bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The College Theology Society Jubilee: A Past With a Future
Authors: Devoy Loretta 
Published: March 2013

In 1987 the College Theology Society held its annual meeting at Loyola College in Maryland. The cicadas were then at the end of their appearance and crunched underfoot as we walked from the dorms to the sessions. That was the first annual meeting I had attended and the cicadas made a lasting impression on me. As the College Theology Society celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of its annual meetings, the cicadas have come and gone again. Since the planning for the Society began, they have come four times, just four times out of their thousands of years of life. As they return to their burrows to begin a new cycle of life, CTS celebrates fifty years of life completed and looks forward another cycle of its theological life already on the horizon. When the cicadas emerge again, seventeen years from now, what will they notice about CTS that is different from today? In other words, will the trajectories of growth present in CTS in 2004 flourish and, if so, what might the returning cicadas see?Several persons who have described the beginning of the College Theology Society have pointed out that until the middle of the nineteen fifties, theology in the liberal arts colleges consisted largely of apologetics taught by persons of intelligence and good will, often priests, who seldom possessed an earned doctorate in the field. Professors with doctorates were usually assigned to the seminaries. A group of liberal arts college professors in theology became aware that they did not enjoy the same credibility in their institutions as professors in other disciplines, in part because the criteria for teaching theology were different and lower than for other departments.
The Practice of Theology as Passion for Truth: Testimony from the Journals of Yves Congar, O.P.
Authors: Groppe Elizabeth T. 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTYves Congar, O.P. (1904–1995) is widely considered the most important Roman Catholic ecclesiologist of the twentieth century and one of the most influential theologians at the Second Vatican Council. His personal diaries Journal d'un théologien 1946–1956 and Mon journal du Concile, recently published posthumously in France, enhance our appreciation for the character and spirituality of this extraordinary theologian. These journals testify to the passion for truth that inspired and sustained Congar's theological vocation through both his difficult years of censure and the exhilarating conciliar period. The witness and example Congar offers can be instructive to our own continuing practice of the theological discipline.
Teaching the Church's Mistakes: Historical Hermeneutics in Memory and Reconciliation: the Church and the Faults of the Past
Authors: Bellitto Christopher M. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractHow can church history help students and teachers make sense of what happens when the church makes mistakes? The Jubilee Year of 2000 represented a moment to think about the far past, but after January 2002, the revelations about priest-pedophiles and institutional cover-ups placed the topic of the church's errors squarely in the current daily life of the church. This essay explores the historical hermeneutics in the International Theological Commission's document, Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past, issued a few months before Pope John Paul II's Jubilee apologies in Lent 2000. The essay strives to identify and critique historical and theological concerns in this document while applying them not only to historical events, but to the more recent sex abuse revelations. Two topics serve as entry points to this discussion: purification of memory and the historian's role in discerning personal and corporate responsibility.
When Stands Are Taken Where Do We Stand?
Authors: Masson Robert 
Published: March 2013

The Vatican took a stand in February with its “notification” on Roger Haight's Jesus Symbol of God prohibiting him from teaching Catholic theology. Then in May it was reported that the Vatican influenced Thomas Reese's resignation as editor of America. In these two situations, as with other recent controversies in the church and American public life, the question was posed to the College Theology Society, “Where do we stand?”This is not answered easily. The appropriateness of entertaining the question is itself problematic given the specific ways the CTS constitution defines our mission as an academic society. Has the CTS, its Board or its members at the annual convention any business at all taking stands on controversies in the church or American public life? What would justify this? And to what sort of issues would this apply? And when? How is this decided? And by whom? For whom does the Board speak? Or for whom does a majority at an annual convention speak? And to whom? And to what end?Nor is the question of where we stand dodged without significant cost. Much is at stake for the specific pedagogical mission of the CTS both in the issues regarding Haight and Reese and in the questions of principle about taking stands. Both are part of a larger and consequential controversy about what place convictions should have in the interactions of the church, academy, and society.
Reality Over Idealism: The Spirituality of James Martin Gillis
Authors: Gribble Richard 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTPaulist priest James Martin Gillis was highly influenced in his youth by his Boston Irish heritage, as well as Sulpician and Paulist clergy who imbued in him a sense of Catholic idealism that stressed the dignity and value of the human person. He perceived the world to be filled with the presence of God. Yet, as a commentator on America from his positions as editor ofthe Catholic Worldand a weekly syndicated column,Sursum Corda, Gillis saw his idyllic picture of America's role in god's plan in serious peril through the domestic and international policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Through his various organs Gillis championed the conservative Catholic voice in the period 1922 to 1948, speaking against statism and general government invasion in the domain of the individual. He thus represents a voice generally counter to the American Catholic mainstream of the period.
