COMMUNION FOR THE REMARRIED The pope has given the go-ahead for discussion. He doesn't say whether he is on the side of those in favor or those against, but he appears to be much closer to the former than to the latter.
HUMANAE VITAE, A HALF-CENTURY ON The 'enthusiasm gap' is reflective of more than just the present moment; it suggests continuation of the skirmishes within the Church that have persisted through Francis’s papacy.
A WAKE-UP CALL TO LIBERAL THEOLOGIANS The estrangement between academic theology and the institutional Church is one reason many younger Catholics are now turning to neo-traditionalist circles for instruction
DARING TO HOPE THAT ALL WILL BE SAVED The history of the church has not been kind to the notion of universal salvation. Though there have been a good number of theologians who defend the hope that all may be saved, the church’s teaching for centuries has been that hell will not be empty.
FOR US AND FOR OUR SALVATION? Rethinking Jesus’ death radically changes our image of God the Father from punishing and wrathful to one with whom most parents can identify.
IT'S NOTHING PERSONAL Papal infallibility is utterly misunderstood. Nowhere is it decreed that the pope is infallible; the Catholic Church has never taught that any pope is infallible.
PARALLEL MAGISTERIUM? If theologians are condemned for not being in conformity with the Catechism, can they do theology at all?
TIME TO REHABILITATE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN? Naming Jesuit Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin a doctor of the church — or at least removing the 'warning' from his writings — would give the Jesuit scientist and philosopher more legitimacy in the church. And two separate petitions to the Vatican aim to do just that.
THAT '70S CHURCH The Roman Catholic tradition does not need to be afraid of history; its central claim is that God became a man who fully experienced the contingencies of life in a certain time and place.
A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE Many U.S. Catholics find themselves stranded between those two worlds, especially when individual conscience comes into conflict with clear, if disputed, church teaching.
JESUS' TEACHINGS ON MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE Development in teaching, development in interpretation, or change in teaching, change in interpretation – depending upon what word is preferred – has happened throughout Christian history, from the beginning of the Church.
A THEOLOGY OF ENCOUNTER How many of us know what it is to be known not as who we are, but only by the labels that society gives us? Sometimes they are fairly innocuous. Sometimes they aren’t.
DOES CHURCH TEACHING CHANGE? Church Doctrine at Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican II. What institutions wittingly or unwittingly chose to remember and chose to forget from their past makes them what they are.
AGAINST BOURGEOIS RELIGION Remembering Johann Baptist Metz: His chief contribution to theology is not so much a system, or even a set of positions, but a body of lapidary phrases that haunt and disturb theological discourse...
RICHARD ROHR REORDERS THE UNIVERSE Christ — essentially, God’s love for the world — has existed since the beginning of time, suffuses everything in creation, and has been present in all cultures and civilizations.
HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER Stale images of God aren't working for today's seekers, says Elizabeth Johnson. New ones are emerging from the experiences of all God's people, male and female.
LONERGAN ON A WORLD ON FIRE To understand: this our great, complex calling, requiring all that we are. We do not understand unless we have labored; we do not know until we have asked every question; we are not responsible except with a living mind.
BAD TRADITIONALISM The social order of things — its hierarchies, its divisions — may seem inevitable; it is not. Christ’s love breaks it open.
REVISITING THE QUESTION OF "MINISTRY" Some criteria for a pragmatic theology of liturgical ministry: there is only one [merely logical] certainty: the future will not be like the past. And when the present seeks to recede into its past, it is untrue to its own moment.
A SYLLABUS OF INTERNET THEOLOGY ERRORS The Digital Age is a period of both gain and loss. In just a few short years, the world has become both as small as one’s hometown and many times more hostile and strange.
INTERPRETING REALITY This previously unpublished text is a set of notes intended for further study. It can be dated between the end of 1987 and the middle of 1988, when Fr. Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) was working on his thesis on Romano Guardini ...
THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE WORLD Resurrection does not restore our natural life, but gives us a whole new life, a life on the other side of death, where death can no longer touch us.
CHARLES CURRAN REMEMBERS HANS KÜNG Hans Küng has been the strongest voice for reform in the Catholic Church during the last 60 years, calling for a broad-based reform of the Catholic Church and pointed toward the goal of the reunion of all Christians.
AN INTERVIEW WITH HANS KÜNG From Commonweal archives: A 1971 interview with Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Küng, who talks about papal infallibility, resisting authority, and his struggle for a less rationalist and more existential Christianity.
TRADITION IS AN ELUSIVE TERM Tradition is a reality much deeper than a collection of ancient customs or a conservative force in human history safeguarding against change. It is a living reality active in the Church’s faith, witness, and practice
THE EUCHARIST IS JUSTICE To live the Eucharist is to pursue justice. The Eucharist, though, does not only inspire the pursuit of justice but also shapes the very meaning of justice.
THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING GOD Not only is the Eucharist central as the regula fidei, it is what gives coherence to all else, it is the key to our understanding of God as infinite self-gift...
UNDERSTANDING THE EUCHARIST Our inability to appreciate and understand the symbolic element of the sacraments has led to many unnecessary theological and doctrinal conflicts.
HENRI DE LUBAC’S SACRAMENTAL VISION If a sacramental vision is absent, the zone of the “sacred” becomes a mere abstraction and the zone of the “secular” becomes a hellscape devoid of hope, faith, and charity.
A THEOLOGY OF HEAVEN FOR OUR TIME Our culture’s images of heaven are so saccharine, so sentimental, so boring. What would it be like to hold out the possibility of actual peace, reconciliation, and abundance for all?
NATURAL LAW IS NOT IMMUTABLE Natural law is not beyond evolution and may even be a product of it, and how it is understood may be different in different contexts.
WHAT IS LIBERATION THEOLOGY? Broadly speaking, liberation theology is a social and political movement within the church that attempts to interpret the gospel of Jesus Christ through the lived experiences of oppressed people.