For more than a century, canon law has been overwhelmingly understood as the purview of canonists, quite apart from the work of theologians. Insufficient understanding of and appreciation for the history and function of canon law on the part of theologians are both a product of this perceived separation and a factor contributing to its perpetuation. This article argues that the realization of the theological vision of Vatican II, and the success of the Synod on Synodality, will require greater understanding of the form and function of canon law in the Roman Catholic Church.

This article explores the connection between the Council of Nicaea and the church in Africa through two main perspectives: geography and the contributions of African theologians as well as theological and christological developments. The first part highlights Africa’s geographical and cultural significance to Nicaea, examining the involvement of African theologians in the council’s outcomes. The second, more detailed section analyzes how themes rooted in Nicaea have continued to influence African Christianity even as modern theological discussions do not explicitly and consistently reference the council. Taken together, these sections trace the enduring impact of Nicaea on the evolution of African theological thought.

This article asks why matters of sex and gender are the nexus of theological and ecclesiological battles to the point of being church-dividing issues. I utilize Mary Douglas’s grid-group theory—her framework for correlating social form, body symbolism, and ritual density—to demonstrate that the body is a symbol of the social world and that different views of the body correspond with different ways of organizing a society. Thus, I argue that gender diversity is being perceived by the Catholic Church as a threat to ecclesial structure as well as to the church’s ritual life.

In their response to the declaration Fiducia Supplicans, many African bishops used culture as an argument to reject the possibility of blessing same-sex couples. This article probes and shows the extent of the inconsistency of the appeal to culture by the African bishops. It uses the issue of polygamy as a point of contrast: appeals to African culture are never used to justify this widespread practice among Africans or any pastoral flexibility toward it. The article also compares Vatican II’s understanding of culture (Gaudium et Spes) with that of the African bishops. It shows that the African bishops’ understanding of culture tends to be narrow and focused on the past. Finally, the article looks at culture as a source of Christian morals and demonstrates that culture can be only a secondary source.

While the writings of Robert Doran exhibit significant ecological awareness, the
present paper argues that the corpus of Bernard Lonergan and Doran’s own work
have overlooked an ecological dialectic that arises naturally from Lonergan’s approach.
This article suggests there is an anthropocentric bias operating that prevents its
recognition, which needs to be identified and overcome if we are to address our
current ecological crises. To that end, this article identifies a double dialectic operating
in the social order. The first dialectic, as identified by Lonergan and expanded by Doran,
is that between intersubjectivity and practical intelligence; however, this dialectic is
embedded in a second larger dialectic between the social order itself and the order of
the nonhuman processes from which the social order itself emerges. The appreciation
of this dialectic has been blocked by our neglect of cosmological meanings and values,
as exemplified by the Indigenous peoples of our world.

This article parallels Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream for civil, economic, and racial equality in the USA with Julius K. Nyerere’s unrelenting liberation struggle for the emancipation of Southern Africa from colonial shackles. I write this article fully cognizant of King’s belief that what united the minority and colonial peoples of America, African, and Asia was the struggle to overcome the legacy of colonialism and racial injustice. I therefore argue that King’s dream was a shared dream, which I analyze through the prism of liberation theology.

This article argues that Ignatius Loyola, in proposing the “hierarchical Church” as norm for judgment and feeling, meant to evoke and commend aspects of the Dionysian tradition—especially its principle of hierarchical mediation and its affective portrait of spiritual perfection. Supporting this interpretation are considerations of the world behind the text (the reforming Dionysianism abroad in Ignatian Paris), the world of the text (the culminating position and concerns of the “hierarchical Church”), and the world in front of the text (its reception by Peter Faber and Jerome Nadal). Interpreted against a Dionysian backdrop, Ignatius’s hierarchical church becomes a charter for ecclesial mysticism.

This article is a critical examination of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on doctrinal development contained in Dei Verbum 8. Through a survey of preconciliar theological appeals to experience, and by an examination of the conciliar Acta, the article argues that the council’s inclusion of the category of experience was based on a well-trodden Scholastic theological tradition on connatural experience linked to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and that the textual amendments sought to eliminate a Modernist understanding of experience and revelation. The article seeks to contribute constructively to ongoing fundamental-theological discourse on revelation and doctrinal development.

The global rise of right-wing authoritarian populism poses a challenge to the Catholic
theology of conscience. For decades, the church has emphasized the connection of
conscience to absolute values in the face of political confrontation with Marxism and
its inchoate totalitarian democratic descendants. But today’s right-wing authoritarian
populist regimes raise different questions: about conscience and relationship,
conscientious objection, and the relationship of the freedom of the church and
freedom of conscience. This article reviews recent literature about this challenge.