas Aquinas.The volume begins with Christ’s Bread of Life discourse in John 6, in light of the Old Testament theme of the manna, and the Synoptic accounts of the Last Supper. These biblical texts offer solid foundation for a theology of Eucharistic sacrifice, presence and Communion. It then continues with a historical and systematic study of the institution of the Eucharist by Christ, with special attention given to the emergence of the first Eucharistic prayers. Then follows a survey of key Christological and ecclesiological themes which undergird Eucharistic theology. The chapters on Eucharistic sacrifice and presence form the heart of the work. Here, the focus moves to key conciliar, patristic and Thomistic insights on these themes. Bread from Heaven clarifies misunderstandings of Eucharistic sacrifice and renders transubstantiation accessible to beginners.Blankenhorn concludes with a study of the consecration, the minister of the Eucharist and the fruits of communion. The chapter on the debate over the words of institution and the epiclesis gives a fresh perspective that integrates both eastern and western tradition. The study of the Eucharistic celebrant strikes a balance between a spirituality of the priest as acting in persona Christi and of the priest as praying in persona ecclesiae. The concluding chapter centers on the Eucharist’s unitive, mystical fruits in the Church.This textbook is ideal for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course on Eucharistic theology. It also seeks to advance the debate on several controversial historical and speculative issues in sacramental theology.

Read more less

The publication of Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia started the most important theological debate in the Catholic Church since the end of the Second Vatican Council. The cardinals, bishops, theologians, priests, lay Catholics found themselves on the opposite sides of this crucial and complicated discussion. This book attempts to shed some light on this debate by tracing its genealogy.Since Amoris Laetitia is a post-synodal document, the large part of the book is devoted to the theological analysis of the two Synods of Bishops convoked by Pope Francis in the first years of his pontificate: the extraordinary in October 2014 and the ordinary that took place a year later. The main topics for the two synods were determined, however, in the speech given by Cardinal Walter Kasper during the cardinals consistory in February 2014 whose main aim was to prepare the possibility of admitting divorced persons who live in second unions to Holy Communion. The arguments of Cardinal Kasper are presented in the first chapter of the book and confronted with the most significant statements of the Magisterium of the Church on the issue of admittance to the Holy Communion.This book is a study at the intersection of Church history, the history of theology, and systematic theology: dogmatic and moral. Kupczak is interested in the chronology of the events connected to the two synods on the family but in the context of theological problems discussed therein: the theological significance of contemporary cultural changes; the relation of the Church to the world; the understanding of the indissolubility of the sacramental marriage and the Eucharist; the methods of ethically assessing human acts, particularly the concept of so-called intrinsically evil acts (intrinsece malum); and the relation of conscience to the general moral norm. The non-partisan ambition of this book is to serve as a “road map”— a help in navigation for the reader in the complicated discussions leading to publication of Amoris Laetitia.The uniqueness of this book consists in combining the historical analysis of the events leading to the publication of Amoris Laetitia with research of the theological discussion that ensued. Since Amoris Laetitia is a post-synodal exhortation, this book rests on the assumption that crucial for its understanding is a thorough analysis of its genealogy. Only in the light of this historical and theological perspective the debates surrounding Amoris Laetitia may be understood.

Read more less

In 1563, the Council of Trent published its Decrees, calling for significant reforms of the Catholic Church in response to criticism from both Protestants and Catholics alike. Bishops, according to the Decrees, would take the lead in implementing these reforms. They were tasked with creating a Church in which priests and laity were well educated, morally upright, and focused on worshipping God. Unfortunately for these bishops, the Decrees provided few practical suggestions for achieving the wide-ranging changes demanded. Reform was therefore an arduous and complex process, which many bishops struggled to accomplish or even refused to undertake fully.The Bishop’s Burden argues that reforming bishops were forced to be creative and resourceful to accomplish meaningful change, including creating strong diocesan governments, reforming clerical and lay behavior, educating priests and parishioners, and converting non-believers. The book explores this issue through a detailed case study of the episcopacy of Cardinal-Bishop Gregorio Barbarigo of Padua (bp. 1664-1697), asking how a dedicated bishop formulated a reform program that sought to achieve the Church’s goals. Barbarigo, like other reforming bishops, borrowed strategies from a variety of sources in the absence of clear guidance from Rome. He looked to both pre- and post-Tridentine bishops, the Society of Jesus, the Venetian government, and the Propaganda Fide, which he selectively emulated to address the problems he discovered in Padua. The book is based primarily on the detailed records of Barbarigo’s visitations of rural parishes and captures the rarely-heard voices of seventeenth-century Italian peasants.The Bishop’s Burden helps us understand not only the changes experienced by early modern Catholics, but also how even the most sophisticated plans of central authorities could be frustrated by practical realities, which in turn complicates our understanding of state-building and social control.

