Much discussed since Vatican II is the question whether, in making the change from saying that the church of Christ is the Catholic Church to saying that it subsists in it, the council intended no longer to claim strict identity between the church of Christ and the Catholic Church. Francis Sullivan discusses the explanations of

A bibliographical review of themes in fundamental moral theology over the past four years evidences an astonishingly frequent reference to crises—in identity and in the Church. Reviewing the literature also yields other more promising developments wherein ethicists are becoming more theological and historical in their work.

The AIDS pandemic has focused renewed attention on the relationship between the promotion of health and the protection of human rights. Recent work by Paul Farmer and others challenges bioethics to address urgent questions of global health equity not only on the level of method but in the form of strategic partnerships with the most

Catholicism, with other religions, continues the critical grounding of ecological concern within its tradition. Contemporary theologians offer varying approaches to environmental ethics, from ecologically sensitive Christian humanism to a more radical repositioning of the human person within a creation charged with inherent value. A common emphasis is the connection between ecological damage and social justice.

Pope John XXIII’s prayerful phrase “a new Pentecost” linked Vatican II with the Holy Spirit and has interpretative potential. It focuses the pneumatological dimensions of the epochal event and documents. The article considers Pentecost in the constitution of the church, emphasizes the pneumatological difference, underlines the finality of Vatican II toward renewal in the church’s

The author argues against the view that the true ultimate end of human beings is only in God, attained by the beatific vision. The alternative proposed is that human beings’ true ultimate end is fulfillment in God’s kingdom, a communion of divine Persons and created persons, in which human members will be fulfilled with respect

The drastic economy of biblical narrative style is not simply to be equated with an absence of style but rather represents a distinctive narrative poetics, which turns in particular on the opaqueness of characters’ inner lives and thus on the essential ambiguity of character motivation. Such practical criticism, by rigorously lingering over the details and

The 13th century, the age of universities and cathedrals, was a time when Europeans journeyed to unknown realms and encountered different religions. It was also the age of Crusades. William of Tripoli spent his life and ministry in the world around Acre in the Latin Kingdom, a crossroads for art, trade, and contacts between Christians

Early Modern theologians Francisco de Vitoria and Leonardus Lessius analyzed the nature and limits of the obligation to preserve one’s life through the use of food. Vitoria described the ethical foundations of and the circumstances that might limit such an obligation, while Lessius argued for a virtuous approach to nutrition that eschewed both indifference and