There exist very different accounts about the attitude of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI to interreligious dialogue. Does interreligious dialogue aim at truth and intertwine with mission, or is it an impossibility that needs to be replaced with an intercultural dialogue about peaceful coexistence and common values? This article traces the complex history and relationship of

This article reconsiders the relationship between vision and faith, recuperating an understanding of the “ray of darkness” accented by Church Fathers such as Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius for a fuller understanding of the beatific vision. Vision and faith are not ultimately two opposite movements, but rather two inseparable aspects of one dynamism leading to

Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, was the driving force behind the 1967 Land O’Lakes Statement—a watershed document that affirmed both the distinctive identity of Catholic universities and the “true autonomy and academic freedom” they needed to excel. This article explores the prominent role of theology in the Land O’Lakes Statement by means of an examination of

This article explores the significance of the Eucharist in the context of the global refugee crisis. It analyzes this topic in light of the mass that Pope Francis celebrated on the island of Lampedusa on July 13, 2013 and the chalice he used that was hewn from the driftwood of a refugee shipwreck. Drawing on

The benefits of the approach of “receptive ecumenism” are becoming increasingly appreciated within ecumenical circles. A primary focus is the way a particular Christian tradition can learn from another and, in a mutual exchange of gifts, receive gifts that have not been part of one’s own tradition. This essay views this dynamic in terms of

The 2017 Reformation Centenary is the first commemoration to take place during the ecumenical age and marks fifty years of Lutheran–Roman Catholic dialogue. The current ecumenical landscape is a tale of two cities, one of ecclesial fragmentation that exists simultaneously with new relationships of communion and ecumenical progress. The way forward requires the discernment of

The author asks if a new ecumenism might be emerging, one that can bring the burgeoning new Pentecostal-charismatic-independent churches of the Global South, most of them non-liturgical or sacramental, together with the traditional churches of Europe and North America that continue to lose members. The article assesses the recent statement of the World Council of

Henri de Lubac hoped that his works on premodern Christian exegesis would help the church recover a more holistic Christian approach to Scripture, but the presence of anti-Jewish rhetoric in the tradition, which he reproduces in his major works, is a significant obstacle to any such recovery. While he did not address this difficulty in

This contribution reconsiders the rejected but often overlooked “Malines text” (September 1963) as the missing link in the redaction history of Gaudium et Spes and as a key witness to the document’s Christian anthropology. Applying the three hermeneutical principles of content, style, and “pastorality” (pastoralité) to this text and its redaction history, a basis is

In the Western theological tradition, nonhuman suffering was not perceived as a “live” problem until the early modern period. Constrained by classical theism, the early modern figures of René Descartes, Anne Conway, and G.W. Leibniz developed three distinct approaches to animal theodicy based upon their unique reconceptualization(s) of the world. These three approaches, (1) denial