A sense of place is critical to human identity. The Eucharist is a ritual practice that “places” us within a narrative wider than our individual and exclusive stories. The Eucharist breaks open private identities to embrace the oikumenē of all times, places and people. This article explores ways in which the Eucharist may be thought of as “the practice of Catholic place.” It does this by integrating sacramental and ethical perspectives. The eucharistic narrative in a radical way makes a place for stories of suffering and exclusion that demand redress. It is a place of reconciliation that makes space for memories that refuse to remain silent. The Eucharist draws believers into the all-embracing catholicity of God. It thus engages a power beyond the ritual enactments themselves that makes an entry point for “the other,” not least for the oppressed, the marginalized and the excluded.

The environmental crisis has transformed the debate over the appropriate size of the human population, presenting humans with a choice of reducing population, redistributing resource use, and restraining consumption or inflicting severe, perhaps fatal, damage to the earth's capacity to sustain life. Having surveyed gross evidence supporting this choice, this article argues that Christianity must reinterpret its tradition, resymbolizing respect for life from an exclusive focus on birth and fertility toward the sustaining of life and life's habitat, earth.

Throughout much of the history of Catholic social teaching, the question of wage-earner justice has been of central import. In response to the condition of workers who do not receive sufficient compensation to maintain a decent livelihood for themselves and their families, a theory of just wage has evolved. There is wisdom to be gleaned from the tradition that can enrich the contemporary debate on just wage. The challenge lies in discerning what is normative from that which is socially and culturally biased. It will be informative to explore the meaning of just wage from a wide spectrum of perspectives, including the sometimes forgotten voice of women. This article examines the contributions of several levels of the Catholic faith community and retrieves essential insights that can contribute to a revitalized just wage discourse.

Traditionally, works that have formed part of the history of Christian spirituality have been produced by authors engaged in and committed to their subject matter. How can this 2000 year-old characteristic of Christian spirituality be incorporated into the contemporary identity of the discipline in a manner congruent with critical scholarly methodology and in a manner that can be communicated to scholars in other disciplines?

Theologians and philosophers of religion have argued for the importance of participatory knowledge for full understanding of the transcendent and of the rituals and practices of religions that claim to have a transformative effect upon the life of persons. Based on these arguments, this essay suggests that scholars' engagement in the practice of spirituality is an important source of knowledge and that it is a source of knowledge that can contribute to critical reflection.

As we so often hear, Christians of every new generation, or in any new cultural context, have to answer for themselves the question Jesus posed for the first generation of disciples: “Who do you say I am?” (Mk 8:27) This is a question that can be answered only in the light of other questions—that is, the personal, social, political, scientific questions we find ourselves grappling with in our own age and experience. The meaning of Jesus “becomes flesh” again in the meaning and direction we struggle for in our own times.

Among the questions that most stir the minds and feelings of Christians today, perhaps one of the most rankling and challenging is that of other religions traditions and other religious believers—the issue of religious pluralism. To answer the question “Who do you say I am?”, we have to connect it to the question “Who do you say they are?” How do we understand Jesus—his person and his work—in view of so many other religious persons and their words and works of wisdom? As Roger Haight has perceptively pointed out, the reality of other religions is not a question we take up after we have worked out our Christology. It enters into, and directs and determines, how we do our Christology from the very start.

If I can try to formulate how “Who do you say I am?” translates into the context of religious pluralism, it might be something like: “How can I be truly committed to Christ and at the same time be truly open to other religions?” That, I think, captures the questions and the struggles many Christians are feeling as they try to understand themselves as Christians in a world of many religions.

Can the Catholic Church be fundamentalist? Contemporary scholarship has shown that fundamentalism can take other forms than scriptural literalism. It consists in a rationalizing of traditional certainties in the face of pluralism and change. Its Catholic form could be described as “morphological,” residing in the structures of authority and power. Protestant reactions to Dominus Iesus missed the fundamentalist logic implicit in its synthesis of christology and ecclesiology. They praised the reaffirmation of Christocentrism but were dismayed that Methodists and Muslims were portrayed as inferior for essentially the same reasons. The document not only fails to reflect Vatican II's program for decentralizing authority but also overlooks the implications of Nostra Aetate 4 for interfaith dialogue. Its assertion of soteriological and theological superiority raises ethical questions. Dialogue is a religious act of welcoming the Stranger. Its refusal contains a potential for violence.

The Synod of Bishops for Asia which was held in Rome in April 1998 aroused much interest. The long awaited Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Asia (EA), was finally released in November 1999. Its reception is the topic of the present article. At issue is the tension between the proclamation of Christ and interreligious dialogue in Asia. The Asian bishops are unanimous in upholding the importance of evangelization but have different understandings of how that should be carried out. Rome insists on the “one and only” way it knows. The present article looks at this dialogue between Rome and Asia.