Read more less

Any realist metaphysics must include an integrated account of the transcendentals and the analogy of being, for an adequate metaphysics must be about everything, and all things share in some key metaphysical characteristic—being, unity, truth, goodness, and beauty. However, they do not share in them in exactly the same way. Therefore, there is need to explain the transcendental characteristics in an analogical way. By using the phrase “transcendental analogies,” Reason, Revelation and Metaphysics claims that there are analogies of unity, truth, goodness, and beauty, which are related to, but irreducible to, the analogy of being. As this book is a systematic study of the topic, theoretical reason has primacy in the project and metaphysics is given pride of place. But reason is practical and aesthetic as well; that is, our consciences urge us to seek what is good, and we are delighted by what is beautiful. Although goodness and beauty are not reducible to truth, they must be included in any adequate metaphysical account, for metaphysics looks to explain everything.Although metaphysics is traditionally thought to be a philosophical project involving ontology and natural theology, Montague Brown argues that an adequate metaphysics must ultimately be theological, including within its scope the truths of revelation. Philosophical reason’s examination of the transcendental analogies raises questions that it cannot answer. We experience a world of many beings, truths, goods, and beauties. Recognizing that these many instances have something in common, we affirm a transcendent instance of each (traditionally called God). However, although we know that a transcendent instance exists, we do not know its nature: therefore, we cannot say how it is related to the other instances. If we try to apply this transcendent instance as the prime analogate to shed light on the other analogates, we must fail, for the abstractness and universality of the transcendent instance can add nothing to our understanding of the particular instances. Wanting to know how the many exist and are related, philosophical reason finds no way forward and recognizes its need for help.It is the thesis of this book that reason finds this help only in the revelation of the God’s covenantal relation with the world. The first principle of all things—most perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ, perfect God and perfect man—is really and freely related to us. Only by accepting this revealed prime analogate can the transcendental analogies bear fruit in our ongoing quest for understanding.

Read more less

José Maria Eça de Queirós (1845-1900) was a Portuguese author in the realist style, whose work has been translated into 20 languages. The Count of Abranhos was published posthumously, and this is the first time it has been translated into English. Alípio Severo Abranhos, born to poor parents in a small town in the north of Portugal, goes off to spend his boyhood and adolescence with an aunt whose material well-being constitutes, for him, the lap of luxury. And he likes and becomes accustomed to luxury. As he follows a course of study for his bacharel at the University of Coimbra, certain negative character traits come to the fore, and upon completion of his degree he leaves behind a pregnant maid to take up residence in Lisbon. In the capital, he calculates—as a young man with neither position, nor fortune, nor social standing—how to get ahead in life. And the path is through marriage to a young woman of social status and promise of a sizable dowry, both of which can facilitate his rise in politics and government. Alípio’s weapons, his means, are various modes of hypocrisy—social hypocrisy, religious hypocrisy, filial hypocrisy, and political hypocrisy, with dishonesty, cowardice, and a farcical duel thrown in for good measure. Eça, like all accomplished novelists, does not tell us what Alípio becomes, rather he lets us see what he becomes, for with his unerring sense of satire, of character portrayal, and plot movement he lets the Count of Abranhos, with his steps and missteps, inform us himself of what he becomes. And with his actions, Alípio Severo Abranhos emerges as the personification, the very epitome, of the grim state of politics in nineteenth-century Portugal, a state engendered by the dogged pursuit of power. And through the obsequious eyes of Alípio’s biographer and the sycophantic hangers-on who wish to glory in his orbit, readers have a clear picture of the “great” man—a type who exhibits universal characteristics not confined to Eça de Queirós’s native country, nor to his time.