Beyond the Liberal/Conservative Divide on Contraception: The Wisdom of Practitioners of Natural Family Planning and Artificial Birth Control
Authors: Rubio Julie Hanlon 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThe article argues that contemporary dialogue on sexuality and contraception represents a new way of approaching Christian sexual ethics. Through an analysis of the experiential reflections of practitioners of natural family planning and artificial birth control, it shows that both sides seek the following goods: self-giving, relational intimacy, mutuality, sexual pleasure, and a strong connection between sexual and spiritual experience. It claims that while each side has distinctive insights, their shared concerns offer a way beyond the post-Humanae Vitaetension on sexual ethics. In this new dialogue, provingHVright or wrong will be much less important than helping Christian couples develop their sexual relationships in the context of their commitment to Christian discipleship.
White Privilege
Authors: Curran Charles E. 
Published: March 2013

This essay, an autobiographical narrative reflecting on my awareness of racism and white privilege in my theological journey, has not been an easy paper to write. In the last few years, I have become somewhat educated about racism and white privilege. I have to face the reality that I barely recognized the problem of racism in my own somewhat extensive writings and was blithely unaware of my own white privilege.The references to racism in my writings are very few, and there is never any concentrated discussion of the issue. This lack is especially telling in a moral theologian who often dealt with social ethics. Other theologians because of the focus of their discipline might not have the same opportunities to discuss and evaluate racism.In my 1982 monograph, American Catholic Social Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches, I analyzed and critiqued the writings of five figures in Catholic social ethics. The index has seven references to race discrimination and racism. The two most extended discussions (at best, a few pages each) deal with Paul Hanly Furfey and John A. Ryan. Looking back now on what I wrote then, I am both embarrassed and uncomfortable.
“Doing Well a Thing That Is Well Worth Doing”: Teaching Dorothy L. Sayers on Work
Authors: Collinge William J. 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThis essay discusses the use of Dorothy L. Sayers' essay “Why Work?” (1942) in a Freshman Seminar that inaugurates a four-year structured core curriculum in a Catholic liberal arts university. After a synopsis of Sayers' argument, it enumerates some contributions that her essay can make to a Catholic liberal arts education in (1) directing students' attention to the goods intrinsic to work, (2) situating work in a theological perspective, (3) introducing the idea that the worker's relationship to God is internal to the work, and (4) addressing work in terms of vocation. It concludes by considering some difficulties encountered in teaching Sayers' essay.
Hybridity and Trespass: With Jesus at the Borders of Identity
Authors: Saracino Michele 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThe author considers how Christians are called to bear witness to difference specifically in a global context where boundaries are becoming increasingly ambiguous. After arguing that it is particularly important for Christians to embrace the responsibility associated with ambiguous borders and hybrid existence, the author explains how American culture works against being open to others at borders because of the emotional conflict they bring. An attitude of entitlement embedded in a narcissistic mentality prevents some from inviting otherness into their lives. By developing empathy and through mourning privilege, human beings can overcome a posture of entitlement. Christ's ministry, incarnation, and death are highlighted, finally, as resources for dealing with the loss of privilege that emerges at the borders of self and other.
Social Doctrine of the Trinity and Communion Ecclesiology in Leonardo Boff and Gisbert Greshake
Authors: Doyle Brian M. 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThis essay examines the methodological relationship of social doctrines of the Trinity and ecclesiologies of communion. The Theologies of Gisbert Greshake and Leonardo Boff represent theologians arguing that ecclesiology must be based on a doctrine of God which they present from a social (or psychological) perspective. The goal of the essay is to expose some of the methodological assumptions made by ecclesiologists and the value of social approach to the Trinity can have in an ecclesiology of communion.
Moral Theology and Church Responses to Sexual Abuse
Authors: Rigali Norbert J. 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTIn the many published reports of the sexual abuse of children by priests in past years there is discernible a common pattern in the inadequate responses of Church authorities to the allegations and evidence of sexual abuse. Since judgment of conscience and moral decision flow from moral discernment, which in turn is based on moral perception, inadequate moral perception renders faulty an entire moral-response process. The moral perception underlying the decisions of Church authorities bearing responsibility in the sexual abuse scandal is seen to be, unfortunately, consonant with the moral perception cultivated in the moral theology in which they were educated.
