The religious epistemology of John Henry Newman offers an avenue, unexplored by scholars, for interpreting moral doctrine today. Although he did not write any work on moral theology, a systematic account of the interaction between conscience and moral law in his writings can illumine foundational concerns about personal morality and episcopal authority in the Roman Catholic Church. In reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment Newman had remarkable confidence in the capabilities and trustworthiness of the personal, historical reasoning of individuals and ecclesial communities alike—a type of reasoning that he recognized as the driving force for the genesis and the application of moral law. Not surprisingly, his concern for historical moral consciousness, with its emphasis upon subjectivity, generated a significant shift from abstractness to concreteness in theological method, a shift that would later influence the thought of Bernard Lonergan. To illustrate the contemporary relevance of Newman's commitment to personal reasoning in theology, his explanation of the legitimate authority of conscience and doctrine provides the basis for an instructive critique of the document On the Interpretation of Dogmas (1989) from the International Theological Commission.

This article attempts to reveal how Julian uses imagery to make real and concrete for her readers the experience of affective union with God through contemplative prayer. Part of Julian's strategy involves an identification of herself with the figure of Mary Magdalene, in medieval times the seeker of Christ par excellence. I highlight imagery in the Book of Showings that Julian and her readers probably would have associated with the Magdalene. But the more important insight is that, through her use of Magdalene imagery, Julian emphasizes the dramatic elements in the soul's quest for God. In this, she is following the example of many medieval authors, including William of St. Thierry, her major influence, who stressed that the Song of Songs was, not allegory, but essentially a drama between the soul and God. In this study I try to uncover precisely what this drama is like through a word-study of Julian's term for her visions, schewynges, or showings. I also note striking similarities between Julian's individual showings and the actual drama performed in her time, with specific attention to the figure of the Magdalene.

William Golding, in The Spire, invites us to ask how we may know the will of God, and suggests that what we take to be the will of God is often simply the projection onto history of the disguised image of our private and self-absorbed desires. Though contemporary critics tend to interpret the novel as a sympathetic exploration of moral ambiguity rather than as a compelling condemnation of Jocelin's mortifying and death-dealing sin, the novel turns on the contrast between the drive toward dominion and the capacity for assent. The final salvific discovery, given form in Jocelin's mind by the experience of the apple tree and the kingfisher, is the overthrow of the will, its panicked drowning, in terrified apprehension of implacable glory and squandered gifts.

This essay explores the theology of the Religion of the Republic (what Robert N. Bellah called civil religion in America) in order to compare it with elements in the catholic tradition of Christianity. The assumption is that the Religion of the Republic has much in common with the consensual religiosity of American evangelicalism.

Using John Williamson Nevin's “Catholicism” of the Mercersburg theology, the author provides a critique of the theology of the Republic and suggests a principle of radical catholicity which offers a profound role for the church in the destiny of the American Republic.

This article describes a process of research and critical analysis of Catholic church pronouncements which I have used with both undergraduate and graduate students over the past ten years. Students are taught a method of “close reading” of Roman Catholic church pronouncements which involves their analysis of such issues as the statement's canonical significance, authorship, audience, historical context, content, and underlying ecclesiology. Through this method, students acquire a working knowledge of theological research methods and tools and learn how to practice a hermeneutics of suspicion and retrieval. They also learn how to recognize the various models of church which underlie particular formulations, the compromise nature of conciliar statements, and become acquainted with recent discussion concerning “reception” and the “hierarchy of truths.” Student awareness of the historically conditioned nature of dogmatic statements and of the need for reforming the way in which universal church teaching is formulated is also heightened.

The task of the scholar and the university is the creative appropriation of a tradition in a new context. The documents of the church and recent commentators use the image of “borderline” to indicate the place and role of Catholic higher education. That image indicates well enough that the task of Catholic higher education is the mediation of the Catholic tradition. But let me turn to another aspect of the image of the borderline. Modern culture, or, in its broadest sense, the Enlightenment, is not only to be pictured on the other side of a borderline, but as a “root.” Catholic higher education has two roots, both of which are its own, one the church and one the culture. The Enlightenment is also its heritage.

Interreligious dialogue, like all else, is having its own way in Asia and reveals its own theology of religion. This has to be seen against the background of what transpires in the Western patriarchate in the same field of theology. Here I will focus on one particular model which has created tension between the two magisteria that function dialectically in the church today: the “academic magisterium” of the theologians and the “pastoral magisterium” of the bishops and in particular the bishop of Rome. They differ in their responses, but they begin their theology of religion by asking almost the same question.

During a recent meeting of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians in Graz, Austria, as various speakers discussed the concept of the good life, on the way to preparing a statement on global ethics, I found thoughts of death shifting the horizon within which I was considering the different arguments. Similarly, during recent work on a Jectio divina of John's Gospel, I felt myself drawn to images magnifying the theme, “in him was life,” because I wanted help contending with death. The following brief elaboration of these two experiences may illustrate concretely Nietzsche's dictum that all who philosophize defend themselves. As well, it may expose the roots of a thesis that deeper interpretation is usually religious, because usually we forge it at the crossroads of our contingency and the necessity that there be more. Following the exposition of these two possibilities, I shall suggest a few implications for pedagogy.