Read more less

The conversation of this book is structured around five major documents from the Second Vatican Council, each of which Barth commented upon in his short but penetrating response to the Council, published as Ad Limina Apostolorum. In the two opening essays, Thomas Joseph White reflects upon the contribution that this book seeks to make to contem­porary ecumenism rooted in awareness of the value of dogmatic theol­ogy; and Matthew Levering explores the way in which Barth’s Ad Limina Apostolorum flows from his preconciliar dialogues with Catholic repre­sentatives of the nouvelle théologie and remain relevant to the issues facing Catholic theology today. The next two essays turn to Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation; here Katherine Sondereg­ger (Protestant) reflects on scripture and Lewis Ayres (Catholic) reflects on tradition. The next two essays address the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, which touches upon central differences of Cath­olic and Protestant self-understanding. Christoph Schwöbel (Protestant) analyzes visible ecclesial identity as conceived in a Protestant context, while Thomas Joseph White (Catholic) engages Barth’s Reformed crit­icisms of the Catholic notion of the Church. The next two essays take up Nostra Aetate: Bruce McCormack (Protestant) asks whether it is true to say that Muslims worship the same God as Christians, and Bruce D. Marshall (Catholic) explores the implications of the Council’s reflections on the Jewish people. The next two essays take up the Pastoral Constitu­tion on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes: John Bowlin (Protestant) makes use of the thought of Aquinas to consider the prom­ise and perils of the document, while Francesca Aran Murphy (Catho­lic) engages critically with George Lindbeck’s analysis of the document. The next two essays explore Unitatis Redintegratio: Hans Boersma (Prot­estant) asks whether the ecumenical intention of the document is im­paired by its insistence that the unity of the Church is already present in the Catholic Church, and Reinhard Hütter (Catholic) systematically addresses Barth’s questions regarding the document. The noted ecumen­ist and Catholic theologian Richard Schenk brings the volume to a close by reflecting on “true and false ecumenism” in the post-conciliar period.

Read more less

The Hibernensis is the longest and most comprehensive canon-law text to have circulated in Carolingian Europe. Compiled in Ireland in the late seventh or early eight century, it exerted a strong and long-lasting influence on the development of European canon law. The present edition offers—for the first time—a complete text of the Hibernensis combining the two main branches of its manuscript transmission. This is accompanied by an English translation and a commentary that is both historical and philological. The Hibernensis is an invaluable source for those interested in church history, the history of canon law, social-economic history, as well as intellectual history, and the history of the book. Widely recognized as the single most important source for the history of the church in early medieval Ireland, the Hibernensis is also our best index for knowing what books were available in Ireland at the time of its compilation: it consists of excerpted material from the Bible, Church Fathers and doctors, hagiography, church histories, chronicles, wisdom texts, and insular normative material unattested elsewhere. This in addition to the staple sources of canonical collections, comprising the acta of church councils and papal letters. Altogether there are forty-two cited authors and 135 cited texts. But unlike previous canonical collections, the contents of the Hibernensis are not simply derivative: they have been modified and systematically organised, offering an important insight into the manner in which contemporary clerical scholars attempted to define, interpret, and codify law for the use of a growing Christian society.

Read more less

From Human Dignity to Natural Law shows how the whole of the natural law, as understood in the Aristotelian Thomistic tradition, is contained implicitly in human dignity. Human dignity means existing for one’s own good (the common good as well as one’s individual good), and not as a mere means to an alien good. But what is the true human good? This question is answered with a careful analysis of Aristotle’s defini­tion of happiness. The natural law can then be understood as the pre­cepts that guide us in achieving happiness. To show that human dignity is a reality in the nature of things and not a mere human invention, it is necessary to show that human be­ings exist by nature for the achievement of the properly human good in which happiness is found. This implies finality in nature. Since contem­porary natural science does not recognize final causality, the book ex­plains why living things, as least, must exist for a purpose and why the scientific method, as currently understood, is not able to deal with this question. These reflections will also enable us to respond to a common criticism of natural law theory: that it attempts to derive statements of what ought to be from statements about what is. After defining the natural law and relating it to human or positive law, Richard Berquist considers Aquinas’s formulation of the first prin­ciple of the natural law. He then discusses the commandments to love God above all things and to love one’s neighbor as oneself as the first precepts of the natural law. Subsequent chapters are devoted to clar­ifying and defending natural law precepts concerned with the life is­sues, with sexual morality and marriage, and with fundamental natural rights. From Human Dignity to Natural Law concludes with a discussion of alternatives to the natural law.