Women and the Church: Unfinished Business of Vatican II
Authors: Zagano Phyllis 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThe hope that marked the closing of Vatican II has faded regarding women, who are still restricted from power and authority in the Church. While ordination remains a pressing question, two related questions, those related to married clergy and lay involvement in authority and power, reflect upon the first and on each other. Yet, since power and authority are legally restricted to ordained persons, and given the present objections to women priests, it would seem necessary and possible to restore the female diaconate in order to allow women greater formal and official participation in the Church.
A Reconsideration of the Ministries of the Sacrament of Holy Orders
Authors: Maldari Donald C. 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the ministerial structures of the Church is to establish a context by which Christians continue and complete Christ's ministry. Ordained ministers ought to facilitate this in such a way as to collaborate effectively with God in the establishment of the Kingdom. A consideration of the Church's tradition, beginning with Scripture and continuing in its life of faith, suggests that no single form of ministry is normative. The ordination of Christians who make a long-term commitment to what the Church may legitimately recognize as ministry would enhance the Church's life and celebrate the sacramental character of that ministry. Consonant withGaudium et spesthe Church should abandon the distinction between secular and sacred ministry and recognize the sacramental character of ministry wherever it is practiced. Sacramental ordination to ministry is the specification and concretization of Christians' baptismal commitment.
The Self Prior to Mimetic Desire: Rahner and Alison on Original Sin and Conversion
Authors: Edwards John P. 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThis paper engages the theological anthropologies of Karl Rahner and James Alison in order to develop two mutually clarifying perspectives concerning original sin and the nature of conversion. It begins by considering the value and limitations of Alison's use of the Resurrection, as well as his Girardian reading of history, as lenses through which to understand the self, original sin, and conversion. Rahner's transcendental anthropology, because of its similar assumption regarding the priority of the Resurrection for understanding the self, provides an effective instrument for evaluating Alison's project. I conclude that Rahner's transcendental perspective from within the “order of being” represents a necessary compliment to the Alisonian viewpoint, which remains exclusively within the “order of discovery” and thereby limits rather than enhances persons' capacity to experience grace. I ultimately propose, however, that further investigation of Alison's work and its usefulness for illustrating the psychological, ethical, and socio-political aspects of conversion constitutes a worthy theological task within contemporary Christian culture.
The Humanity of Christ: Jacques Dupuis' Christology and Religious Pluralism
Authors: Brecht Mara 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThe question of Christianity's relationship to the religious traditions of the world lies at the center of Jacques Dupuis' theological work. This essay contends that Dupuis' Christology provides the ground for his pursuit of this larger question. An exploration of Dupuis' positive assertions about who Jesus Christ is reveals both a new Christological view and an implicit critique of conventional notions of what it means to be human. By challenging traditional Christology and creatively restructuring the relationship of our humanity to Christ's humanity, Dupuis invigorates the purpose of humanity's role in salvation history. This shift in emphasis, toward Christ's and our shared humanity, allows Dupuis to recognize the theological significance in all mainstream religious traditions.
Personhood and Community in a New Context
Authors: Bracken Joseph A. 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTWhat it means to be a person is a key issue in contemporary bio-ethical issues. A new socially ordered metaphysics with greater emphasis on the long-range interests of the community might provide common ground for resolving points of difference. Colin Gunton's trinitarian approach to contemporary social issues and a somewhat modified notion of “society” in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead are used in this essay to sketch such a new social ontology and to indicate how its use might at least change the tone of the current debate.
Interpreting Faith and Reason: Denys Turner and Bernard Lonergan in Conversation
Authors: Hammond David 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThe dogmatic constitutionDei Filiusof the First Vatican Council held as a matter of faith that it is possible to prove the existence of God through the natural light of reason and apart from the aid of revelation. The doctrine has been criticized for its abstractness and lack of historical consciousness, in that it neglects the conditions in the human subject for the possibility of such a proof. Denys Turner has recently defended this claim ofDei Filius. InFaith, Reason and the Existence of God(Cambridge, 2004), however, Turner does not address the nuanced position of Bernard Lonergan, who interpretedDei Filiusin a way that defended its conclusion but severely limited its applicability. I propose to bring Turner and Lonergan into conversation on the matter ofDei Filius'doctrine regarding the possibility of proving the existence of God.
A Second Look at the Industrial Areas Foundation: Lessons for Catholic Social Thought and Ministry
Authors: Ball James B. 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTThis article revives consideration of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a network of Alinsky-style community organizing institutions supported by the Catholic Church, as an object of theological and ethical reflection. After describing the IAF and its organizing practices, it advances two claims. First, the IAF offers Catholic social teaching a concept of power that can sharpen its understanding of social change. Second, the IAF offers a promising model of parish social ministry. Specifically, it offers a pedagogy and praxis of political agency that enhances the parish's ability to live out its calling to be the church, and to be a mediating institution of public life. Such a model integrates evangelical impulses into the “public church” framework for conceiving Christianity's relationship to civil society.
