The article contributes to the ecumenical debate on the relationship between the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church, a debate that followed upon the 2007 publication of a series of Responses on Vatican II ecclesiology by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The author seeks to develop a critical understanding of subsistit

The article (1) reviews a variety of magisterial documents and essays concerning the terms “morally ordinary” and “extraordinary” treatment in relation to the provision of assisted nutrition and hydration, particularly for patients in a “permanent vegetative state”; (2) considers how the terms “ordinary” and “extraordinary” are used in both the moral and medical contexts, the

The author argues that Bernard Lonergan’s work provides a useful foil for reconsidering the position of Henri de Lubac on the relationship between natural and supernatural. Lonergan agrees with the basic thrust of de Lubac’s position, but the Canadian’s approach to the interlocking of his thought on God with his analysis of human consciousness and

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,