Read more less

The Church of God in Jesus Christ consists of three parts: the first provides a concise historical survey of ecclesiology elucidating the most salient teachings and insights from the Old and New Testaments, the writings of the fathers, the medievals, moderns, up to the present day. It integrates a standard historical overview with a recovery of oft ignored or forgotten insights from the tradition (e.g., beginnings of the Church in prehistoric times and in Israel, Irenaeus’s Trinitarian ecclesiology and St. Bernard’s nuptial vison of the Church. The second part is a systematic ecclesiology ordered around the four marks of the Church, then proceeding to treat the participation of all the faithful in the threefold office of Christ, the ongoing renewal and reform of the Church by the Holy Spirit working through her members, and finishing with a hitherto neglected study of the eschatological consummation of the Church in heavenly glory. The third part consists of five essays on particular themes of special importance in ecclesiology. Of the five, most notable is the chapter on the relationship between the Church’s infallibility and Mary.Fr. Roch Kereszty intends to integrate theological insights with nourishing the reader’s spiritual life by emphasizing the essentially Trinitarian, nuptial and Marian dimensions of the Church. The book fills a genuine need in that it offers a rich synthesis of the ecclesiological renewal in an accessible and clear language. It will enrich not only students of theology but all those college educated adults who are interested to delve beyond the clichés of the media into the contemplation of the manifold mystery of the Church.

Read more less

The period from 1959–1972 was the crucial years during which the French priest, paleontologist, and writer Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s writing and thought significantly impacted the spiritual thought of the United States. During this time his writings first became available in North America; indeed, over five hundred works concerning him were published in the US during these years.America’s Teilhard: Christ and Hope in the ­1960s is a study of the reception of Teilhard in the United States during this period and contributes to an awareness of the thought of this important figure and the impact of his work. Additionally, it further develops an understanding of U.S. Catholicism in all its dimensions during these years, and provides clues as to how it has unfolded over the past several decades.Susan Sack argues that the manner and intensity of the reception of Teilhard’s thought happened as it did at this point in history because of the confluence of the then developing social milieu, the disintegration of the immigrant Catholic subculture, and the opening of the church to the world through Vatican II. Additionally, as these social and historical events unfolded within U.S. culture during these years, the way Teilhard was read, and the contributions which his thought provided changed. This book considers his work as a carrier at times for an almost Americanist emphasis upon progress, energy and hope; in other years his teleological understanding of the value of suffering moves to center. Additionally, the stories of numerous persons—scientists, theologians, politicians, and scholars—who became involved in the American Teilhardian effort are detailed.Finally American Teilhard notes that in the end, it has been Teilhard’s attempts to leap the interstice between the secular and the sacred, particularly in terms of Christology, that remain of value today. It is those which most had, and which continue to have impact upon U.S. Catholic theology.

Read more less

Aquinas on Emotion's Participation in Reason aims to present Aquinas's answer to the perennial and now popular question: In what way can the emotions be rational? For Aquinas, the starting point of this inquiry is Aristotle's claim (EN. I. 13) that there are three parts to the soul: 1) the rational part, 2) the non-rational part which can participate in reason, and 3) the non-rational part that does not participate in reason. It is the extent to which the second part (the sense appetites, the seat of the emotions) participates in reason that the emotions can become rational. However, immediately after Aristotle introduces his tripartite division of the soul, he warns that one need not delve into the details of the division or the participation. Aquinas, however, ignores Aristotle, and uses his precise metaphysics of participation within in his sophisticated anthropology to great effect in his ethics. Unlike Aristotle, to fully understand Aquinas's thinking on how the emotions can become rational, we simply must delve into the kinds of precisions that Aristotle thinks are misplaced. When Aquinas's views emerge from these precisions, he has a surprisingly level-headed and commonsense view of how the emotions can become rational. On this point, he is more pessimistic than Aristotle and more optimistic than Kant; he is certainly not, as is he is often thought to be, the faithful follower of Aristotle and the polar opposite of Kant. Nicholas Kahm argue that Aquinas has a realistic and plausible view of how far reason can go in shaping our emotions. Furthermore, his plausible views can accommodate the serious current challenge raised against virtue ethics from social psychology. The method has mainly been a careful reading of primary texts, but unlike the rest of the scholarship on Aquinas's ethics, Kahm is particularly sensitive to Aquinas's historical and philosophical development.

