In his brief, On the Four Wills in Christ, Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) offers a carefully nuanced depiction of Jesus’ human nature that showcases his human capacity for compassion. Hugh is keen, however, not only to underscore Jesus’ human capacity for compassion but also to identify such fellow-feeling as the signature attribute of
The article studies the sacramental teaching in Peter Lombard’s Sentences, a work that quickly became the principal theology text in the schools and universities from the High Middle Ages until the Counter Reformation. The study places Peter and the Sentences in the context of twelfth-century Europe’s renaissance of learning; it includes an analysis of Peter’s
Following a brief discussion of inculturation in moral theology, the article appeals to the work of Bénézet Bujo, a pioneer in fundamental African Catholic moral theology, and Richard McCormick to shed light on the theology of inculturation today. The article closes with proposals for a fundamental moral theology that is both truly Christian and truly
The September 2004 issue of this journal carried the author’s article entitled “Homosexuality and the Counsel of the Cross.” The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) asked for a contextualization that would address the theological and anthropological foundations of the Catholic Church’s teaching, demonstrate the reasonableness of its doctrine on homosexuality, and
The authors, replying to criticisms of the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexual acts presented by Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler in an article in this journal, argue that marriage is a multi-leveled personal union, essentially including the bodily as well as the emotional and volitional levels of the human self. Only sexual acts between a
The authors argue that Lee and George (hereafter, L/G) use a reductionist anthropology and ethical method to defend a classicist approach to absolute sexual norms. After describing Lonergan’s understanding of scotosis, which can distort one’s insight into ethical theory and ethical issues, the article demonstrates this distortion in L/G’s sexual anthropology. It further argues that,
The article examines the role of theology in the context of globalization and its challenges to the human community. It explores the issue of human solidarity in the context of increasing economic polarities, cultural upheavals, and social disintegration. It offers an “overview” of globalization by looking at the current demographics of the global village, an
Globalization raises an array of moral issues. The legacy of Catholic social teaching offers “ethical coordinates” that may prove useful in guiding globalization in a manner that advances the human good. At the same time the new social context being shaped by globalization demands that the tradition of Catholic social teaching undergo development in order
Major shifts in economic life have always been accompanied by corresponding changes in the public’s economic morality. Contemporary globalization is pulling the moral agent in opposite directions: greater moral obligations versus the competitive individualism required by an increasingly unforgiving marketplace. Moreover, the market, not governments or the grassroots, is emerging as the dominant determinant of
Asian contextual theology tends to define globalization as a contemporary form of colonialism. Realizing the failure of past evangelization and contemporary American-oriented Evangelicalism in honoring the dignity and interests of local people, Asian contextual theologians reside in the antiglobalization camp. They locate themselves there for sound theological reasons, but their position does not reflect a
