The author aligns the modern structuralist emphasis on the meaning-generating capacity of “oppositional pairs” with Augustine’s penchant for the ancient rhetorical trope of “antithesis.” The resultant rereading of De Trinitate uncovers Augustine’s rhetorical construction of a christocentric theological epistemology that undergirds the work’s structure, polemical agenda, and the classic theologoumenon of the trinitarian image in

The article explores the relationship between theology and metaphysics in the light of Bonaventure’s theology. His trinitarian theology grounded in self-communicative love and ontology of personhood renders new insight into his metaphysics of Christ the center. The emergence of creation ex amore through the centrality of the divine Word enables Bonaventure to recast metaphysics in

The article argues that Pope Benedict XVI’s inaugural encyclical,Deus caritas est, places the Church’s competency in the area of charity, not justice. Achieving justice pertains to the role of the state in the political process. The Church’s role regarding justice is indirect, through her social teaching and the activity of the lay faithful as citizens.

“Wider ecumenism” goes beyond conventional ecumenical and interreligious dialogue to conversation with indigenous religions. While many indigenous theologians today readily employ “Western” thought forms, an additional methodology is needed to articulate aboriginal experience. Cast in the form of a narrative of four decades of field work, this article describes such a methodology, incorporating the symbolic

The nonvowed “secular single lay state” claims many of today’s Catholics, yet is little noticed, even though it was validated by Vatican II and was arguably the first Christian form of life given explicit theological articulation. Insufficient attention and appreciation may prevent the Catholic Church from realizing the full benefits of this form of the

The possibility of formal governance and ministry for women hinges on their admission to the clerical state, which is demonstrably possible by their readmission to the diaconate. Historical exegesis supports the Catholic Church’s present ability to ordain women deacons, and recent official discussion suggests that the readmission of women to the ordained diaconate may be

This article critically analyzes the three distinct forms of political ecclesiology thus far developed by the Radical Orthodoxy movement. William Cavanaugh and Daniel Bell, on the one hand, and Graham Ward, on the other, proffer models that resolve in different ways the contradictions of John Milbank’s affirmation that peace amid diversity is possible only within

The author argues that virtue ethics offers a potentially fruitful framework for approaching Catholic social thought. A virtue-based approach provides a means of connecting a Catholic understanding of social justice to issues of personal morality and moral formation. Three overlapping virtues are proposed as foundational to this approach: solidarity, compassion, and hospitality. The cultivation of

Until the mid-20th century, the reigning Western paradigm of Christian salvation was the Anselmian theory of Christ’s death as atoning for sinful humanity by paying a debt to God. Recent liberationist, feminist, and antimilitarist theologies strongly critique personal and structural violence, leading many to reject the atonement paradigm as sacralizing violence. This article argues that