Read more less

Karl Rahner's seemingly inscrutable theology of freedom can be summarized simply: human freedom makes manifest (or fails to make manifest) God's eternal decision to create, to save creation, and thereby to share Godself. Freedom is something real, a substantive freedom for: for saying ""yes"" to God's merciful self-giving. This freedom most often comes to light not in extraordinary triumphs of spirit, but amid small acts whereby common sinners and downtrodden people travel a pilgrim journey, gradually finding ways to form and to express a life that reflects –however dimly? God's refulgent light. Freedom Made Manifest explicates Rahner's theology of freedom by elucidating its configuration and sources. Much of its inquiry centers on the fundamental option: each human person's eternal decision made, paradoxically, in time, as a definitive answer to God's personally-tailored call to salvation. This idea stems from three principal sources: Catholic conversations with transcendental-idealist philosophy, penitential theology and practice, and Ignatian spirituality. Rahner's unique redeployment of these sources inflects the fundamental option with theologies of concupiscence, mercy and forgiveness (especially as ecclesially mediated), and devotion to Jesus Christ. Awareness of these inflections can show how Rahner's theology of freedom may assist in theological reflection on freedom's susceptibility to injury and trauma. To these clarifications the author adds a major emendation, arguing that Rahner's theology of freedom is most adequately interpreted as a theological aesthetic of freedom, attentive to freedom's depth dimension in the heart of each person, through which and out of which God's free decision to self-reveal is expressed or concealed. Following upon Karl Rahner's Theological Aesthetics (CUA Press, 2014), which introduced Rahner's ""Catholic sublime,"" and anticipating a volume on ""world,"" this volume contributes to theological-aesthetic thinking not at the stratospheric level of being's transcendentals, but within the sensed (aesthetic) friction of everyday existence.

Read more less

St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village relates the life of a local faith community to the larger religious and secular world of which it is a part, and reciprocally illuminates that bigger world from the perspective of this local community. During the life span of this parish, the Catholic community in New York City has grown from a mere thirty or forty thousand to over three million in two dioceses. St. Joseph’s Church began as a poor immigrant parish in a hostile Protestant environment, developed into a prosperous working-class parish as the area became predominantly Catholic, survived a series of local economic and social upheavals, and remains today a vibrant spiritual center in the midst of an overwhelmingly secular neighborhood. Its history provides a fascinating glimpse of the evolution of Catholicism in New York City during the course of the past ­†“ years.The history of this parish is worth telling for its own sake as the collective journey of one faith community from immigrant mission to pillar of society and then to spiritual outpost in the Secular City. However, it has significance far beyond the boundaries of Greenwich Village because it documents at the most basic and vital level of Catholic communal organization the interaction between change and continuity that has been one of the most prominent features of urban Catholicism in the United States over the past two centuries.

Read more less

The Society of Jesus arrived in Italy in 1540 brimming with enthusiasm to found new universities. These would be better than Italian universities, which the Jesuits believed were full of professors teaching philosophical atheism to debauched students. The Jesuits also wanted to become professors in existing Italian universities. They would teach Christian philosophy, true theology, sound logic, eloquent humanities, and practical mathematics. They would exert a positive moral influence on students. The Jesuits were rejected. Italy already had fourteen universities famous for their research and teaching. They were ruled by princes and cities who refused to share their universities with a religious order led by Spaniards. Between 1548 and 1773 the Jesuits made sixteen attempts, from Turin in the north to Messina in Sicily, to found new universities or to become professors in existing universities. They had some successes, as they helped found four new universities and became professors of mathematics in three more universities. But they suffered nine total failures. The battles between universities, civil governments, and the Jesuits were memorable. Lay professors accused the Jesuits of teaching philosophy badly. The Jesuits charged that Italian professors delivered few lectures and skipped most of Aristotle. Behind the denunciations were profound differences about what universities should be. Italian universities were dominated by law and the Jesuits emphasized the humanities and theology. Nevertheless, the Society of Jesus had an impact. They added cases of conscience to the training of clergymen. They made four years of study the norm for a degree in theology. They offered a student-centered alternative to Italian universities that focused on research and ignored student misbehavior. Paul Grendler tells a new story based on years of research in a dozen archives. Anyone interested in the volatile mix of universities, religion, and politics will find this book fascinating and instructive, as will anyone who contemplates what it means to be a Catholic university.

