Nineteenth-century priest, philosopher, and theologian Antonio Rosmini argued that the ordinary way of appointing bishops must be through elections by the local clergy and people. All other procedures, including papal nominations, are extraordinary measures that must be resorted to only as a “lesser evil” when exceptional circumstances prevent carrying out elections. This article recovers and

The article derives from Theodore of Mopsuestia’s Commentary on the Gospel of John, wherein Theodore describes how he understood Christ’s two natures being united in “one common proso¯ pon.” He regards proso¯ pon not as a synonym for hypostasis, as the Second Council of Constantinople did, but as the functional union of Christ’s two natures

The article addresses a recent claim regarding Aquinas’s understanding of voluntary human action; namely, that moral species is determined by an object that functions as the proximate end of a chosen behavior. This reply examines the context of the argument, the text on which the argument is said to be based, and Aquinas’s more specific

At the 2009 convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the author advocated for a more rhetorically robust and closer-to-the-truth style in theological ethics. In this note, he examines those works that embody that style by capturing the urgency and immediacy of moral truth as lived in the lives of contemporary Christians. In particular,

In the past few years, a variety of alarming narratives, global concerns addressed locally, and new biotechnological developments have shaped contemporary bioethical discourse. This note identifies (1) five of these narratives that come from other disciplines: history, journalism, surgery, literature, and personal experience; (2) original voices, particularly from Asia and Africa, that shape the innovations

The mounting human costs of contemporary displacement challenge dominant interpretations that frame migration in terms of security or economic functionalism alone. Surveying global realities and recent academic and pastoral contributions, the author argues that a migration ethic attentive to transnational human rights, scriptural hospitality, and mutually (re)constituted membership remains well poised to reorient reigning approaches.

In the Phoenix case, pulmonary hypertension threatened the life of an eleven-week pregnant mother. Removal of the placenta as the organ threatening the mother’s life necessarily included extracting the amniotic membranes containing the fetus. The author proposes this argument: the principle of double effect clarifies that causing the death of the fetus (destined to die,

The article revisits the disputed question of contraception in light of the contemporary renewal of Thomistic virtue ethics. Integrating Thomistic anthropological, action, and virtue theory, the article supports the central teaching of Humanae vitae that contraceptive acts are intrinsically evil. Its argument builds upon the philosophical work of Martin Rhonheimer, transposing it into an explicitly

In 2002 the International Theological Commission wrote that “it pertains to the ministry of discernment which the Lord has established in his Church to pronounce authoritatively” on the question of women deacons. This study discusses the ways by which ancient and contemporary ceremonies for women demonstrate the tradition of the ordination of women as deacons.