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This article responds to Emmanuel Levinas and his critique of reason in the Western philosophical tradition, contrasting it with a continuity of approach taken by recent Bishops of Rome, including Francis, Benedict XVI, and John Paul II. Levinas provides an important corrective to aspects of the way reason has been deployed, especially with regard to violence and war. It will be argued that Levinas helps refine and humble theological reflection, but his argument is not altogether applicable to theology. A Catholic tradition of theology relies on philosophy in terms of 'naming names,' an activity responsive to Levinas's critique, and counters it in terms of moral goodness. Responding to Levinas helps to confidently articulate theology as an intelligent participation and performance of the good in a thoroughgoing reasonableness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the nature of moral choices and acts that participate in what John Paul II identified as a "culture of death." As social beings, our actions are tied to a "chain of cooperators" (i.e., fellow agents), and because of these unavoidable connections, Noonan argues that assessing whether or how a particular act culpably cooperates in a culture of death requires a casuist regard. He shows how casuists like Alphonsus Liguori, when assessing situations that force upon individuals the choice between costly self-sacrifice or acting so as to contribute to undesirable evils, took account of the human agent's fallen context and the particularities of the case—including intention, proximity, foreseeable results, and the gravity of those results—to argue for the liceity of the less heroic alternative. This article was originally given as an address under the same title at the University of Notre Dame's Center of Ethics and Culture in 2000. Noonan's examination of how our actions cooperate, or not, in a culture of death remains as valuable for us today as it was when he first delivered it. The journal expresses its gratitude to Cathleen Kaveny for bringing this work to our attention and to Mary Lee Noonan, the late judge's widow, for allowing us to publish it. The original text has been lightly edited to bring it into conformity with journal style, correct minor typos, and supply missing details in Noonan's bibliographic references. In addition, the editors have added a few contemporary updates (noted as such). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay aims to identify the ethical dimension of the relation of the self with the Other/Beyond as an indispensable aspect of human existence that underlies and forms a premise for any cultural phenomenon, and thus constitutes an unavoidable perspective in anthropology. By juxtaposing modern and non-modern perspectives on value, self, and freedom, this essay reclaims the ethical dimension for the cultural dominant of modernity from which, through the imposition of the self, it has been lost from sight. The argument for the ethical dimension is centrally embedded in the thought of Emmanuel Levinas and anchored in different philosophical and theological concepts. It is exemplified by the event of Pope John Paul II's death, which is taken as a synecdoche for his life and work that allows us to redefine the interrelated topics of religion and ritual as statements of ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some especially insightful and challenging passages in Evangelii Gaudium are those on the importance of a personal encounter with Jesus, the evangelizing power of popular piety, person to person witness, and the need for the power of the Holy Spirit. However, in order to do full justice to the mission of the Church, the document requires more on the priestly aspect of this mission. This element is substantially absent, in part, because of Francis's veneration of Evangelii Nuntiandi. However, this absent element can be obtained from the missiology of Lumen Gentium, John Paul II, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Based on an analysis of the meaning of leitourgia in the New Testament, this article concludes that this missing element can serve as a link between Pope Francis's kerygma and diakonia, enabling a harmony which has been missing, to greater or lesser degrees, from the Church's mission in the 20th and 21st centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Gender ideology’ is a term used by many, but especially the Vatican, to chastise the view that sexual difference is more than just male and female, sexuality more than desire of the opposite. Each of the three books discussed in this article defends some version of this supposed ideology; each argues—though in different ways—for the need to move beyond a dimorphic account of sexual difference. Their arguments are taken up and deployed against what is here presented as the ideology of sexual dimorphism, as it is seen in the body theology of John Paul II. It is argued that such a theology dehumanises intersexed people, along with homosexuals, and undermines Christian soteriology. The church needs to acknowledge as fully human all who don’t conform to heterosexual dimorphism; it needs to embrace a ‘third sex’ without reserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews Catholic theological conceptions of parenthood within magisterial documents since the late nineteenth century and contends