Read more less

Catherine McAuley (1778–1841), the founder of the Sisters of Mercy in 1831, frequently gave oral instructions to the first Mercy community. Though she sometimes spoke explicitly about their religious vows, her words were always focused on the life, example, teachings, and evangelic spirit of Jesus Christ, emphasizing “resemblance” to him and fidelity to the calls of the Gospel. Her instructions have, therefore, a broad present-day relevance that can be inspiring and encouraging for all Christians. They are the “shining” words of a companion, a soul-friend, who offers guiding light to those who wend their pilgrim way toward the full embrace of God’s merciful reign. These instructions were initially written down, insofar as that was humanly possible, by sisters who were actually present and listening as she spoke. Some of their manuscripts were later copied into the long manuscript compilation that is the centerpiece of this book. Research also indicates that in preparing and giving her lectures, Catherine often relied on the content of previously published spiritual books, including works by Alphonsus Rodriguez, SJ, Louis Bourdaloue, SJ, and other well-known spiritual writers of the eighteenth and earlier centuries. The book’s endnotes illustrate this dependence. Catherine McAuley’s voice in these instructions is realistic, down-to- earth, humble, and compassionate. She is clearly dead-set against “froth” and “mere outward show” in one’s spiritual life. Like the practical Saint Teresa of Avila, whose life and thought she studied, she favors surrendering oneself now, with God’s help, to “ordinary,” every-day, possible holiness, rather than simply dreaming about extraordinary, but perhaps impossible, future sanctity. Her themes are some of the great themes of the Gospel: genuine humility and poverty of spirit, universal charity, self-denial, taking up one’s “cross,” and following Jesus Christ.

Read more less

St. Thomas Aquinas’s commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles are distinctive and overlooked theological resources. These commentaries provide invaluable insights into the exigencies of the exercise of the episcopal office in bringing about the spiritual perfection of the faithful in Christ. The Ideal Bishop includes a review of the theology of the episcopacy found in St. Thomas’s principal contemporaries including Peter Lombard, St. Albert the Great, and St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. It also provides a conspectus of the same in the integrated corpus of Aquinas along with an introduction to St. Thomas’s lectures on the PE, their dating, the provenance of manuscripts, and their method of theological development. But the heart of this book is an examination of the theology and spirituality of the episcopacy found in the lectures on ­ Timothy, ’ Timothy, and Titus. Particular attention is devoted to Aquinas’s treatment of the nature, purpose, requisite virtues, disqualifying vices, special duties, and particular graces of the episcopal office.In his commentary, Aquinas identifies the episcopacy as a state of perfection wherein the prelate ought both to enjoy profound, mystical intimacy with Christ and to love and serve others by leading them to that same intimacy. In so doing, the prelate promotes ecclesial unity and secures his own salvation. Episcopal teaching, governing, and liturgical duties constitute the bishop’s fundamental mission which is established and empowered by the act of episcopal consecration received by the bishop elect. Aquinas grounds the efficacy of the bishop’s pastoral work on the quality of his interior life. Thus construed the episcopal office demands profound holiness, erudition, and pastoral skill. This work of Thomistic ressourcement substantively benefits the contemporary Church in her project of bringing the perennial truth of the Gospel more efficaciously to all, particularly with respect to the exercise of the episcopal office.

