Inspired by two recent articles in this journal regarding the fact and nature of change at Vatican II, this article analyzes the nature of this change. Drawing on the author’s previous writings on ecclesiology and the social sciences, it argues that Vatican II was necessary to restore integrity to the mission of the Roman Catholic

The article explores the relation between the celebration of the Eucharist and the church’s mission to promote justice. The Eucharist’s eschatological orientation has profound implications both for understanding the eucharistic tradition and for developing inculturated and contextually appropriate forms of eucharistic celebration. Some implications impinge directly on the church’s mission to promote justice.

This article represents a first effort at characterizing the theological and interpretive functions of biblical annotations in modern Roman Catholic and Protestant Bibles. It argues that annotations are not simply subservient to their texts, but typically express a theological agenda. This became clear in the battle over annotations among Protestants and between Protestants and Catholics

The author examines how current textual-critical views and premodern attitudes toward the scriptural text offer today’s theologians helpful perspectives on the Scriptures. The Qumran and Syriac exegetical traditions provide premodern examples of how interpretive communities of faith can read the Scriptures in a way that is both attentive to their literary form and richly theological.

After reflecting on the reluctance of modern theology to engage in eschatological speculation, the author argues that plenty of traditional Catholic beliefs warrant a rich exercise of the eschatological imagination. The life of the blessed dead provides a test case for such speculation, with Jesus’ own resurrected life in the Gospels invoked as an interpretive

The question of right speech about the mystery of God in suffering has moved many to discuss theodicy and human freedom, and has persuaded many others to rethink the understanding of God in relation to the world itself. The article focuses on two key concepts in Arthur Peacocke’s evolutionary theology to propose a new understanding

The article systematically reflects on the Filipino People Power Revolution of 1986 under the illumination of theology. It contends that there can be no liberation apart from the beliefs and values of a people, with religion as their deepest source. The struggle against injustice and oppression must be united with a people’s consciousness of their

Moral theologians grant that intuitions cannot supply all that is needed for their craft. It may be, however, that intuitions can and do play a bigger role than theologians have hitherto conceded. A glance at the history of slavery, torture, and the execution of alleged heretics, together with a consideration of the role of the

This disputatio is an inquiry into the nature of the truly human sexual act. The authors first present and critique the types of complementarity—heterogenital, reproductive, communion, affective, and parental—that the magisterium finds in a truly human sexual act. They then suggest that heterosexual or homosexual orientation as part of a person’s sexual constitution requires adding

Responding to a recent article by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the author argues that evolution of the world and life, through random processes rightly understood, is indeed consistent with divine, transcendent meaning, value, and purpose of creation. After criticizing traditional “intelligent design” arguments, the article analyzes the key notions of design and randomness. It then draws