Welcome to Theological Studies
Founded and sponsored by the Society of Jesus, Theological Studies is a Catholic scholarly journal that serves the Church and its mission by promoting a deeper understanding of the Christian faith through the publication of research in the theological disciplines and through reviews of noteworthy books. The journal has been in continuous publication since 1940.
About This Website
In keeping with the Society of Jesus’s commitments to serve the global Church, the journal is pleased to provide this site as a resource for scholars who do not have ready access to our journal. It contains articles and book reviews from 1940 up to the last five years, which can be accessed here free of charge. Articles or reviews published in the last five years are available by subscription, or a per article charge, at SAGE Journals. Article submissions by authors must be made via SAGE, where you will also find the latest formatting and style guides. For your convenience, they are also available on this website.
In the Current Issue
From the Editor’s Desk
When I began my tenure as editor-in-chief in January 2021, I considered eliminating the editor’s column, or at least limiting its content to introducing the articles. I believed that, with readers increasingly accessing the journal online, most people would directly target specific articles and would not be “flipping” through the electronic pages, so to speak, to find the editor’s column. However, after exploring a number of past issues, I realized that the column provided a historical record of journal matters and editorial perspectives on world events and, for that reason, merited continuation.
Comparative Theology as Fundamental Theology
This article traces the development of a tension between the missionary theology of Ad Gentes and Nostra Aetate’s incipient theology of religions through a period of intermediate curial debate toward a resolution expressed in the magisterial teachings of Pope Francis. Shortcomings in both conciliar documents reveal Eurocentric biases in the council’s ecclesial imaginary; further, postconciliar curial reflections, informed by a fear of error and relativism, submit dialogue to the particular missionary goal of conversion of non-Christians. Ultimately, Francis’s description of the theological task as fundamentally comparative in Ad Theologiam Promovendam offers the church a broader range of methodological approaches to diversity and normativity that make intellectually and ethically responsible theology possible in a religiously diverse world.