Surely technical issues advance the need to rethink the structures of the Catholic Church’s central government in Rome. But the real macro issue is the role of Vatican II and its ecclesiology for the reform of church structures. Francis’s pontificate seems to be, on many levels, a return to the intent of Vatican II. The

In CAPITAL in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty analyzes wealth accumulation and inequality under advanced capitalism. Moralists and students of papal thought will need to come to grips with its argument, particularly since Pope Francis’s Evangelii gaudium is said to have posed radical criticisms of economic inequality. This article puts Piketty into dialogue

The article explores the possibility of a new collaborative venture in systematic theology based in the work of Bernard Lonergan and Robert Doran. A prospectus is offered of five volumes intended as texts to be used at the level of MA and MDiv students.

The article analyzes Jewish–Catholic relations with respect to New Testament interpretation, the apostle Paul, and theology. In the New Testament era, Paul promoted God’s openness to Gentiles. In recent decades, increasing numbers of Jewish scholars have engaged the New Testament and specifically Paul’s letters. This has called forth, for the most part, Christian hospitality toward

The article reconsiders Anselm’s “ontological argument” by contextualizing it within the conjunction of Neoplatonist exemplarist metaphysics and Christology in the Augustinian tradition of trinitarian theology. It explores tensions in Augustine’s theological epistemology and incarnational theology over the relationship of illumination and grace in the knowledge of God. Anselm wrestles with this tension in Monologion and

After reviewing some previous contributions to the discussion of continuity and change in the Christian tradition, the article suggests another way of thinking about the problem by using Pierre Bourdieu’s analytic notion of habitus.

The article examines the relationship between ecumenical dialogues and embodied ecumenical practices. By utilizing Michel de Certeau’s theory of strategy and tactics, the authors construct a hermeneutic that aims at forming ecumenists and clarifying the object of their discourse. Specifically, unauthorized practices of collaboration between denominations (i.e., ecumenical tactics) are seen as a formative source

Priest, prophet, and king are three offices attributed to Christ. The threefold office is used in Vatican II as an overarching framework in its articulation of the nature of the church and the participation of all the faithful in the life and mission of Christ. The author argues that the treatment of the sensus fidelium

Christian engagement with nonbelievers is problematic when believing itself proves difficult
even for people of faith. A recovery of the original unity of the fides quae (the “content” of
faith held in belief) and the fides qua (how faith’s content is lived) can lead to a deeper sense
of believing. Rahner’s understanding of faith as a “mystagogy” that leads to mission serves
as a framework for recovering that original unity, and for addressing the contemporary
problem of belief, not only for nonbelievers, but also for believers themselves.

This article gathers and develops some fragmentary suggestions made by theologians
and Pope John Paul II about tradition as the collective memory of the church. In
the light of insights coming from anthropology, history, neuroscience, philosophy,
psychology, and sociology, the article proposes twelve ways for enriching a theology
of tradition. Modern memory studies can unite and clarify various aspects of a
theology of tradition, understood as collective memory.