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.

Early Latin Pro-Nicenes had described the relationship between the Father and the Son by using an analogy with human fatherhood. Just as human fathers give birth to sons who share the father’s nature, they argued, so too does the divine Father give birth to a Son who shares the divine nature. But using this analogy

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

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