Theologians and the Magisterium: A Proposal for a Complementarity of Charisms through Dialogue
Authors: Salzman Todd A. , Lawler Michael G. 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTArchbishop Bernardin recommended that, in the relationship between magisterium and theologians, two extremes are to be avoided. On the one hand, there should be no imperialism on the part of the magisterium, co-opting theologians merely as mouthpieces for magisterial teachings. On the part of theologians, on the other hand, there should be no secession from the magisterium that would give theologians absolute autonomy and freedom from accountability. This essay analyzes the diverse charisms of magisterium and theologians and argues that they are complementary and that both parties should relate in the dialogue of charity recommended for ecumenical discussions in Pope John Paul II'sUt Unum Sint. This dialogue of charity, the essay further argues, should not be restricted to only magisterium and theologians but should embrace also, for upbuilding the Church, the entire People of God journeying together to the Holy Mystery.
Tradition and Continuity: Rethinking the Practice of Christian Remembering
Authors: Mallon Colleen Mary 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTA significant point of contention in contemporary construals of continuity and discontinuity centers on the veiled logics of power/interest at work in human constructions of knowledge. In this paper I explore how the insights of anthropologist Mary Douglas might contribute towards a rethinking of memory and tradition within the ecclesial community. I argue that Douglas' perspective on the covert processes that create the social goods of both community and knowledge offer an important heuristic guide towards a more transparent analysis of tradition and how it functions in a globalized world. If continuity is both a claim and a practice that peoples make from shared histories for shared futures, the ecclesial claim and practice of continuity must enact a gospel reflexivity that is both critical and counter-intuitive in its hermeneutical retrieval of thememoria Christi. I conclude this paper with a detailed exploration of two dimensions such a critical, counter-intuitive hermeneutic might include.
Iconoclasm, Byzantine and Postmodern: Implications for Contemporary Theological Anthropology
Authors: Denny Christopher 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTMedieval Byzantine debates regarding icons included fine distinctions between image, prototype, and symbol as these terms related to personhood. Iconodules and iconoclasts differed regarding the ability of art to represent the person. Must artistic representations of a person, to be justified, be consubstantial with the person represented and thus circumscribed, as iconoclasts believed? Or is it sufficient to refer to artistic representations as being symbolic of their human subjects? Embracing the victorious iconodule distinction between a person and artistic representations of the person raises questions regarding the manner in which an image can reveal a human being. Post-structuralist philosophers Maurice Blanchot and Kevin Hart have inverted this problematic. They begin the interpretation of icons and personhood not from the traditional understanding of the honor or worship paid to Christian icons. Instead, they examine the icon's deconstruction of the viewer. What results is an iconodule defense of a post-Cartesian “anthropological iconoclasm.”
A “Babelish” World (Genesis 11: 1–9) and its Challenge to Cultural-Linguistic Theory
Authors: Moyaert Marianne 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTAfter decades of optimism, interreligious dialogue is now confronted with a considerable amount of skepticism. In theology, this skepticism is primarily being fed by the cultural-linguistic theory of religion. This theory seems to be in keeping with what the Babel narrative has always said: people belonging to different “language” communities can do no more thanbabbleat one another. The author asks, first of all, whether the story of Babel indeed affirms the cultural-linguistic argument for the end of interreligious dialogue. After showing that there are theological and exegetical reasons to doubt the classical interpretation of the Babel narrative, the author demonstrates how a renewed hermeneutic of this story actually challenges the cultural-linguistic discourse concerning the incommensurability of religions. Indeed, she argues, ultimately, the Babel story is not a narrative about the end of communication, but about its beginning.
Modesty in the Service of Justice: Retrieving Tradition and Reversing the Gaze
Authors: Anthony Cara 
Published: March 2013

ABSTRACTIn recent years, concern for “modesty” has become more prominent in American religious circles. Recent advocates of modest clothing for women voice important concerns, but also perpetuate problematic attitudes toward women, especially poor women and women of color. Thomas Aquinas' description of modesty corrects this error, because it includes modesty of the mind. Contemporary developments in moral theology then enable us to relate both mental and physical modesty to the cardinal virtue of justice, where modesty decenters the self and makes room for other people to flourish. Findings from social psychologists illuminate the dynamics of social power, and clarify specific ways that mental and physical modesty work under the rubric of justice. These findings suggest that men and women may face different challenges in the practice of modesty, and so Christians must attend to all types of modesty in order to adequately address the question of appropriate clothing.