Read more less

A crucial topic in Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical dialogue is the natureand exercise of universal primacy in the church. In 1995, Pope JohnPaul II expressed the hope that pastors and theologians of both churchesmight seek ways in which the papal ministry could accomplish ""aservice of love recognized by all concerned"" (Ut Unum Sint). In thisshort and penetrating study, Paul McPartlan, a member of the internationalRoman Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue, presents aproposal, carefully argued both historically and theologically, for a primacyexercising a service of love in a reconciled church, West and East.McPartlan builds on the substantial foundation already laid in thedialogue for an understanding of the church in terms of the Eucharist.Eucharistic ecclesiology has been one of the most remarkable developmentsin the theological renewal of recent decades. Drawing particularlyon scriptural and patristic teaching, it offers a highly promising frameworkfor resolving this most sensitive and difficult of issues--recognizingthe bishop of Rome as the focal point and servant of the Eucharisticcommunion among bishops. Vatican II directed that those working forreconciliation between Catholics and Orthodox pay close attention to therelationships that pertained between the Eastern churches and the see ofRome before the split of 1054. McPartlan seeks to do just that, notably incorporatingthe teaching of the council on the role of the papacy to craft aproposal that may commend itself to Catholics and to Orthodox.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Paul McPartlan is Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenismat the Catholic University of America. He is a member of the International TheologicalCommission and the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialoguebetween the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. A contributor to therecently published Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles, and Criteria by theInternational Theological Commission, McPartlan also is the author of The EucharistMakes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue and Sacrament of Salvation: An Introduction to Eucharistic Ecclesiology.

Read more less

This exciting Civil War diary of a Redemptorist priest, Rev. James Sheeran, C.Ss.R., who was chaplain to the ­€th Louisiana Regiment of the Confederacy, is a national treasure. Irish-born Sheeran (1817-1881) was one of only a few dozen Catholic chaplains commissioned for the Confederacy and one of only two who kept a journal. Highlighting his exploits from August ­, ­…‘’ through April ’€, ­…‘“, the journal tells of all the major events of his life in abundant detail: on the battle field, in the hospitals, and among Catholics and Protestants whom he encountered in local towns, on the trains, and in the course of his ministrations. His ideological sympathies clearly rest with the Confederacy. The tone is forthright, even haughty, but captures in sure and steady fashion, both the personality of the man and the events to which he was a witness, especially the major battles. The journal is arguably the most unique narrative of the war written by a chaplain of any denomination and certainly is the most extensive.The journal permits us to hear a voice in Civil War studies that is seldom heard—that of a Catholic clergyman. The window given into the pastoral dimension of serving in America’s bloodiest war is further enhanced by a running commentary on politics, race, religion, and charitable works throughout the South. He also supplies an insight into incarceration as a prisoner of war at Fort McHenry, Baltimore. Last, because Sheeran was a frequent name dropper, tracking the movements of key military personnel or other personages of the war is made considerably easier through Sheeran’s references—all of which have been scrupulously documented in an easy-to-use index.

Read more less

Nostra Aetate is the shortest of the sixteen documents promulgated bythe Second Vatican Council. It is just five sections long. But the impact of those five paragraphs over the last five decades has been extraordinary. Fifty years after the promulgation of Nostra Aetate we must continue to examine closely the Church’s relationship to other faiths. The contents of this book originated in a conference at the Catholic University of America in May 2015. The essays and lectures contained within focus on the relationships of the Catholic Church with the other “Abrahamic” faiths, primarily Islam and Judaism. There is some discussion of the Asian religions as well. This volume, in structure, loosely follows the document Nostra Aetate itself. The first part of the book gives a broad view of the document and its importance. The following parts concentrates on the relationships between the Catholic Church and the Asian, Muslim and Jewish religions. The concluding section of the book surveys the reception Nostra Aetate received in various ecclesial and academic contexts.The essays in this volume provide an opportunity to reflect withprofound gratitude on the remarkable strides the Church has madein her dialogue with Muslims and Jews in the past fifty years. As wecontemplate the fruits this dialogue has borne and consider the future of these conversations, we can say with the Pslamist “How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!”