that presumptions about parenthood tend to arise as reactions to Western cultural developments related to sex and gender. This reactionary trend creates instability in conceptions of parenthood and inhibits the ability of the institutional church to respond constructively to real challenges that face parents in the present. Pastoral concern for lived realities, as well as the responsibilities of Christian parents to socialize and evangelize children, tend to disrupt this trend, but more adequate theological attention to parenthood qua parenthood is still required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers what has transpired in the Catholic Church on the issue of contraception in the fifty years since the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. The author argues that today there are sufficient reasons to support a consideration of change in the teaching. Without such a consideration that works toward development or change in this teaching, the church risks continuing loss of credibility and will not be able to address honestly other important contemporary issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article gathers and develops some fragmentary suggestions made by theologians and Pope John Paul II about tradition as the collective memory of the church. In the light of insights coming from anthropology, history, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and sociology, the article proposes twelve ways for enriching a theology of tradition. Modern memory studies can unite and clarify various aspects of a theology of tradition, understood as collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In his analysis of Monika Hellwig's and John Paul IIs thought on penance, Bruce Morrill identifies a breakdown of shared meaning in the church. This response introduces Bernard Lonergan into the conversation. If Morrill has identified a collapse of consensus around sacramental reconciliation, Lonergan's theological anthropology, especially regarding questions related to conversion and authenticity, may provide resources for a renewed ecclesial practice grounded in a restored common meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monika Hellwig's 1982 history and theology of the sacrament of penance, Sign of Reconciliation and Conversion, is representative of the expectations that theologians and pastoral ministers had for expanded forms of the sacrament. Pope John Paul II's 1984 exhortation, "Reconciliation and Penance," produced a contrasting history to assert private confession to a priest as the church's continuous tradition. That this instruction found little traction is evident in subsequent directives combatting a "crisis" of confession and the proliferation of communal penance services. The article concludes with a theological analysis of the theoretical and practical state of the question today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pope John Paul II understood the mission of the Church to be a participation in the priestly, prophetic, and royal mission of Christ. This essay follows the development of this understanding from his time as Archbishop of Cracow though to Evangelium vitae. It examines, in particular, evangelization and its relationship to the threefold mission. It traces its development through his integration of the teaching of Lumen gentium on the threefold office of Christians and the teaching on evangelization in Evangelii nuntiandi. Noting that the Lineamenta of the Synod on New Evangelization makes little reference to the threefold office, it, finally, offers some ideas as to how we might develop our understanding of the threefold mission and apply it to ‘new evangelization.’ [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

John Paul II proposes that 1 Cor. 9:24-27 includes sport among the human values and offers a paradigm to recognise ‘the fundamental validity of sport, considering it not just as a term of comparison to illustrate higher ethical and aesthetic ideal, but also in its intrinsic reality as a factor in the formation of man as a part of his culture and his civilization’. In this paper, I intend to follow John Paul II’s interpretation and moral reasoning in order to demonstrate how 1 Cor. 9:24-27 can be used in Christian ethics as a paradigm for theological reflection on sport. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines John Paul II’s understanding of the universal work of the Holy Spirit and the possible salvific role of other religions. It examines various critiques of his thought on these questions and concludes that, for him, the work of the Holy Spirit is never separated from the work of Christ. It maintains that, for John Paul II, there is no salvation apart from Christ, the Holy Spirit is working in every human heart, there are spiritual riches in other religions through which God can influence people, these ‘seeds of the Word’ are preparations for the fullness of the Gospel, and the Church plays a necessary role in mediating salvation to all. Dialogue with other religions and respect for their spiritual riches are not opposed to evangelization; rather, such dialogue and respect are expressions of evangelization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article describes and evaluates what the teaching of Vatican II has contributed to the development of fundamental theology in four areas: (1) the salvific self-revelation or self-communication of the tripersonal God; (2) the conditions that enable human beings to respond to this divine self-communication with faith; (3) the credibility of God’s self-revelation that makes Christian faith a reasonable option; and (4) the transmission and interpretation (through tradition and the inspired scriptures) of the experience of God’s self-revelation. The article also indicates how the teaching of John Paul II has been significant for developing further fundamental theology: for instance, in what he wrote about revelation being also a present reality communicated through the medium of human experience and about the Holy Spirit operating at the heart of each person’s ‘religious questioning’ (Redemptoris Missio ). