Research Article

Reframing Displacement and Membership: Ethics of Migration

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.

Threat of Imminent Death in Pregnancy: A Role for Double-Effect Reasoning

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,

Revisiting Contraception: An Integrated Approach in Light of the Renewal of Thomistic Virtue Ethics

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

Remembering Tradition: Women’s Monastic Rituals and the Diaconate

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.

Grace and Growth: Aquinas, Lonergan, and the Problematic of Habitual Grace

Thomas Aquinas’s theory of habitual grace rests on a generically metaphysical account of the faculties of the soul and of the natural and supernatural habits that perfect them. Bernard Lonergan opened up fruitful avenues for rethinking nature, grace, and virtue in a developmental perspective. His intentionality analysis transposes the conception of human nature; the dynamic

Which are the Words of Scripture?

The author argues that the liturgical practice of the Church strongly supports the view that translated versions of Scripture are as much verbum Domini as untranslated versions. It follows from this that the words of Scripture, the Lord’s words to his people, are found fully in every version approved for public reading by an episcopal

“Aiming Excessively High and Far”: The Early Lonergan and the Challenge of Theory in Catholic Social Thought

Bernard Lonergan is not usually associated with the field of Catholic social thought. This article explores Lonergan’s efforts to contribute to it in his manuscripts on history and economics from the 1930s and early 1940s, written in response to Quadragesimo anno’s call for a reconstruction of the social and economic orders. The article describes Lonergan’s

Scroll to Top