Read more less

Robert of Arbrissel (d. 1117) once named Cluny among the chief holy places of Christendom—just after Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Rome. When Peter the Venerable (d. 1156) became the ninth abbot of Cluny in 1122, Cluny had thousands of monks in the mother abbey and her daughter cells, along with hundreds of affiliated houses and dependencies in England, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Holy Land. As a fierce advocate for Cluny against its detractors (which included the redoubtable Bernard of Clairvaux), Peter defended his Order at the same time that he reformed its customs.Peter the Venerable’s extensive literary legacy includes poems, a large epistolary collection, and polemical treatises. The first of his four major polemics targeted a Christian heresy, the Petrobrussians (Against the Petrobrusians); the rest took aim at Jews and Saracens. Catholic University of America Press has published his Against the Inveterate Obduracy of the Jews. This present volume will make available in their entiretyPeter the Venerable’s twin polemics against Islam—A Summary of the entire heresy of the Saracens and Against the sect of the Saracens—as well as related correspondence. These works resulted from a sustained engagement with Islam begun during Peter’s journey to Spain in 1142–43. There the abbot commissioned a translation of sources from the Arabic, the so-called Toledan Collection, that include the Letter of a Saracen with a Christian Response (from the Apology of [Ps.] Al-Kindi); Fables of the Saracens (a potpourri of Islamic hadith traditions); and Robert of Ketton’s first Latin translation of the whole of the Qur’an. Thanks to Peter’s efforts, from the second half of the twelfth century Christians could acquire a far better understanding of the teachings of Islam, and Peter may rightly be viewed as the initiator of Islamic studies in the West.

Read more less

The problem of nature and grace lies at the heart of Christian theology. No dimension of divine revelation can be addressed without implicitly drawing reference to this issue. Analogies of Transcendence focuses on the central role that the analogies of being and faith play in developing a solution to the problem. These link God, as self-manifesting transcendence, to the human person as both fallen and justified, and to the material cosmos. Although the proposed solution draws on the work of Maréchal, de Lubac, Balthasar, and Rahner, it criticizes their approach for its underdeveloped analogies that diminish nature in grace’s engagement with it. In redressing this weakness, Fr. Fields adapts its solution to the intellectual struggle of our time. This volume examines the origins and structure of modernity, which, it asserts, has not been superseded and is therefore critical of ‘postmodernism,’ as well as of some ambiguous legacies of Thomism.The first part of Analogies of Transcendence probes selected understandings of nature and grace since Aquinas. These yield clues for a viable model, while also manifesting the deficiency of the theory of ‘pure nature,’ which contributes to fideism and secularism. More clues emerge in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Vatican II and recent papal thought. The second part of the book constructs the model on the basis of the clues. It conceives the orders of ‘creation’ and ‘redemption’ as a continuum, and it develops a theology of nature. The third part then applies the model to other problems. These include reimagining the role of Christian art, revising the Thomist doctrine of God, and defending Christianity’s unique claim in relation to other religions. Throughout, this argument, both historical and systemic, enters the dialogue with the tradition, from the Fathers, to Augustine and the medieval, to Trent and the Baroque. Analogies of Transcendence also brings into sympathetic conversation the two often estranged titans of contemporary Catholicism, Balthasar and Rahner.

Read more less

Although Japanese scholars have acclaimed Baba Bunk? (1718–1759) asthe most outstanding essayist and public speaker of the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), Western historians of Japan have long ignored him. This is because Bunk?’s very existence contradicts the historical narrative that they have constructed. According to that narrative, Christianity in Japan ceased to exist by 1640, except in small, scattered communities, centered mainly on the Nagasaki area.Through a close critical analysis of Baba Bunk?’s often humorous,but always biting, satirical essays a new picture of the hidden world of Christianity in eighteenth-century Japan emerges—a picture that contradicts the generally-held belief among Western historians that the Catholic mission in Japan ended in failure. A Christian Samurai will surprise many readers when they discover that Christian moral teachings not only survived the long period of persecution but influenced Japanese society throughout the Tokugawa period.Bunk?’s bold assertion that a representation of the Eucharist wouldbe more appropriate as a symbol for Japan than the coat of arms of the emperor or the insignia of the shogun would eventually lead to his arrest, trial, and execution. The legal proceedings against him reveal the government’s embarrassment at the failure of its attempts to eliminate Christianity.This historical and literary study focuses on the personal as well as the public lives of many of the historical figures who were prominent in politics, philosophy, religion, and culture in the eighteenth century. The decadent state of Buddhism, the decline of Confucianism, and the popularity of the Yoshiwara “pleasure” quarters are some of the topics that illuminate this new history of early modern Japan and of the survival of Christianity.The first complete English translation of Baba Bunk?’s Contemporary Edo: An Album of One Hundred Monsters is included as an appendix.

Read more less