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What the moral theologian has to teach concerning the Sermon on the Mount depends fundamentally on how these words of the Lord are heard. With hearing comes understanding, and because this Sermon is considered in the tradition to be a kind of interpretative key to any understanding of the Christian life as such, the way one hears what is being said is critical to the formation and practices of faith in the believer. In an age determined by nihilism, this hearing has been overtaken by the need to reassert the moral god, in consequence of which faith is reduced to its service in propping up an otherwise endangered morality, however variously that may be described. This is illustrated with reference to John Paul II's encyclical letter, Veritatis Splendor. What is lost through such an account is the hearing of this Sermon as a word of grace, from out of whose movement the hearer is prepared for the reception of faith and is turned out toward the future with God. St Thomas Aquinas's teaching shows how each use of grace is an event of appropriation wherein the believer is conformed to Christ, so that in one's understanding and making one's own of what is being heard, God is claiming His own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I explore the contemporary relationship of theology to philosophy through the call for a 'renewed philosophy of being' by Pope John Paul II. I argue that in fact three understandings of being appear in this call: the first, phenomenological, appears as the bringing to description of the situation of contemporary nihilism, exemplified by Nietzsche both in his published works and his Nachlaß; the second, metaphysical, can be understood as the moralistic voice taken up by contemporary theologians in addressing philosophy. This voice, I argue, is the voicing of the subjectivity of the (Cartesian) subject, and can be understood as the unfolding of the being-historical of the subject, explained in Martin Heidegger's use of the term 'history of being' or Seinsgeschichte. This voice arises out of the 'modernity' of the eighteenth century up to the present: it is a voice of extreme nihilism, but expressing itself as an imperative - not what 'is', but what 'should be'. This voice is also to be found in John Paul II. The third understanding is a possibility only arising out of the extreme nihilism encountered in the first two understandings of being. This understanding makes possible the genuine asking of the 'question of being', the Seinsfrage, also laid out by Heidegger. As such, the question of being, when genuinely asked, alters the human comportment to God. Inasmuch as being presses in on man through a lack, an emptiness, that reasserts the fundamental orientation toward the future that unfolds from out of the being of beings, so the region of concealment and the withdrawal of the nihilating of the nothing, which is the region proper to divinity, can be understood and seen all over again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Lumen gentium (November 1964), Nostra aetate (October 1965), Ad gentes (December 1965), and Gaudium et spes (December 1965), Vatican II broke new ground for understanding and interpreting relations between Christ as universal Saviour, the Catholic Church, and the religions of the world. But the Council left the question open: how can we rightly acknowledge the spiritual gifts of others and at the same time maintain belief in the salvation brought by Christ and the Holy Spirit? John Paul II (pope 1978—2005) responded by emphasizing the universal presence and activity of the Holy Spirit, who did not appear in the key conciliar text, Nostra aetate. In doing that the Pope maintained a `balancing act' by recognizing the treasures communicated through the Spirit to the cultures and religions of the world and by maintaining faith in Christ as the Lord and Life of all people. In all this the late Pope showed himself to be an outstanding role model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the role of civil society in the aggregate of causes that eventually brought about the collapse of the communist block and — in consequence — changed the global balance of power. The concept of ‘ethical civil society’ is introduced in explaining the path to democracy of former Soviet bloc countries. The article also explores cultural determinants of democratisation in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989; in particular the relation between religious confession and likelihood of democratic outcome of post-communist transformation is examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]